Accountants and Lawyers?

8:15 a.m. Columbia graduate Marcellus Wiley, who went on to make the Pro Bowl with the San Diego Chargers as a defensive end and is now with the Jacksonville Jaguars spoke with the Columbia Spectator during a recent visit to campus. I vividly remember watching Wiley in the final year of freshman football and thinking the Lions had themselves a talented, if skinny, young tailback. By his senior season, with one year off back home in Los Angeles where he hit the weights and the fridge equally hard, he had swelled to 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds. He helped the 1996 Columbia team win its first six games and go 8-2 overall. The only losses: a 14-11 nailbiter against Princeton and a 40-0 thrashing at Dartmouth, which would finish the season undefeated. Wiley was a second-round NFL draft pick. Here's what Wiley told the Spectator about the reaction of his NFL teammates to his Ivy League background:

We get ragged on a lot of times. They say that we play against accountants and lawyers, and we didn’t play against anybody of size. They just have this image that I was just running around like this giant squashing everybody on the field. But, I just try to tell them that there’s talent here.

I've never been a huge fan of Terry Bowden, but he makes some good points about offseason conditioning and spring drills in this column. It's worth thinking about as Dartmouth's winter sessions wind down. ... I'm headed into town this morning and I'm going to take a peek around Memorial Field. The original word was that deconstruction of the visiting stands was going to start in February. Well, that doesn't leave much time. ;-)

Compiled Blog Feb. 21-28

Tuesday, February 28, 2006
3:30p.m. I just confirmed that the crane that will be needed to begin the disassembly of the visiting football stands is slated to be on site Monday, March 6. Now that I've figured out how to get an occasional photo on the site (finally) I'll take a few snaps from time-to-time and let you see how work is progressing. ... In case you missed it, senior tailback/hurdler Ikechi Ogbonna broke a meet record in the hurdles Sunday afternoon while winning the Heptagonal championship at Leverone Fieldhouse. Sophomore wide receiver Brian Evans finished fifth in the 60-yard dash. To read more click here.

8:15 a.m. Columbia graduate Marcellus Wiley, who went on to make the Pro Bowl with the San Diego Chargers as a defensive end and is now with the Jacksonville Jaguars spoke with the Columbia Spectator during a recent visit to campus. I vividly remember watching Wiley in the final year of freshman football and thinking the Lions had themselves a talented, if skinny, young tailback. By his senior season, with one year off back home in Los Angeles where he hit the weights and the fridge equally hard, he had swelled to 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds. He helped the 1996 Columbia team win its first six games and go 8-2 overall. The only losses: a 14-11 nailbiter against Princeton and a 40-0 thrashing at Dartmouth, which would finish the season undefeated. Wiley was a second-round NFL draft pick. Here's what Wiley told the Spectator about the reaction of his NFL teammates to his Ivy League background:
We get ragged on a lot of times. They say that we play against accountants and lawyers, and we didn’t play against anybody of size. They just have this image that I was just running around like this giant squashing everybody on the field. But, I just try to tell them that there’s talent here.
I've never been a huge fan of Terry Bowden, but he makes some good points about offseason conditioning and spring drills in this column. It's worth thinking about as Dartmouth's winter sessions wind down. ... I'm headed into town this morning and I'm going to take a peek around Memorial Field. The original word was that deconstruction of the visiting stands was going to start in February. Well, that doesn't leave much time. ;-)

Monday, February 27, 2006
8:20 a.m. The second in a series of "10 Questions" with incoming recruits has been posted on the Green Alert main site. Today: defensive end Jeff Smith of Florida.

8 a.m. It's a s-l-o-w day to for Dartmouth and Ivy League news to this point so I'll take this opportunity to give you a sneak peak at a newly compiled statistical category that will make it's debut in next year's media guide: sacks. These numbers were researched by Dartmouth sports information office intern Ben Flickinger. (Note: sack statistics were sketchy until the early 1980's, so these records are culled since that time):

Dartmouth Career Sack Leaders
Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2002-05) 25
Scott Hapgood ’97 (1993-96) 23
George Neos ’93 (1990-92) 23
Ryan Conger ’05 (2001-2004) 20
Cliff McDonald ’92 (1989-91) 16
Zack Walz ’98 (1994-97) 15
Greg Dietrick ’99 (1996-98) 11
Gerry LaMontagne ’94 (1991-93) 11
Jason Upshaw ’98 (1995-97) 10
Taran Lent ’96 (1993-95) 10

Dartmouth Season Sack Leaders
Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2004) 12 (65 yards)
Scott Hapgood ’97 (1995) 12
George Neos ’93 (1992) 12
Cliff McDonald ’92 (1991) 9
Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2005) 8 (46 yards)
Ryan Conger ’05 (2004) 8 (43 yards)
Ryan Conger ’05 (2003) 8
Ed Coker ’93 (1993) 8
Ed Simpson ’85 (1984) 8
Nick Mourlas ’92 (1991) 7
Cliff McDonald ’92 (1990) 7

Dartmouth Single Game Sack Leaders
Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2004 at Cornell) 4
George Neos ’93 (1992 at Harvard) 4

Sunday, February 26, 2006
5 p.m. Football/track senior Ikechi Ogbonna won the 60 meter hurdles today in the Heptagonal Track Championships at Leverone Fieldhouse in a meet-record time of 7.93.

2:30 p.m. A story on the Ivy League web site regarding the hiring of Norrie Wilson as the conference's first black head football coach includes this historical note: Dartmouth’s Matthew Washington Bullock was the first black man to coach an integrated football team when he took over the UMass program in 1903.

9 a.m. Kudos to the Dartmouth men's ice hockey team which won a share of the ECAC Hockey League title and clinched the No. 1 seed in the ECACHL tournament last night before another standing room only crowd of 4,109. The title is the first in Bob Gaudet's eight years as head coach. He's hoping to lead the Big Green into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since he backstopped Dartmouth to the Final Four as a goalie in 1980. One of Gaudet's teammates early in his hockey career at Dartmouth? A two-sport fellow by the name of Buddy Teevens. Whatever happened to him? ... The I-AA web site showingblitz.com has its list of top tight end recruits on the board and none are from the Ivy League. Again, take a look at them, but don't put too much stock in these rankings. ... Former Dartmouth QB Brian Mann saw his replacement as the starter for the Los Angeles Avengers put up big numbers in a narrow loss yesterday. From the What have you done for me lately department, here's the spin the team web site put on the quarterback situation in LA: "(Sonny Crumbie) hit his receivers with calming regularity - a far cry from the season's first four games with Brian Mann and Ryan Van Dyke under center ... . Yesterday's New York Times had a lengthy piece on here-today, gone-tomorrow makeshift schools established just to help high school basketball players become eligible to play in college. It's a sad and damning story, well worth reading. Find it here. ...The Winter Olympics finish today. To see how Dartmouth's 14 students, future students and alumni fared, click here. ...

And finally this: We got 10 inches of snow up here on Moose Mountain yesterday and there was close to as much down in the valley. It's funny. Usually at this time of year I find myself tired of winter and rooting for sunny days to open up a few patches of grass as a promise of the spring to come. With the paucity of snow this year, it's just the opposite. There could be more snow in the forecast for late in the week and I say bring it on.

A reminder: The second edition of "10 Questions" with an incoming recruit will be posted Monday.

Saturday, February 25, 2006
8 a.m. Not only is former Dartmouth coach John Lyons back on the staff of the NFL Europe's Cologne Centurions, but he got a promotion. After serving as defensive backs coach a year ago, he's serving as the team's defensive coordinator this spring. His bio can be found here. ... Although he was a salary cap casualty with the New York Jets, former Dartmouth quarterback Jay Fiedler is drawing some attention around the NFL. One of the teams that may be interested in signing him is the Cincinnati Bengals, according to this story in the Enquirer. ... A Bay Area columnist wouldn't mind seeing the Raiders pick Fiedler up. ... After starting three of the first four games this season, former Big Green signalcaller Brian Mann will watch the start of tonight's Los Angeles Avengers Arena League game from the bench. Here's what coach Ed Hodgkiss told the L.A. Times: "You make changes when you don't win," Hodgkiss said. "I made this move not because Brian hasn't been playing well. We haven't been playing well as a team and this change was done to hopefully give us a spark."

Friday, February 24, 2006
1 p.m. Dartmouth quarterback recruit Max Heiges of Novato High School was honored Tthursday evening as one of 24 scholar-athletes by the Northern California Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. The emcee noted Heiges' 3.9 grade point average and described how he went 17-for-22 for 256 yards and three touchdowns in Novato's 33-14 win over Marin Catholic in the 2005 North Coast Section 2A Championship game. Among the former Dartmouth players taking the event in were Peter Bogardus, Alan Anderson, Sam Coffey, Diek Gale, Brian Stretch, Bob Wenz and Gib Kerwin. Heiges is also a budding artist and to see a picture of him with his painting of Pat Tillman, click here. ... Photographs from yesterday's touching story about a woman's basketball player at Bryan College (see Thursday's blog) can be found here. Thanks to a blog reader for pointing out that a clip of the player making her basket can be found here. (Hopefully your connection is faster than mine so you can fast-forward through all the player introductions, etc.)

9:15 a.m. I'm trying to get a magazine story done today so I don't have much time, but the sharp-eyed Blog reader who sent along yesterday's story about the woman basketball player at Bryant College shared another feel-good basketball link today. If you can watch CNN video on your computer, click here. Or you can read about it here.

9 a.m. Someone who read the Green Alert Blog item a few days back where I commented on the Ivy League's indefensible prohibition against football going to the I-AA playoffs suggested that I ought to "rant" more often. As anyone who used to read my stuff in the newspaper or who follows this Blog should know, I'm not really much of a ranter. But after reading a lively discussion elsewhere on Columbia's new football schedule, I feel compelled to say something.

How come Columbia -- Columbia for crying out loud -- can find a way to rework its football schedule but Dartmouth can't? Originally scheduled to play Duquesne and Lafayette for at least the next three years, the Lions are instead playing Georgetown and Iona this fall, with the added bonus of replacing a tough bus ride to Pittsburgh with a home game against Georgetown.

Maybe Duquesne and Lafayette originated the switch. Who knows? All that matters is that, for better or for worse (and the Iona game is for the worse) Columbia's schedule changed. Dartmouth's schedule? Same old, same old.

A little background: Dartmouth has had the same three non-conference opponents (Colgate, New Hampshire and Holy Cross) since the year 2000. The same three opponents are on the schedule for at least the next three years and I believe beyond that. Opening up with Colgate, New Hampshire and Penn can put you in an 0-3 hole awfully quick. Understand, if you start 0-3 you have to go 5-2 the rest of the year just to be a .500 team. And history shows if you lose your first conference game you better run the rest of the Ivy League table to have a legitimate shot at the title.

When he was the head coach trying to bring a struggling program around, John Lyons desperately wanted to make the early schedule more manageable. Buddy Teevens has made it clear he wants the non-league schedule changed, if only to make it more interesting. Administrators in Alumni Gym have said they want to change the schedule but say their hands are tied.

Well, whether it was Columbia or Lafayette or Duquesne who did it, others have found a way to untie their hands. Now it's Dartmouth's turn. To borrow that marketing expression I dislike, don't tell me how you did it, Just Do It. ...

Harvard has a new running backs coach who comes over from Columbia. Nice move, huh? Awaiting him in Cambridge: Clifton Dawson, who is on track to challenge Ed Marinaro's Ivy League rushing record. ... Speaking of John Lyons, I went to the Kimball Union Academy site to see if there was anything about him going to NFL Europe and found the following note about his prep school team: "KUA ends the season with a 5-2-1 mark and reaches 5 wins for the first time since the 1993 season." I hadn't realized he had as good a year as he did. ... And finally this, former New England Patriot linebacker Steve Nelson stepped down as football coach and athletic director at Curry College. I mention that only because Nelson has been either a finalist or mentioned with each Ivy coaching job that came open in the past half dozen years. It will be interesting to see if he's in the mix should another Ivy position open.

Thursday, February 23, 2006
11:45 a.m. A regular blog reader sent along a link to this Providence Journal story from college women's basketball. If you've got a pulse, this will bring a tear to your eye (it did to me). At the very least, it will choke you up. Don't miss this one.

8:15 a.m. The Associated Press reports that three former Division I scholarship athletes (two football players) are suing "to lift the NCAA's cap on financial aid and allow schools to pay for such items as laundry, health insurance and travel. The antitrust suit was filed Friday in federal court. It seeks to overturn National Collegiate Athletic Association rules limiting college athletic scholarships to covering tuition, books, housing and meals."

"When a boy goes off to college there are three things his mother usually wants answered. First, will he receive proper meals? Second, where will he stay? Third, if needed, will he receive good medical attention?"
The questions above are from the first paragraphs of a memorandum legendary Dartmouth coach Bob Blackman sent to parents of prospective members of the 1959 Dartmouth team. The two page memorandum is up for sale on eBay with a starting bid of $1.99. If you are curious, you can save yourself a couple of bucks and read the entire first page of the original memo here. ... From today's Daily Pennsylvanian: New Penn offensive coordinator Shawn Halloran wants his unit to be good on the ground. "To win a championship, you have to have the ability to run the football," he said. ... And then there's this commentary from the Daily P, which takes a hard look at what it perceives to be an overall downturn in the athletic fortunes of the Pennsylvania school (although the suspicion lurks that no one would have noticed if the Quaker football team had won the Ivy League this year):
"The 2005-06 school year will be a memorable one for the Penn athletic department, but for all the wrong reasons.
It's because it will be the department's worst collective year in decades. ... Currently, Penn stands as the only school in the Ivy League without a championship in a single sport."
My kids had been hoping to see Super Bowl champion coach Bill Cowher at Leede Arena tomorrow night, given that his daughter Meg is a star with the Princeton basketball team that is challenging Dartmouth (and Brown) for the Ivy title. Although Cowher was at Jadwin Gym when the Big Green defeated the Tigers a couple of weeks ago, the NFL Combine this weekend probably has his attention. Still, you never know. My kids will bring their Sharpies. ... Here's how today's Princetonian started a story about Princeton's standout player and her famous dad:
"By merit of her genes, sophomore forward Meagan Cowher was destined for an athletic future. Her mother played both collegiate and professional basketball, and her father is the well-known head coach of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers."


Wednesday, February 22, 2006
1:30 p.m. It's now official. The New York Jets have released Jay Fiedler. Here's an early link with some good background. Here's another story. I expect more to follow in the next few days.

7 a.m. Cornell offensive lineman Kevin Boothe will be the only Ivy Leaguer at the NFL Combine, part of which kicks off today. The full list of I-AA invitees:

* QB Tarvaris Jackson, Alabama State
* DE Chris Gocong, Cal Poly
* OT Kevin Boothe, Cornell
* QB Erik Meyer, Eastern Washington
* QB Ingle Martin, Furman
* QB Bruce Eugene, Grambling State
* DE Jason Hatcher, Grambling State
* WR Marques Colston, Hofstra
* FS Antoine Bethea, Howard
* PK Jon Scifres, Missouri State
* WR Miles Austin, Monmouth
* QB Travis Lulay, Montana State
* FS Reed Doughty, Northern Colorado
* CB David Pittman, Northwestern State
* QB Barrick Nealy, Texas State
* TE Daniel Fells, UC Davis
* DE Darrell Adams, Villanova
* OT Paul McQuistan, Weber State

For pretty comprehensive coverage of the event click here. ... For longtime scout Gil Brandt's interesting take on the proceedings (with a mention of Boothe) click here. ... The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting column about what happens to Ivy League competitiveness when Patriot League schools start to offer scholarships. The story is about basketball, but it translates to football just as easily. Here's an excerpt:

When the first of the Patriot League schools started giving scholarships in 1999, everything changed. Imagine Colgate and Cornell, both terrific schools, are recruiting you. One offers a free education. The other says it will cost more than $150,000. Is there really that much of a difference that you are not going to choose Colgate?

As expected, Harvard president Lawrence Summers is resigning. There are a lot of stories including this one that is part of the Boston Globe's coverage. It begins this way:

Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, facing a faculty revolt and eroding support from the university's governing board, announced yesterday he will resign, ending the briefest tenure at the Ivy League school's helm in 144 years.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006
4 p.m. update Dartmouth officially announced the addition of Cedric Calhoun as defensive line coach today. Read the release and see a picture of the new assistant here. ... ... Incoming freshman wide receiver Ian Ferrell (photo/brief detail) of Englewood, Colo., and Kent Denver has been listed as the No. 14 recruit nationally at his position in Division I-AA according to showingblitz.com. Again, don't put to much weight on these rankings, but in the final analysis, it's better to be listed than not to be listed. Quarterback recruit Max Heiges was listed No. 14 earlier. (Do I spot a trend?) ... Other Ivy-bound wide receivers listed were Harvard's Michael Clarke (No. 4), the Crimson's Steve Pilconis (No. 9), Yale's Jordan Farrell (No. 20) and Harvard's Matt Luft (No. 30). I have a theory on all of this: A good portion of the research for these rankings is done on the Internet and simply because Harvard is Harvard, athletes headed there get a disproportionate amount of publicity. To see the full rankings, click here.

Harvard President Expected to Resign
11:15 a.m. Some reports from the non-sports side as I put off starting a freelance story I need to get done today. ... Controversial Harvard President Lawrence Summers is expected to announce his resignation within days according to numerous media reports including one by Reuters. ... E-mail has changed the dynamic between college professors and college students and not necessarily for the better according to the New York Times. ... Today's Daily Dartmouth reports that the number of law school applicants from the college increased from 299 to 317 in 2004-05. Medical school applicants in 2005, meanwhile, rose from 129 to 169.

Lloyd Lee Promoted by Bears
8:15 It's been a real, real good month for Lloyd Lee '98. First, the former Dartmouth safety became a father for the first time with the birth of daughter Samaira Lynn. Then came his promotion from defensive quality control coach to defensive assistant working with the nickel package and linebackers. Lloyd was selected an All-American safety in 1996 while helping Dartmouth go 10-0. He spent parts of the 1998 and '99 seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Since his playing days ended, he worked for both the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Bears. For Lloyd's bio on the Bears' web site, click here. ... I distinctly remember the first time I saw Lloyd on the field. It was toward the end of what was then the annual Dartmouth-Columbia preseason scrimmage at Choate. I remember pointing at Lloyd after the scrimmage and asking head coach John Lyons, Who's that guy? John smiled and told me I had a good eye for talent. I did a whole series of stories about Lloyd and classmate Zack Walz as they prepped for the NFL draft. Zack was chosen by the Cardinals but Lloyd didn't hear his name picked. As disappointed as he was, he was incredibly gracious when I interviewed him on the second night of the draft. He ended up signing with San Diego as a "priority" free agent. ... I traded emails with Lloyd a couple of weeks back in anticipation of a quick story with him for the Green Alert main site. I guess I'll have to speed up my time schedule now!

8 a.m. Don't ask me why, but I was reading a Daily Press (Hampton Roads, Va.) column about the historically black schools of the MEAC weighing a decision to abandon the Division I-AA playoffs in favor of a league championship game and a possible berth in a black national championship bowl game when the following line stopped me in my tracks:

Opting out of the NCAA football playoff process isn't unprecedented. The Ivy League does not participate, supposedly for reasons of academics and missed class time (though those concerns somehow disappear during the NCAA basketball tournament).

My first reaction was that it was a cheap shot. My second reaction was that it is a cheap shot, but one the Ivy League presidents have invited. Wouldn't you just love to hear their response to the line by the Daily Press reporter? Me too, but don't hold your breath. Football is the only Ivy League sport that isn't allowed to go to the postseason and the Ivy presidents are notoriously mum on the subject for one very good reason: They can't rationally defend it. OK, I'm getting off my soap box now. ... Dartmouth-connected Winter Olympians are coming home with at least three gold medals and two bronze. Capturing gold were Canadian women's hockey players Gillian Apps, Cherie Piper and Katie Weatherston, all class of '06. Apps and Piper both scored in the 4-1 gold-medal clinching win over Sweden. The two Big Green skaters tied for the tournament scoring lead with seven goals apiece. ... Claiming bronze with the 4-0 U.S. win over Finland are Kristin King '02 and Sarah Parsons '09. ... The Daily Dartmouth has a piece about Big Green skier Charly Ligety '09, who had a serious rooting interest in the Olympic downhill because the gold-medal winner was his brother, Ted. ... And finally, this: The third-ranked Dartmouth women's lacrosse team will kick off the home spring season Saturday with a game against UConn on the turf at Scully-Fahey Field. There are flurries in the forecast. Brrr.

Ikechi Ogbonna Sets Hurdles Record

Senior tailback/hurdler Ikechi Ogbonna broke a meet record in the hurdles Sunday afternoon while winning the Heptagonal championship at Leverone Fieldhouse. To read more, click here.

Winter Returns to Hanover

2 p.m. Hopefully all the incoming recruits are signed and sealed ... or what I'm about to write might scare them off. The temperature up here on Moose Mountain last night hit 11.4 below zero. (And for the newbies to this kind of thing, that's "below zero," not "negative 11.4.") With the wind blowing this morning, it was a bit nippy when I walked the kids out to the school bus. But it sure is beautiful. The sky is bright blue with a few puffy clouds, the 10 inches of fresh powder are as white as white can be and the sun is shining so strongly that our unheated sun room is warm and toasty.

Dartmouth Sack Leaders

8 a.m. It's a s-l-o-w day to for Dartmouth and Ivy League news to this point so I'll take this opportunity to give you a sneak peak at a newly compiled statistical category that will make it's debut in next year's media guide: sacks. These numbers were researched by Dartmouth sports information office intern Ben Flickinger. (Note: sack statistics were sketchy until the early 1980's, so these records are culled since that time):

Dartmouth Career Sack Leaders

1. Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2002-05) 25
2. Scott Hapgood ’97 (1993-96) 23
3. George Neos ’93 (1990-92) 23
4. Ryan Conger ’05 (2001-2004) 20
5. Cliff McDonald ’92 (1989-91) 16
6. Zack Walz ’98 (1994-97) 15
7. Greg Dietrick ’99 (1996-98) 11
8. Gerry LaMontagne ’94 (1991-93) 11
9. Jason Upshaw ’98 (1995-97) 10
10. Taran Lent ’96 (1993-95) 10

Dartmouth Season Sack Leaders

1. Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2004) 12 (65 yards)
2. Scott Hapgood ’97 (1995) 12
3. George Neos ’93 (1992) 12
4. Cliff McDonald ’92 (1991) 9
5. Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2005) 8 (46 yards)
6. Ryan Conger ’05 (2004) 8 (43 yards)
7. Ryan Conger ’05 (2003) 8
8. Ed Coker ’93 (1993) 8
9. Ed Simpson ’85 (1984) 8
10. Nick Mourlas ’92 (1991) 7
11. Cliff McDonald ’92 (1990) 7

Dartmouth Single Game Sack Leaders
Anthony Gargiulo ’06 (2004 at Cornell) 4
George Neos ’93 (1992 at Harvard) 4

Compiled Blog Feb. 15-20

Monday, February 20, 2006
11:15 a.m. Defensive tackle recruit Kyle Brong of Lehighton, Pa., won the 2006 Scholar-Athlete Award presented by National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Lehigh Valley Chapter Sunday night. There's a full story here.

9 a.m. The first of what I hope will be a series of "10 Questions" email interviews with this year's recruits is up on the main Green Alert site. This edition is with quarterback/artist Max Heiges of Novato High School in California's Bay Area.

8:15 a.m. I recently freelanced a story about the upgrading of Dartmouth athletic facilities for the Big Green Sports News. Bob Ceplikas of the college's athletic department told me: "When people visit campus this fall they will have a sense of tremendous change and progress. They will see a completed Alumni Gym project, a completed field and track, a varsity house rising out of the ground and construction on the soccer facility." The whole story can be found in the newsletter, available as a PDF file here. ... When I was working at the newspaper we would always check when new Dartmouth coaches were hired to see if they had kids who would boost the local high school athletic teams. Former basketball coach Dave Faucher had two sons who starred on the hardwood at Lebanon and later at Middlebury College and his youngest is now starting for Lebanon. Former football coach John Lyons' daughters were terrific athletes at Hartford High School and his youngest has been invited to national-caliber camps for ice hockey. Hockey coach Bob Gaudet has one son starring on the ice at Dartmouth and another who graduated last year and will be skating for his dad next winter. Basketball coach Terry Dunn's son is playing basketball in a prep school in Pennsylvania while Coach Buddy Teevens' son is at a Connecticut prep school. Yesterday I took the kids to Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester for the New Hampshire Class I girls basketball quarterfinals and one of the starters for a very good Hanover team in a commanding win was Cassie Hodgson, daughter of tight ends coach Mike Hodgson. She had six points for the deep and talented team. Word is she's even better on the softball field. ... Brian Mann's first year as starter for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League has been a mixed bag, but wide receiver Kevin Ingram sounds confident of the former Dartmouth star. In this story, he said: “He improved during camp this season, and every game he gets better and better, we as a team need to protect him which will help him become more comfortable.” According to the author of the story, "In the AFL, a high powered offense is a must and Brian Mann continues to grow as the Avengers quarterback."

Sunday, February 19, 2006
5:45 p.m. Former Dartmouth standout Brian Mann's grip on the starting quarterback position with the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena League loosened a little more after Saturday's 65-46 loss to the Chicago Rush. (Some name for a team in the pass-dominated Arena League, huh?) Mann completed 21-of-37 passes for 274 yards and four touchdowns but he also threw two interceptions in the first quarter. He was pulled in the fourth quarter in favor of newly activated rookie Sonny Cumbie. Here's what coach Ed Hodgkiss had to say in the aftermath of the game according to the Los Angeles Times:

"Do I see a light at the end of the tunnel? Yes, because we'll get some [injured players] back next week … but we have to get our quarterbacks playing better, whoever that may be.


7:45 a.m. It's a quiet morning in the Ivy League football world. I've gotta run but be sure to check back Monday for the first installment of a new Green Alert feature that will be announced here and posted on the regular web site. ... In the meantime, pencil in June 17 for the annual Dartmouth football golf tournament at Hanover Country Club. I met a number of you at the event last spring and look forward to saying hi (but not golfing) this spring.

Saturday, February 18, 2006
Former Gridder is Golden
8:15 a.m. Thanks to Tony Lane for sharing this tidbit. Ray Rochester, the tantalizing 6-foot-2, 210-pound running back who chose not to play football last fall, won the super heavyweight division championship at the Vermont Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament before a sellout crowd in Burlington. According to the Burlington Free Press story, Rochester "hammered Burlington's Shane Kimber to claim the super heavyweight title." Rochester came to Dartmouth with mind-boggling offensive statistics but never had the impact that had been widely anticipated. Slowed by injury before his freshman year, he began his career as a linebacker on the junior varsity. Switched to tailback the next season, he show hints of tremendous promise but was hurt late in the season and found himself behind Chad Gaudet on the depth chart coming out of spring ball last year. ... Dartmouth's three members of the Canadian women's ice hockey team will be playing in the gold medal game at Torino. For more on that and the Green's other Olympians, click here. ... And finally, kudos to the Dartmouth men's basketball team for an exciting win over Yale last night at Leede Arena. I was covering the game for both the wire service and Basketball-U and the win certainly made for a nice report.


Friday, February 17, 2006
Lyons Heading Back to NFL Europe
3:30 p.m. Former Dartmouth coach John Lyons is heading back to Germany to coach the Cologne Centurions' defense once again. Lyons' return to NFL Europe for a second season was no sure thing after Cologne head coach Peter Vaas took an assistant's job at Notre Dame and Lyons assumed coaching and adminstrative responsibilities at Kimball Union Academy. But word has reached Green Alert that somehow, some way, it all worked out at the last moment, KUA generously gave him the green light and Lyons is packing his bags.

12:20 p.m. Hey alums! Do you have a vintage Dartmouth Winter Carnival poster tacked up somewhere in the attic? You could be sitting on a little cold cash. According to this story out of Philadelphia, a 1947 Dartmouth Winter Carnvial poster sold at auction recently for $5,290. ... Penn, which has had tremendous stability on its coaching staff under Al Bagnoli, lost several assistants this offseason. Heading to the Quakers as offensive coordinator according to today's Daily Pennsylvanian is Shawn Halloran, the former Boston College quarterback who had been head coach at Division III Franklin and Marshall. ... The latest on Brian Mann and his role as starting QB for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena League from the Los Angeles Times: "There's no doubt that we're struggling offensively," (Coach Ed) Hodgkiss said. "But Brian has gotten a little better each week and hopefully he and the rest of the team continue to improve." ... Today's Daily Dartmouth reports that all sophomores will be able to be housed on campus next fall. ... According to The D:

"This fall, completed residence hall construction will allow the Office of Residential Life to guarantee housing for all sophomores for the first time since at least the expansion of the student body during co-education. Previously, students with high housing lottery numbers were forced to fend for themselves when it came to housing. Typically, about 200 students were placed on a waitlist for housing, while 500 lived off campus."


The Brown Daily Herald has a story about sophomore Kai Brown playing football and competing in track. ... Crazy weather up here on Moose Mountain this morning. It was 44 degrees when I walked the kids out to the school bus. A couple of hours ago, it got very dark, thunder and lighting started and the wind began to howl. It's supposed to get down to 10-below tomorrow night and my suspicion is the fronts are colliding. (I'm no meteorologist of course, but I did go to Penn State, which has the best meterology program in the country ;-) ... Updates on the Blog may be a little skimpier than usual over the next two-plus weeks because all of a sudden deadlines are looming for a variety of writing projects I'm doing. I'm also trying to finish up one multimedia project, so wish me luck!

Thursday, February 16, 2006
Five Letters in Kling
4 p.m. Apologies for the time the new Blog is taking to load and quit. Thinking it might be something I did, I pulled the pictures off the site to try to speed it up -- only to learn that Blogger was having issues. Argh! Hopefully everything will be back to normal before long. ... For updates on how Dartmouth athletes are faring at the Winter Olympics, click here.

8:15 a.m. Incoming recruit Jordan Kling of Tuscola, Ill., will letter in five sports this year according to a story in the Herald & Review. (8:30 a.m. update: suddenly the link isn't working. Hopefully it will be back up.) (Just dug up a new link that works fine.) With his high school allowing athletes to compete in two sports in the same season for the first time this year, he played golf in addition to football in the fall. He's playing basketball in the winter and will do baseball as well as track and field in the spring. Oh, and he'll cap his winter as one of 64 athletes from "Class A" taking part in the state dunk competition! ... This reference in the Southern Mississippi school newspaper about the 1951 Dartmouth-Princeton football game sent me Googling away. Click here to read about a study of selective group perception entitled, They Saw a Game, based on the '51 Dartmouth-Princeton football game where the Princeton quarterback broke his nose and suffered a concussion and the Dartmouth quarterback broke his leg. (Princeton won, 13-0.) Interesting stuff. ... Gale Sayers coming to Dartmouth? Uh, no. But according to this story, incoming women's hockey player Sarah Parsons has a little of the Kansas Comet in her according to Olympic coach Ben Smith. Smith, by the way, spent one forgettable year as the Dartmouth men's coach, suffering through a 1-24-3 season in 1990-91. Suffice it to say he's had a lot more success in the Olympic arena than in Thompson Arena. ... Former Dartmouth left-hander Mike Remlinger will have a new pitching coach this spring as he tries to resurrect his big league career with the Atlanta Braves at age 40.


Wednesday, February 15, 2006
I-AA QB Recruits Rated
11 a.m. The thing about Division I-AA is you have to take recruiting information where you can get it. I can't vouch for the folks at showingblitz.com but they are rating what they consider the top 25 I-AA recruits at each position, starting with the incoming quarterback class. They list Dartmouth recruit Max Heiges as the No. 14 quarterback in the class. (Yale's Matt Kelleher is their top-ranked quarterback and Princeton's Dan Kopolovich is No. 16.) Three Ivy League recruits are listed in the running back class with a Yale recruit at 15, a Cornell recruit at 24 and a Columbia recruit receiving honorable mention.

8:30 We told you last week about former tight end Joe Killefer being called up to rugby's U.S. Sevens national team. The Daily Dartmouth has a story today about Killefer '06 and his whirlwind debut with the squad. The Dartmouth reports that Killefer got a phone call from the U.S. coach saying he had been promoted to the national team at 10 p.m., and was on a flight to Los Angeles to play with the team at 7 the next morning.

8 a.m. The Arena League's Los Angeles Avengers yesterday released Alex Van Dyke, who had been competing with Dartmouth grad Brian Mann for the starting quarterback position. While Brian has started two of the team's first three games and has taken the majority of the snaps, the 1-2 Avengers are last in the league in scoring and Mann could still be in a fight for his job. Said coach Ed Hodgkiss of the move: "We haven't been productive on offense and this is the first of several moves that we will make until we find a mix that works." ... Not all accomplished football players at Dartmouth are on the field. I recently wrote a story on Rob Kerris, a thrower on the track team who captained a small-school powerhouse in Pennsylvania. A second-team, all-state selection, Rob told me he flirted with the idea of giving outside linebacker a shot at Dartmouth but a bad knee kept him from getting serious about it. Although his high school coach told football recruiters he wanted to do track in college, Division II schools tried to recruit him and Penn gave him a look. When Dartmouth tried to recruit another player from his high school, the coach was told they already had a pretty good player from the school in Hanover. ... Wondering how all those Dartmouth athletes are doing at the Winter Olympics? Here we go: Gillian Apps '06 had three goals in Canada's 8-1 women's hockey win over Sweden yesterday. Teammate Katie Weatherston tallied once while Cherie Piper '06 had three assists. . ... Incoming freshman Sarah Parsons had two goals and an assist in the U.S. hockey victory over Finland. ... Alpine skier Scott Macartney '01 was 16th in the men's combined. ... Carl Swenson '92 was the top U.S. skier when he finished 40th in the men's 30K pursuit. ... More updates on the Olympians as they become available. Just found this story in The D that has a little more information.

Compiled Blog Feb. 8-13

Monday, February 13, 2006
3:15 p.m. Here's that same list I posted earlier today, reordered by year of graduation, starting with the most recent. Interestingly, after having five NFL players graduating between 1976 and 1981, Dartmouth went 13 years until it could claim another.

Casey Cramer ’04 E,B Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, 2004-
Lloyd Lee ’98 DB San Diego Chargers, 1998-99
Zack Walz ’98 LB Arizona Cardinals, 1998-2000
Jay Fiedler ’94 QB Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins New York Jets 1994-
Dave Shula ’81 WR Baltimore Colts, 1981
Jeff Kemp ’81 QB Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, 1981-91
Gregg Robinson ’78 DT New York Jets, 1978
Nick Lowery ’78 K New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, 1978-96
Reggie Williams ’76 LB Cincinnati Bengals, 1976-89
Gordie Rule ’68 DB Green Bay Packers, 1968-69
Don McKinnon ’63 LB,C Boston Patriots, 1963-64
Jake Crouthamel ’60 RB Boston Patriots, 1960
Bill Roberts ’51 HB Green Bay Packers, 1956
Jonathan Jenkins ’49 T Baltimore Colts, New York Yankees (AAFC), 1949-50
Nick Daukas ’44 T,G Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC), 1946-47
Joe Crowley ’43 E,DB Boston Yanks, 1944-45
Alex Wizbicki USMC '43 DB,HB Buffalo Bills (AAFC), 1947-49
Jim Landrigan USMC '43 T Baltimore Colts (AAFC), 1947
Ed Gustafson USN '43 C,LB Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC), 1947-48
Bob Krieger ’41 E Philadelphia Eagles, 194146
Bill Hutchinson ’40 QB,DB New York Giants, 1942
Bob MacLeod ’39 HB,DB Chicago Bears, 1939
George Tully ’27 E Philadelphia Quakers (AFL), Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1926-27
Don (Swede) Swenson '27 G Chicago Bulls (AFL), 1926
Les Haws ’24 B Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1924-25
Vern Hagenbuckle ’24 E,G Boston Bulldogs (AFL), Providence Steam Roller, 1926
Gerald (Red) Maloney '24 E,B Providence Steam Roller, New York Yankees (AFL/NFL), Boston Bulldogs (NFL), 1925-27,29
Charles (Chick) Burke '23 B Providence Steam Roller, 1925
Phil Bower ’21 B Cleveland Indians, 1921
Joseph (Cuddy) Murphy '21 G Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21
Gus Sonnenberg ’20 T,FB Buffalo All-Americans, Columbus Tigers, Detroit Panthers, Providence Steam Rollers, 1923-30
Johnny Bryan ’20 QB,TB Chicago Bears, Milwaukee Badgers, 1922-27
Tom Whelan ’19 E,C,G Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21
John Shelburne ’19 FB Hammond Pros, 1922
Charlie Guy ’19 C,G Detroit Heralds, Buffalo All-Americans, Cleveland Indians, Dayton Triangles, 1920-23, 25
Ed Healey ’18 T Rock Island Independents, Chicago Bears, 1920-27
Adolph (Swede) Youngstrom '18 G,T Buffalo All-Americans/Bisons, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Bulldogs, Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1920-27
F. Joe DuSossoit '18 E New York Giants, 1921
Karl Thielscher ’17 FB Buffalo All-Americans, 1920
Ray MacMurray ’17 G Muncie Flyers, 1921
Milt Ghee ’15 B Chicago Tigers, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21

7:15 a.m. It's a quiet morning in the Green Alert Blog World, so here's a little light reading for you: a list of former Dartmouth players -- including some who were stationed here during WWII -- who made it to the NFL (or one of its recognized predecessors). Credit the media guide.

Phil Bower ’21 B Cleveland Indians, 1921
Johnny Bryan ’20 QB,TB Chicago Bears, Milwaukee Badgers, 1922-27
Charles (Chick) Burke ’23 B Providence Steam Roller, 1925
Casey Cramer ’04 E,B Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, 2004-
Jake Crouthamel ’60 RB Boston Patriots, 1960
Joe Crowley ’43 E,DB Boston Yanks, 1944-45
Nick Daukas ’44 T,G Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC), 1946-47
F. (Joe) DuSossoit ’18 E New York Giants, 1921
Jay Fiedler ’94 QB Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars,
Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, 1994-
Milt Ghee ’15 B Chicago Tigers, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21
Ed Gustafson USN ’43 C,LB Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC), 1947-48
Charlie Guy ’19 C,G Detroit Heralds, Buffalo All-Americans, Cleveland Indians, Dayton Triangles, 1920-23, 25
Vern Hagenbuckle ’24 E,G Boston Bulldogs (AFL), Providence Steam Roller, 1926
Les Haws ’24 B Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1924-25
Ed Healey ’18 T Rock Island Independents, Chicago Bears, 1920-27
Bill Hutchinson ’40 QB,DB New York Giants, 1942
Jonathan Jenkins ’49 T Baltimore Colts, New York Yankees (AAFC), 1949-50
Jeff Kemp ’81 QB Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, 1981-91
Bob Krieger ’41 E Philadelphia Eagles, 1941,46
Jim Landrigan USMC ’43 T Baltimore Colts (AAFC), 1947
Lloyd Lee ’98 DB San Diego Chargers, 1998-99
Nick Lowery ’78 K New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, 1978-96
Bob MacLeod ’39 HB,DB Chicago Bears, 1939
Ray MacMurray ’17 G Muncie Flyers, 1921
Gerald (Red) Maloney ’24 E,B Providence Steam Roller, New York Yankees (AFL/NFL), Boston Bulldogs (NFL), 1925-27,29
Don McKinnon ’63 LB,C Boston Patriots, 1963-64
Joseph (Cuddy) Murphy ’21 G Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21
Bill Roberts ’51 HB Green Bay Packers, 1956
Gregg Robinson ’78 DT New York Jets, 1978
Gordie Rule ’68 DB Green Bay Packers, 1968-69
John Shelburne ’19 FB Hammond Pros, 1922
Dave Shula ’81 WR Baltimore Colts, 1981
Gus Sonnenberg ’20 T,FB Buffalo All-Americans, Columbus Tigers, Detroit Panthers, Providence Steam Rollers, 1923-30
Don (Swede) Swenson ’27 G Chicago Bulls (AFL), 1926
Karl Thielscher ’17 FB Buffalo All-Americans, 1920
George Tully ’27 E Philadelphia Quakers (AFL), Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1926-27
Zack Walz ’98 LB Arizona Cardinals, 1998-2000
Tom Whelan ’19 E,C,G Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, 1920-21
Reggie Williams ’76 LB Cincinnati Bengals, 1976-89
Alex Wizbicki USMC ’43 DB,HB Buffalo Bills (AAFC), 1947-49
Adolph (Swede) Youngstrom ’18 G,T Buffalo All-Americans/Bisons, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Bulldogs, Frankford Yellow Jackets, 1920-27


Sunday, February 12, 2006
8:50 p.m. Dartmouth grad Brian Mann came off the bench to go 26-of-38 for 291 yards and five TDs for the Los Angeles Avengers in Sunday's 66-41 loss to defending Arena League champion Grand Rapids. A game story and quotes can be found here.

The latest on former defensive lineman Derham Cato '05 was that he had hooked up with NFL Europe despite being overlooked in the draft. No further news on that, but he is his agency's featured client right now. Check out how they are promoting Derham here. ... Speaking of promoting, among the assignment students had at a Florida college was figuring out a way to market Jay Fiedler when he was the Dolphins' quarterback. Nothing more about that in this story, but wouldn't you like to read the papers the students produced? ... The snow that is piling up on the East Coast is missing us here for the most part. We're expecting just 1-3 inches. ... A great overtime win for the Dartmouth hockey team before a standing room only crowd waving thousands of terrible towels yesterday at Thompson Arena. The women's basketball team took control of the Ivy League race by stomping Princeton to complete a weekend sweep and the men's basketball team came from 10 points down to push the Tigers until the final seconds before a shot to tie at the buzzer went awry.

Saturday, February 11, 2006
5:45 p.m. Missed this one the first time around. The Dartmouth Review takes a look at the Big Green football program and how Buddy Teevens is reshaping it.

If you've got a couple of minutes, check out The Helmet Project, a self-described "atlas of football helmets." Scroll down the left side of the home page and click on Ivy League to bring up well-done historical mockups of all the school helmets. Some go way back, although there are just three relatively recent versions of the Dartmouth helmet. (An aside: Dartmouth is making minimal changes to the helmet for next fall, but nothing you'll be able to see from the stands. The white will have a gentle sparkle to it and the face masks will be green instead of black. I've been told -- although I hadn't really noticed -- that the old helmets had, to varying degrees, yellowed over time.) ... After looking over the Ivy League helmets check out the other leagues and teams. Fun stuff (and a great way to waste time). ... I covered the Dartmouth men's basketball loss to Penn for both Basketball-U and the wire service last night and the crowd was a dismal 810. I can't remember a smaller crowd for a game against one of the "P's." Meanwhile there were 3,417 for the men's hockey game against Quinnipiac (a 5-4 win), hardly a household name. Princeton is in town today for a 4:30 hockey game (on ESPNU) and for men's basketball tonight. Maybe the time difference will drum up the hoop crowd a bit. ... Speaking of which, Steelers coach Bill Cowher watched his oldest daughter play for the Princeton women's basketball team last night and he'll probably be back at Jadwin tonight when the second-place Tigers try to hand Ivy League-leading Dartmouth (which defeated Penn last night) its first conference loss. ...

Former Dartmouth quarterback Brian Mann will start his third Arena League game with the Los Angeles Avengers Sunday against the Grand Rapids Rampage (with a halftime performance by "the world's smartest dog"), but he's still looking to solidify his hold on the job. Mann has thrown seven touchdown passes to one interception in two games, but his completion percentage is a wobbly 48.6. He has passed for 486 yards. Brian is mentioned briefly in this story but there's not much more there than you've already read here.

Friday, February 10, 2006
New Defensive Assistant Coach

11 a.m. I just got tipped off about an NHL.com story about former Dartmouth skater Hugh Jessiman and his travels and travails this year after turning pro. It includes this:

"A lot of people said, 'You didn't even play last year,"' Jessiman said. "But I felt mentally ready to go pro. It showed early in (this) year that I just didn't play in enough games last year."


10:30 a.m. Set to join the Dartmouth football staff as a defensive assistant according to the Huntsville Times will be Alabama A&M assistant Cedric Calhoun (bio) . Calhoun replaces James Jones, who left Hanover after on year to join the staff at Kansas State. Calhoun, 34, helped A&M to a 34-15 record during his tenure at the school. If he needed any background on the Ivies before accepting the job, he had only to ask another member of his staff about the league: David Arnsparger is a former Cornell assistant.

Carnival Daze
Feb. 9 8:30 a.m. Forget the Winter Olympics, it's time for Winter Carnival at Dartmouth. A handful of people have sent links to this story in Sports Illustrated on Campus. It features quotes from Jay Fiedler and Brad Ausmus as well as this line about the Dartmouth Winter Carnival: "National Geographic has referred to it as 'the Mardi Gras of the North.' " ... Should the Ivy League go to a letter of intent system in recruiting like the rest of the college football world? The Daily Pennsylvanian says yes. ... An earlier post mentioned that Columbia quarterback Joe Winters is going to finish his final year of eligibility as a graduate student/quarterback at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Now the Columbia Spectator has a story about how that came about. ... There are no Ivy or Patriot League schools or athletes mentioned but former Dartmouth Sports Information intern Matt Dougherty has an interesting piece on The Sports Network site about impact players headed to Division I-AA next fall. ... It will be a fun weekend on campus for more than students and their visitors. Penn and Princeton make their annual visit to Leede Arena for men's basketball (usually the biggest crowds of the year) and the Dartmouth-Princeton men's hockey game will be broadcast live from Thompson Arena Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on ESPNU. (Hockey opens with Quinnipiac.)

Thursday, February 09, 2006

1 p.m. The Ivy League web site has posted an interesting series of stories in celebration of Black History Month. Several of the stories are a little dated but well worth reading. Onetime Dartmouth football players included in the series are former Cincinnati Bengals and Super Bowl linebacker Reggie Williams (now vice president of Disney Sports Attractions), former wide receiver (and Buddy Teevens teammate) Jimmie Lee Solomon (the senior vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball) and Rhodes Scholar and Baltimore Colts draft pick Willie Bogan (vice president, associate general counsel and assistant corporate secretary for Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. in San Francisco).

9:30 a.m. Just heard that in addition to senior defensive end Anthony Gargiulo (see earlier post), senior defensive back Mike Ribero has joined the Dartmouth rugby team.

7:55 a.m. The 2005 Dartmouth football highlight video can now be watched on line, but keep in mind it helps to have a fast Internet connection. I had a chance to watch the production on the big screen in the football lounge and it is well done. You can find it here. ... News reports yesterday had former Dartmouth baseball and basketball standout Jim Beattie a lock to be the new general manager of the Cincinnati Reds but those reports turned out to be erroneous and Beattie will continue to look for his next job in or out of baseball. The former GM of the Montreal Expos and and most recently the co-GM of the Baltimore Orioles, Beattie was a finalist for the Dartmouth athletic director's position after Dick Jaeger retired in 2002. ... The Winter Carnival snow sculpture might not be as grand as planned, but against all odds, it will be ready by tonight's opening ceremonies. From today's Daily Dartmouth: "Despite the poor showing and poor response to posters asking for assistance in building the structure, a small group of students have volunteered to finish the snow sculpture."

Feb. 8 1:45 p.m. Among those who showed up in Philadelphia Sunday to watch Brian Mann make his second start at quarterback for the Arena League's Los Angeles Avengers: Princeton head coach Roger Hughes and assistant Scott Sallach (Dartmouth coaches when Brian was in Hanover) and Jay Butler, the former Big Green strength coach now at Rutgers. Brian, by the way, was playing with a slight ankle injury incurred on the final play of his first start.

While I was at Alumni Gym this morning I stopped by Davis Varsity House to get a quick comment from Coach Buddy Teevens about the town of Hanover approving plans for the new varsity house, one of the final hurdles that had to be cleared before work on the building can begin. Buddy had just finished meeting with an engineer regarding the project and I corralled him as he was about to pull on a black watchcap and head out for a run. "We're pleased that the plans were approved," he said. "I expected they would be, but that's just me. Other (athletic) projects have had delays so you can't be sure, but I had a good feeling since the field and the track had been approved. We appreciate all the hard work that has gone into making this happen and the understanding of the neighbors and the town." In typically optimistic fashion, Buddy said he expects the cut-down visiting stands to be available in the fall.

8:15 a.m. The new varsity house scheduled to be built behind the lower visiting stands at Memorial Field received unanimous approval last night by the Hanover Planning Board. That gives the project, slated to be ready for the 2007 season, a green light to begin construction. According to Bob Ceplikas, deputy athletic director, work on reducing the size of the visiting grandstands will likely begin before the end of this month. Those stands are being cut down in height (and stretched in length to mirror the home stands) to make room for the varsity house to rise behind them. (Stadium capacity will go from 20,416 to 13,000.) Work on the FiedTurf synthetic surface and new track is slated to begin May 15, immediately at the conclusion of the outdoor track season. Of note to fans: Because parts of the existing stands will be reused, there is a chance there will be grandstands on the visiting side of Memorial Field next fall. They may possibly be ready for the opener. If not, the hope is they will be available by the Oct. 26 Homecoming game against Harvard. Original plans called for newer, steeper grandstands that would not have been finished in time for the coming season, which would have required additional temporary stands in the end zones. Also of note to fans: A later addition to the plan is a full, standalone restroom facility at the north end of the varsity house. Previously the only facilities on that side of the field were porta-potties. Green Alert Take: The quick approval of the varsity house plan will speed along a much-anticipated project that was already on the fastest of tracks. The first real talk of the facility started at this time last year. Compare that to the numerous delays that held up construction of Sculley-Fahey Field, home of the Dartmouth lacrosse and field hockey teams. Interestingly, the long-delayed soccer "stadium" -- which has been talked about for more than a decade -- is scheduled to move dirt on Aug. 1 and be ready for the 2007 season. ...

The absence of snow has taken a toll on Winter Carnival. According to a college release: "While the slalom and giant slalom races for this weekend's Dartmouth Winter Carnival will be held as scheduled at the Dartmouth Skiway, recent warm weather and heavy rains have forced the relocation of Friday's and Saturday's cross country ski races. Men's and women's cross country competition will be moved to the Craftsbury Ski Touring Center in Craftsbury, VT, about 90 minutes north of Hanover." ...

The Daily Dartmouth published the last of a three-part series examining sexual abuse toward women at Dartmouth today and the piece includes postive references both to members of the football and coach Buddy Teevens.

Compiled Blog Feb. 1-7

Feb. 7 8:20 a.m. They made the All-Ivy League first team playing alongside each other two years ago and they'll be back in action this spring. But not alongside each other. And not even in the same sport. Former defensive end Ryan Conger, who played his last football game in 2004, will complete his college athletic eligibility this spring as a defender on the 17th-ranked Dartmouth lacrosse team. Conger, who is in the college's five-year engineering program, was an all-conference lacrosse players as a New Jersey high schooler and at 6-foot-2, 245 pounds, will add some size and speed to the Big Green's defense. While Conger has taken his stick out of cold storage, senior Anthony Gargiulo is putting his helmet on the shelf -- at least for a while. The 6-2, 235-pound defensive end who flirted with playing lacrosse himself a year ago, has decided to give rugby a go and has been training with the Dartmouth squad for several weeks. Although he has heard from pro scouts and agents, Gargiulo said last night that after eight years of football he's interested in trying something else and intrigued by a game that he can continue to play on the club level after graduating. He'll be heading to Argentina with the Dartmouth rugby team during the break. ... In an era of the Internet, it's gotten a little harder to tell fibs because people who know better can read and disprove them. Such is the case with the strange story English rugby trainer Thibault Giroud tells of his days as a football star at Dartmouth. The story in the Guardian reads:

Born in France to Tongan parents, Giroud's improbable journey began at the age of 17 in Grenoble. "I was lucky I was running a track meet and there was a scout there from Dartmouth College in the US," he recalls. "He was on holidays but after the race came to me and said do you want to play football. I didn't know what he meant by football, but four months later I had a scholarship.
"I didn't speak any English, didn't know anything about the game, and in my freshman year didn't play much. In my sophomore year I started to play well, then I was drafted by the (New York) Jets."

That's not quite the way it happened, of course. I recall writing a story when I was with the newspaper about a European who had played some football over there (I think it was Thibault but I can't be sure because I can't find the story) who came to the U.S., to train with the then-Dartmouth conditioning coach. But he was never a Dartmouth student. He never got a scholarship. He never played for Dartmouth. And he was never drafted by the Jets. Strange story, indeed.

Feb. 6 1:05 p.m. A picture and note on linebacker Zechariah Glaize "signing" with Dartmouth can be found on The Citizen web site. The piece says that Glaize had "58 solo tackles, 44 assists, 102 total tackles, seven quarterback sacks and an interception."

12:30 p.m. I just posted two pictures that show the uphill battle it is going to be to get the snow sculpture on the middle of the Green finished for Thursday's opening ceremonies of the Dartmouth Winter Carnival. As the pictures show, the sculptors are trying to make something out of nothing because the Green is, well, almost green right now. The sculpture is supposed to be modeled after comic strip characters Calvin and Hobbes. To learn more about the plans for the sculpture, click here. ... Wandering through Alumni Gym I learned some good news about Dartmouth senior Joe Killefer. The former tight end, who opted to concentrate on rugby this year instead of football, has been promoted to the U.S. Sevens rugby roster.

8:15 a.m. The Daily Dartmouth has a story today about a poll conducted for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Under a headline, "Most Americans value academics over sports," The D includes the following comments from Dartmouth Admissions Director Karl Furstenberg: "While it's good that these studies come out, Dartmouth and Dartmouth athletics are very different from the rest of the country. We don't offer athletic scholarships. Our students are students first, and they have to have other interests outside of their own teams. When they apply to Dartmouth, they know that." And ... "Many D-1 schools have significant financial and alumni ramifications tied into their sports teams, and so poor behavior and low graduation rates may be overlooked. Dartmouth's large endowment prevents issues like these from arising." To borrow a line from Saturday Night Live, "Discuss among yourselves." ... Former Dartmouth quarterback Brian Mann was 24-for-43 passing for 270 yards and four touchdowns yesterday in his second start with the Los Angeles Avengers, who lost in Philadelphia. From the game story on the team site: Mann went the distance against the Soul, but Hodgkiss said the quarterback position hadn't been salted away: "He's only going to get better and better the more he gets to compete. He just lacks experience. He's only got one way to go, and that's up, with each rep he takes." ... Harvard's Isaiah Kacyvenski was introduced as one of the Seattle captains and Brown's Sean Morey as one of the Pittsburgh captains before Super Bowl coin toss. It was a neat honor for both and for the Ivy League, but really, who wasn't named a captain? The Boston Globe had a nice piece on Morey, formerly known as a Super Bowl jinx. ... I'm not a big one for "grading" stories, but in this case I'd give the game a "C", (the Seahawks get an "F" for time management), the halftime show a "C-plus" (I'd have preferred Motown in Detroit) and the commercials a "B-minus." ... I survived a long weekend of covering the New Hampshire high school indoor track championships at Leverone. My headache from the noise should be gone in a few days.

Feb. 5 Former Dartmouth placekicker and Kansas City Chiefs star Nick Lowery writes in USA Today from Kuwait City about his group of former All-Pros bringing a little football to the American troops overseas. ... The Boston Globe writes about the relief three Silver Lake Regional (Mass.) High School athletes felt after making their college choices. One is Josh Doherty, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound wide receiver who "chose Dartmouth over Syracuse and Bucknell, among other schools." (Silver Lake is the Alma Mater of Buddy Teevens.) ... A few coaching moves to report: Former Dartmouth quarterback and assistant Chris Rorke has left Lehigh and will be an assistant at Trinity College in Connecticut this year. ... Recent Dartmouth assistant Jeff McNamara is the new offensive coordinator at Carroll College. ... And Bob Colbert, who coached the Dartmouth offensive line in the 1990 Ivy League championship season, will have a familial connection to the Super Bowl today according to this story. Colbert is building a new football program at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., not far from Pittsburgh. ... Off to cover the second day of the New Hampshire High School Track Championships at Leverone Field House.

Feb. 4 7:45 a.m. With a good deal of help from the men's cross country and men's and women's soccer teams, Dartmouth was the top-ranked Ivy League athletic program in the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup rankings after the fall season. The Big Green was 34th overall in the nation. This is the same ranking system that seems to annually crown Stanford as the nation's best athletic program. ... Lee Stempniak, the rookie out of Dartmouth, continues to earn plaudits for his play with the St. Louis Blues. Writes Norm Sanders in the News-Democrat: "Now the Blues' faith in the 22-year-old forward has paid off as Stempniak has four goals in the last three games, including a pair of game-winners in shootout wins over Calgary and Chicago." Click here for the full feature story. ... The Ivy League's two players in the Super Bowl are suddenly on sportswriters' radar. Here's what a Sports Illustrated writer said in his online column: "Don't know much about Kacyvenski and Morey? I didn't either until recent weeks, and I cover the NFL for a living. But their stories, frankly, are what makes Super Bowl week, with its pack-journalism reality, a bit more bearable." ... Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal is arguably the best writer to regularly cover the Ivy League and he has a piece today about fellow Brown grad Sean Morey's circuitous route to the Super Bowl. ... A former Harvard tight end who left Cambridge to walk on for the University of Minnesota basketball team but plans to graduate from Harvard? Check out his interesting story here. There's a little more detail about his football career here and a capsule bio here. ... Not much in the way of updates today.I'm off to cover the New Hampshire indoor high school track championships at Leverone Field House for a paper from across the state. The things I won't do to eat. ;-)

Feb. 3 2:45 p.m. I missed this one the first time around. His local paper has a feature story about 6-foot-5, 250-pound offensive lineman Evan Nogay of Wellsburg, W.Va., "signing" with Dartmouth. ... Hmm. The Daily D reports that the school's "sorority girls" favor the Steelers in the Super Bowl. How come I never had assignments like that when I worked for the newspaper?

2:15 p.m. Ya gotta love the "D-Plan." While sophomores at Yale and Harvard are slogging through a gray New England winter, nine members of the Dartmouth football team are studying in New Zealand and enjoying 80-degree temperatures. They are: tailback Chad Gaudet, linebackers Mike Whitticom and Ryan Mahoney, offensive linemen Tim Wheeler, Jarden Dowdakin and Ben Goeke, tight end Mark Brogna and defensive backs Jason Reid and John Pircon. Through the wonders of email, defensive coordinator Chris Wilkerson learned from Mahoney that the group has been lifting, running and hiking together and that the training facilities are better than expected. Mahoney also told Wilkerson about going on a 35-mile hike. (Suddenly those double sessons don't seem so daunting ;-) ... Mahoney reported that at least some of the players went "canyon swinging," a concession adventure that features a 180-foot free fall -- the longest in the world according to the venue's web site -- and a smooth swing in the canyon.

Feb. 3 12:30 p.m. I'm just back from campus with some construction pictures -- but not of construction (or demolition) on Memorial Field. As it turns out, coach Buddy Teevens was a little optimistic about the schedule for work on the visiting stands. It will indeed start in February, as he said earlier, but probably not for another couple of weeks or so. Among the other things I learned was that, contrary to earlier reports, there is a chance -- that's a chance -- the reconfigured visiting stands will be available by the Homecoming game against Harvard on Oct. 28. (And that it's not completely outside the realm of possibility that those stands will be usable even earlier.) When the new varsity house project was first announced there was talk of completely replacing the visiting stands with a new set of stands that was smaller but steeper. The decision to instead to cut down the current stands has opened up the possibility that they can be functional at some point this fall. If they are not usable, a second set of temporary end zone bleachers may be installed. More in a bit.

6:55 a.m. I'll be up on campus with my camera this morning and will post some pictures of the athletic facility construction later in the day. ... The whirlwind news about recruiting has slowed as quickly as it picked up. I believe there's one more committed player I haven't yet been able to uncover (the coaches are not allowed to comment on recruits at this point) and a running back on the fence if this news report is correct. ... There's a terrific story about Los Angeles Avengers quarterback Brian Mann '02 in the Philadelphia Inquirer with more information on his non-speaking roles in two movies and a commercial. Turns out Brian had to use the Penn locker room at Franklin Field during filming of the second movie and he found that kind of ironic. ... There are contrasting opinions about how solid Mann's grasp is on the starting role in LA. One story has this to say: "Last week was supposed to be part of an ongoing QB controversy in Los Angeles between Mann ... and QB Ryan Van Dyke, but Mann solidified his role as the starter, playing the entire second half and orchestrating a win." But the LA Times quotes coach Ed Hodgkiss this way: ""It's going to be pretty much the same deal," Hodgkiss said. "I'm going to start Brian Mann and if he plays well he could finish the game. If I feel that it would be good for him to sit down and take a breath like he did in the first game, we may do that again too. I'm just trying to keep it open because when I do name a guy he will be the guy. We will ride him for better or worse." ... Ice hockey's Lee Stempniak '05 is proving to be the man of the minute for the St. Louis Blues as this "lede" from a News-Democrat story makes clear: "Rookie Lee Stempniak is becoming the king of shootouts for the St. Louis Blues. As the Blues' final shooter, he scored his second straight home shootout game-winner Thursday in a 6-5 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks." ... No team in the NFL has been as Ivy friendly as the Tampa Bay Bucs, who drafted not one by two Ivy League tight ends (Casey Cramer and Yale's Nate Lawrie) a couple of years ago. Now the Bucs have Brown wide receiver Chas Gessner and Columbia safety Steve Cargile on their roster. ... The Brown Daily Herald issues forth on former Bear wide receiver Sean Morey and former Brown QB and coach Mark Whipple going to the Super Bowl. ... Finally, a Columbia Spectator story about freshmen making the transition to college athletics opens with a look at one of the Lions' first-year football players.

Feb. 2 12:35 p.m. The stories on Harvard grad and Seattle Seahawk Isaiah Kacyvenski keep piling up. There are quite a few out there and this one from the Philadelphia Inquirer is one of the best. Thanks to a subscriber for sharing the link.

11 a.m. The Q&A with Casey Cramer has now been posted on the Green Alert main page. ... Dartmouth recruit Jordan Kling has been chosen for the Illinois East-West Shrine Game set for July 22 in Peoria. Although he was selected as a defensive back, he could also see a few snaps at quarterback. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Kling passed for 2,259 yards and ran for almost 1,000 last season for his Tuscola team. ... Now I better put Green Alert aside and get back to working on a few writing projects that actually put food on the table -- or my wife's gonna boot me out into the cold. ;-)

8:45 a.m. Speedy wide receiver Niles Murphy picked Dartmouth over Princeton, Penn, Wake Forest and several other schools according to this story. ... Dartmouth-bound quarterback Alex Jenny was officially chosen for the Massachusetts Shriners Classic game. ... Dartmouth applications jumped 10 percent to almost 14,000 according to a story in today's Daily Dartmouth.

8:20 I'll have a quick Q&A with Carolina Panthers fullback Casey Cramer on the Green Alert main site later today. True story: Casey and I played phone tag yesterday before we caught up with each other. He left a message on our answering machine and when my 11-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter heard the message, they made me pledge never, ever to erase it. Topping that off, when Casey called me back last night, I was helping my son with his homework in our "project" room off of the kitchen. I answered the phone and asked Casey to hold while I ran upstairs to the peace and quiet of my office. My son was supposed to hang up the phone but shortly after picking up the extension, I heard breathing on the other end of the line. I know I smiled when I told my son, "Say hi to Casey." Although I know he was nervous, he had a quick conversation with Casey, who told him to make sure he did his homework. I'm here to tell you there's one very excited sixth-grader at Hanover's Richmond School who is telling every friend he sees today that he talked with a "real, live, NFL player last night on the phone."

I wrote a story for the newspaper last spring about Dartmouth graduates using their final year of eligibility as grad students at other schools. I'll be honest. I've been writing about college sports for 20 years and the rule allowing student-athletes who sit out a year/season for (medical) redshirt reasons to finish up at other schools caught me by surprise. For the story I talked with a soccer player who finished up as a grad student elsewhere, Big Green track athletes who went on to Stanford, Northwestern and Villanova (among others) and a skier who won a national championship at Denver after graduating from Dartmouth. I never thought it would happen in football, but sure enough, a quarterback from Columbia signed a letter of intent to play football next fall at Missouri-Rolla as a grad student. Very strange.

7:45 a.m. The recruiting list on the Green Alert main site has been updated to 28 names. Four more names were added today with confirmation that they are headed to Hanover: Alex Stonehouse, a 6-foot-2, 290-pound offensive lineman from West Allis, Wisc., who was initially interested in Northwestern; Robert Mitchelson, a 5-10, 190 running back from Oklahoma City's Heritage Hall who has run a 10.76 in the 100; Marlon Alebiosu, a 6-1, 190 defensive end from King & Low-Heywood Thomas School (KLHT) Stamford, Conn., who was a Class C NEPSAC All-Star along with future teammate Zach O'Donnell, and Bo Hurley, a 6-6, 295 offensive lineman from Schertz, Texas.

Feb. 1 10 p.m. Thought I'd check to see what's popping on the computer at halftime of the Duke-BC basketball game. There's a mention of Texas running back Matt Dornak "signing" with Dartmouth, as reported earlier on Green Alert. Be sure to check back tomorrow when there may be a few more commitments and links. Also: Look for a surprise story on the regular Green Alert page. Back to the game ...

6:15 p.m. Too bad Dartmouth is locked into the opener at Colgate next Sept. 16. If not for that, the Big Green could be playing in Moscow that day. (Moscow, Idaho, that is.) From a web site for coaches: "ATTENTION 1-AA TEAMS LOOKING TO PLAY AN AWAY GAME AGAINST A 1-A OPPONENT: The University of Idaho (1A, WAC) is looking for a 1AA Team to play in Moscow, ID, on Saturday, September 16, 2006. They will pay a negotiable fee between $100,000 and $150,000."

A few in-house links tonight. A writer from The D says apathy by his classmates took the fun out of attending athletic events to the extent that he doesn't go anymore. ... The D reports the student assembly passed a resolution to establish a Club Sports Commission to take a good, hard look at how the club sports program is run. ... In addition to the Winter Olympics, Dartmouth will be well-represented at the Torino Paralympics March 10-19.

1:45 p.m. For more on Niles Murphy, click here. As I suspected, he is the brother of former Dartmouth basketball-football player Nick Murphy. The 6-footer's numbers on the season: 34 catches for 792 yards and 10 TDs before appearing in the SCISAA Shrine Bowl.

1:10 p.m. Mark down one more verbal commitment, this one from South Carolina's Niles Murphy, a speedy wide receiver and kick returner according to this Q&A published prior to his basketball season. For a picture of Murphy in action, click here. (Gotta love those quick guys who wear No. 1.) For a head and shoulders shot, click here. Niles also played free safety on defense. This "cached" story says he had 10 touchdowns and more than 500 receiving yards through 10 games. It reports: "Murphy has the potential of firing up the Dolphins on special teams. He had a 73-yard touchdown on a kick return against Colleton Prep. But most teams have chosen to keep the ball out of his hands." ... No word if Murphy is related to Nick Murphy '02, a wide receiver (who came to Dartmouth for basketball) also from Hilton Head and Hilton Head Prep, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he were.

11:30 a.m. Terrific news out of North Carolina! Defensive lineman Derham Cato '05 learned yesterday that he has been picked up by the Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe. The 6-foot-4, 290-pound Cato won Dartmouth's John Manley Award as a senior for his work in the weight room. He had 44 tackles including four for a loss in his final season and should have won All-Ivy recognition. I remember a couple of years back talking with a coach who said Derham was the kind of kid who, with a redshirt season to get bigger and stronger, would have had a shot at pro football. He got his first shot last spring playing Arena2 ball and, after working hard and sticking with it, has earned a chance to impress NFL scouts overseas. ... The note below about a possible recruit from wonderfully named Muleshoe, Texas, elicited an email from a subscriber who pointed out that the Big Green has already had one pretty fair player from the West Texas town. That would be Joe Adams '70, an All- Ivy defensive back and honorable-mention All-American in 1969. ... And finally this: The Amazon.com Honor Page "tip jar" above is working again. Apparently I broke the link a few weeks back and never noticed because, well, because it's never been particularly active anyway. I must admit I feel a little guilty putting it up there, but that guilt is offset by the fact that I put way too much time into digging this stuff up. ;-)

9:30 a.m. Heading to Dartmouth according to a family source is Florida's Pete Pidermann of Miami's Belen Jesuit, a 5-foot-11, 173-pound defensive back who was named to the Florida Class 3A All-State first team. Pidermann played in the Nike Broward-Dade All-Star game and was named to the Miami Herald All-County team. He ran for 1,064 yards this year with 14 touchdowns. Defensively he picked off three passes. He also competes in the hurdles, triple jump and long jump in track. ...The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Pine-Richland linebacker Phil McKeating has made a verbal commitment to play for the Big Green. McKeating transferred to the school from Pittsburgh's Central Catholic. ... According to the Clovis, N.M., newspaper, Dartmouth is still in the hunt for a running back-linebacker named Brady Black of Muleshoe, Texas. Black is 6-foot, 205 pounds and on the Class 3A all-state first team as a linebacker and second team as a running back. ... Muleshoe, by the way, was a favorite reference point for former Dartmouth athletic director Dick Jaeger. Invariably, whenever he spoke about how Dartmouth recruited far and wide, Dick would bring up Muleshoe. ... Also of note today, will Steelers coach Bill Cowher be watching the Princeton women's basketball team try to keep pace with Dartmouth atop the Ivy League standings this weekend? Uh, probably not. ;-) But don't completely rule out the idea of him showing up when the Tigers are at the Berry Center on Feb. 24. ... For another accounting of Seahawk linebacker (and Harvard grad) Isaiah Kacyvenski and his amazing life story, click here. ... And finally, a disturbing story from the Scripps Howard News Service about a possible outcome of football players becoming bigger and bigger. Here's the "lede": "The amazing athletes of the National Football League -- bigger and stronger than ever before -- are dying young at a rate experts find alarming, and many of the players are succumbing to ailments typically related to weight."



The full JANUARY BLOG has been archived here.

To receive a PDF file with 280 pages of Green Alert stories detailing the 2005 season, send an email to bruce.b.wood@psualum.com