Watch the Colgate Game on the Internet

If you've been following the Green Alert Blog, you know Dartmouth has plans to videocast all its home football games on the web. No details have been released yet, but I suppose it's about time I try to dig some out, so stay tuned (pun intended).

If you can't make the opener at Colgate, you can watch it on your computer via the New York school's video streaming program. It will cost you $9.95 ... but for that you get a whole month of Colgate athletics so you can see all the Raider volleyball and field hockey you'd like. Find the details here. Green Alert Take: My first reaction was that $9.95 is a lot to just watch a football game, but consider youself lucky. I remember former players telling me about the days when their parents would call from, say, California and their roommate would lay the telephone down next to the radio so they could hear the full game over the phone. Beyond the headache (ear ache?) involved, imagine the cost in the days before specialized phone plans. A few years later, there was a company that handled the radio-to-phone hookup and for a set price you dialed in a number and could listen to the game. (That service might still exist, actually, but it's not cheap.) Then it was listening to the games over the Internet. Now watching them. What's next? The guess here is you'll be able to watch the games on your iPod or the like while on a cruise ship in the Galapagos. Ah, but don't forget the laptop so you can keep reading Green Alert!

Jared Turcott, the tailback from Maine listed as the state's top player by Sports Illustrated is the subject of another story that mentions his interest in Dartmouth. He's a straight-A kid who should be a strong candidate for Ivy admission. Certainly he'll be able to write an interesting essay, given his part-time job. This from the story in the Lewiston Sun Journal:

"I'm going to be working at Albert and Burpee Funeral Home this year," he said. "During football season, I'm just going to be keeping up the lawns and the shrubs, but then once football season starts, I'll be in the prep room. That should be interesting."

Just stumbled across another story on the kid in Maine Today. It offers a few more details:

Turcotte, who is 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, has drawn interest from Boston College and Connecticut.
Because he ranks in the top 10 percent of his class and carries a 93.6 grade-point average, every Ivy League school also is interested. Turcotte is looking at a number of schools but is learning toward Dartmouth, coached by Buddy Teevens, a former UMaine coach.
"I like the school and Coach Teevens a lot," said Turcotte.

Two things of note from opponent New Hampshire's Blue-White scrimmage. First, Ricky Santos completed 18-of-24 passes for 164 yards (with David Ball not catching any as they rested him). What caught my eye was where the scrimmage report said Santos, "saw limited action." Oh, to be in a position where your quarterback can put up those kinds of numbers and you can call it limited action. The other thing that caught my eye was that freshman tailback Chad Kackert ran 12 times for 87 yards. It's gonna be scary if UNH uncovers a speedy runner, and for some reason I've had an eye on Kackert as perhaps being just that. Maybe he is.

Cornell and neighboring D-III school Ithaca held their annual scrimmage. Nothing dramatic in this report about two 15-minute live sessions and an hour of situational work between the teams.

There's a Newsday story about the future of the football program at Stony Brook on Long Island and how it has awarded the equivalent of 27 scholarships to 38 players this year (with the goal of reaching the I-AA limit of 63 in the future). The story is notable for several reasons. First, Dartmouth and Stony Brook have played in several sports in recent years and as the Big Green starts to think about restructuring its schedule, SBU is another possible opponent within reasonable travel distance. (It doesn't hurt that the school has a gorgeous new stadium.) It's notable because this will be SBU's first year under head coach Chuck Priore (a winner of his last 30 consecutive games at D-III Trinity of Connecticut) and a name frequently mentioned when Ivy League openings cropped up the past few years. (Including at Dartmouth.) It will be interesting to see how Priore, the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Penn from 1992-99, makes the transition back to I-AA football. Finally, it's been interesting and will continue to be interesting to watch the growth of the athletic program at Stony Brook where former Dartmouth Assistant AD Jim Fiore is the athletic director. Jim, by the way, just hired former Dartmouth lacrosse coach Rick Sowell away from St. John's.

What would you think about Canadian schools joining the NCAA? I'm not sure what it would mean football-wise (although maybe Clifton Dawson would be at McGill, whose slogan is Real Athletes. Real Students.) but given Dartmouth's location, it might make for some more scheduling options in other sports. Both basketball and ice hockey often scrimmage or play exhibitions about teams from the Great White North. Here's a story that talks about the possible expansion of the NCAA northward.

And finally ... I got home from practice last night to a very happy Hanover High School freshman-to-be. Not only did her field hockey team win a 16-school (?) jamboree down in Keene, but she learned on the bus ride back that she'd earned a spot on the varsity, a rarity for Hanover freshman. The last time it happened was four years ago.