Saturday, December 23, 2006

Of Nittany Lions and Dartmouth

Being a Penn Stater, I probably should have come across this Dartmouth reference sooner. If I had, I forgot about it. It's another example of how times have changed. This is from the early 1900's. (I almost said "early this century," but that doesn't work anymore ;-) Sing away ...

The Nittany Lion
Every college has a legend
passed on from year to year.
To which they pledge allegiance,
and always cherish dear.
But of all the honored idols,
there's the one that stands the test.
It's the stately Nittany Lion,
the symbol of our best!

CHORUS:
Hail to the lion!
Loyal and true!
Hail, Alma Mater,
with her White and Blue!
Penn State forever!
Molder of men.
Fight for her honor
and victory again!

There's Pittsburgh with its Panthers,
and Penn her Red and Blue,
Dartmouth with its Indians,
and Yale her Bulldogs, too.
There's Princeton with its Tigers,
and Cornell with it Bears,
But speaking now of victory,
we'll get the lion's share!

That second verse has since been replaced by the following:
Indiana has its Hoosiers,
Purdue its gold and black,
The Wildcats of Northwestern,
And Spartans on attack,
Ohio State has its Buckeyes,
Up north the Wolverines,
But the mighty Nittany Lions,
The best they've ever seen.

For what it's worth, I'd rather a third verse with references to the Syracuse Orange, the Pitt Panthers, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Maryland Terrapins. If you'd excuse me for stepping outside the Ivies for a second, while I think the Big 10 is a fine league that, for the most part, tries to do things the right way, I think it's a crying shame that a real eastern football league doesn't exist anymore. I'd like to see this league:

The Eastern Eight
Penn State
Syracuse
Pitt
West Virginia
Boston College
Maryland
Rutgers
UConn

Changing subjects ... The odds are long against it, but a 23-year-old Dane who has played and coached in Europe may be applying to Dartmouth, Brown and Yale as well as some NESCAC schools with the hope of playing football although what he'd really like to do is walk on at an Atlantic 10 school. Peter Nicolajsen of Copenhagen is listed at 6-1, 240 and supposedly runs a 4.8 40. (There's fuzzy film of him here). Stranger (or as strange) things have happened; Michael Quarshie made it from Finland to Columbia to the Oakland Raiders, but this one seems even more of a stretch. On the other hand, if he happens to somehow end up in this area, I can think of another Copenhagen native (who used to pack my lunches when I was a kid ;-) who would be thrilled -- even if she did become an American citizen last fall. ...

A subscriber sent me this link to a story about why North Dakota's dream of scheduling football and basketball games against Minnesota won't come true unless UND drops the Fighting Sioux nickname. The Minnesota policy, as quoted in the newspaper: "University of Minnesota Athletics Department shall make every effort to avoid scheduling home events with schools that use Native American mascots." I love the loopholes in that policy. "Shall make every effort." And "to avoid scheduling home events."

Troy State's 41-17 thwomping of Rice last night in a bowl whose name I'll never remember probably cost me a shot at winning BowlGameGame, a friend's pool. The idea is that if there are 32 bowl games, you assign each a number (from 1-32 in that case, no duplicates) based on the confidence you have in your pick of the winner. If your team wins, you get the number of points you assigned them. Unfortunately, I had 21 points worth of confidence in Rice, thanks to all the so-called "experts" I checked. Given how I did in my Ivy picks this year, I should have known better than to trust anyone who thinks they have a clue.

Have you finished your shopping yet? A two-year subscriber to Green Alert is giving a 2007 subscription as a gift this year. Sounds like a great stocking stuffer to me ;-). While I'm at it, I'd like to ring the bell a couple more times for people who clicked on the jar. I sit here each day working on the blog almost in a vacuum and wonder sometimes if you are out there reading and enjoying (if that's the word) the time I put in. Thanks for the confirmation that my time isn't wasted and for the encouragement to keep at it!

And finally, we were hoping that the forecast of mixed precipitation would mean snow up here on the side of Moose Mountain, where the temperature can be 10 degrees warmer than it is in Hanover. Alas, we had rain this morning. It's not looking good for a white Christmas. ... Now it's off to the second Hanover High indoor track meet of the winter where a certain freshman who did a nice job over 3000 meters last week is going to give the 1500 a try.

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