As the Green Goes Tearing By

On yesterday's Green Alert site, I wrote about how coach Buddy Teevens changed one word in the classic Dartmouth fight song As the Backs Go Tearing By to make it fit all of the college's teams. He had his players sing, As the 'Green' Goes Tearing By as a way of cheering on the women's soccer team before its 1-0 win over Maryland. (OK, that's two words changed.) If you'd like to hear the music for the song, click here. For a whole slew of Ivy League fight songs, click here.

An aside: As the Backs Go Tearing By always reminds me of the Little Rascals, which I used to watch on TV as a kid. They must have used a very similar soundtrack when Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla were getting into innocent mischief.

The fight songs are sounds I like. Want to hear one that bugs me? It's on the Penn football web site. I was doing my morning blog rounds, checking out a number of different sites and all of a sudden, tick, tick, tick, tick. I found myself looking around my tiny home office wondering what it was. We've had something inside the walls of the house (I'm guessing a few mice) and I wondered if that's what it was. Nope. Turns out there's a clicker on the Penn site ticking off the days, hours, minutes and seconds until kickoff. It's, how do you say it in these politically correct times? Um, it's like 'Quakers' water torture. Tick, tick, tick. Nice idea, but not for me. I closed the page.

Columbia Sports Information has a posting about its scrimmage against Harvard yesterday. (An aside: Columbia has about the most active site in the Ivy League this preseason regarding football information.) Anyway, I found a few sentences interesting in the account of a 37-17 Harvard win. Here's one: "Columbia looked strong against the run, allowing 128 yards on 35 attempts, most of which was gained late in the game." Sounds promising. Then the kicker: "However, Crimson star senior running back Clifton Dawson did not play a down." Ohhh. .... And then there was this not-so-subtle jab: "The Lions had their third quarterback in the game late in the third quarter before Harvard replaced its starting quarterback. Five Lion quarterbacks took snaps in the game."

The Dartmouth-UNH football game is being broadcast on WMUR TV out of Manchester, NH. In order for the signal to get from Hanover to Manchester in southern New Hampshire, it is bounced off a satellite and back down to the station. Lucky for you, if you know someone who has one of those old-fashioned, "steerable" satellite dishes, they can pick off the signal and invite you over to watch the game if they know the coordinates. (You won't be able to get the game with your DirectTV or DISH Network dishes.) Check the regular Green Alert posting after today's Mock Game for the coordinates to watch the game.

Regarding the Mock Game: I'll have a full story out of the event -- which is really a walk-through and not a game -- later today. As a rule, I try to get the stories up on the regular site within two hours of practice each day but today's story will be delayed because I'm going to take advantage of my only semi-free Saturday until Thanksgiving to watch my daughter's first home field hockey game for Hanover High School after practice, and then watch the Penn State Nittany Lions play Notre Dame on NBC. (Roar Lions Roar!)

So check back this evening to read about today's practice. While I'm at it, although there's no practice Sunday, I will have the second edition of the always popular (that's supposed to be funny) The Optimist and The Pessimist column on the site at some point tomorrow. Then we begin the game week madness. Buckle up your chin strap and grab those bifocals because you've got a lot of reading ahead of you.