Is Fiedler a Good Fit for the Pats?

Patriots Football Weekly has an intelligent, no-holds-barred look at candidates to back up Tom Brady as the team's No. 2 quarterback. The publication says Dartmouth's Jay Fiedler appears to be the "logical choice if he's healthy." Find the story here.

More on Paulson

You've got to believe those who spoke up about football's place at Dartmouth when all heck broke loose a while back are feeling a little smug these days. On the one hand, they can point to former lineman Jeff Immelt '78, the CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Electric. On the other they can point to Hank Paulson, President Bush's choice to be treasury secretary. Among the stories about Paulson that make reference to his Dartmouth football career is this one from the Financial Times that notes: "While playing American football at Dartmouth college in the late 1960s, Hank Paulson '68 earned the nickname 'Hank the Hammer' for his bruising style of play." The New York Times and Business Times are among other publications that note his football background.

After too many losses as an Ivy Leaguer, Columbia graduate Jeff Otis helped quarterback the Frankfurt Galaxy to the World Bowl title over the Amsterdam Admirals. Said Otis: “It’s great. You couldn’t end a season any better. You make it to the last game, and you don’t want to go home a loser. We got it done today, and we’re not going to go home losers. We’re going to go home champs.”

Looks as if there will be another potential out-of-region opponent for Dartmouth to consider if it ever gets a little breathing room in its schedule. Old Dominion will be starting football at the I-AA level in 2009.

From the O-Line to Treasury Secretary?

Pay attention now. Here's what it says in Buddy Teevens' bio:

Teevens holds the Robert L. Blackman Endowed Coaching Position, named in memory of Bob Blackman, who coached Dartmouth from 1955 to 1970, and created through the gift of Henry M. (Hank) Paulson '68, an outstanding offensive tackle who played for Blackman from 1965-67.

Close followers of Dartmouth football with institutional memory will certainly recognize the name Hank Paulson. Those who don't may know the name Henry Paulson -- and if they don't, they soon will. That's because Paulson, the Goldman Sachs chariman, has been announced as President Bush's choice to replace outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow.

From President Bush's quotes on Paulson:

"He went to college at Dartmouth. He starred on the field as an All-Ivy football player and in the classroom as a Phi Beta Kappa student."

... The father of former Dartmouth football and basketball player Justin Whisenant '01, who gets a quick mention in this story, is believed to be a finalist to be the next head coach of the Sacramento Kings.

Lyons Enjoys Second Year in NFL Europe

It's no secret that some days it's a bit of a stretch finding material to keep the Blog going. Thankfully, this isn't one of those days.

First, the Manchester Union Leader catches up with former Dartmouth head coach John Lyons for a look at his two years as an assistant coach in NFL Europe. Judging by the following quote, it sounds as if JL wouldn't mind heading back to Europe next spring:

"I want to go back to the school and sit down with the headmaster, Mike Schafer, and figure out what I'm going to. He didn't stand in my way when I wanted to come over here. We'll see what happens next year. I'd like to win a World Bowl (championship) ring."

Prompted by the Steelers' signing of free agent rookie tight end Jon Dekker of Princeton, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review takes a look at Ivy Leaguers and the NFL. I might debate the idea that Columbia's Marcellus Wiley is reponsible for the "modern-day Ivy League revival" but the story is well worth reading. (Although it mentions Jay Fiedler, Carolina fullback Casey Cramer is not mentioned.)

I'd be remiss if I didn't post a link to a Penn State football story that has at least some relevance as Dartmouth starts to rebuild its football tradition. From a story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Applications for all (Penn State) campuses are up by 12.3 percent compared to this same time last year," (university President Graham) Spanier told the board, which met that March 17 in a conference room atop Pittsburgh's Omni William Penn Hotel.

"Undergraduate applications are up 13.2 percent. Graduate applications are up 11.7 percent. This is a record-setting year for us in both areas."

Someone then asked Spanier to explain the dramatic increase.

"It probably didn't hurt," he said, "that we ranked third in the nation in football."

According to the Penn State's manager of trademark licensing, "licensees reported a first-quarter increase of more than 40 percent compared with the same period last year." I plead innocent. Yes, my kids spent a few dollars on things blue and white when we were out there (I have a new hat and sweatshirt as well) but that wasn't in the first quarter ;-). Look for the trend to continue strongly in the second quarter.

If you aren't too lacrossed-out yet, the Daily D has a couple of stories on the women's national championship game. There's a game story here and a sidebar here.

Of Wildcats and Northwestern ...

We'll get to Dartmouth's tough 7-4 loss in the NCAA women's lacrosse championship game in a bit. First, are you ready for some football? Today's Manchester Union Leader has a nice piece on Big Green opponent New Hampshire, which opens up Sept. 9 against Northwestern in a battle of Wildcats. UNH, by the way, was voted No. 1 in the nation by Lindy's magazine and No. 2 by Any Given Sunday.

Still on football ... The New York Football Giants (as we used to call them) seem to blow hot and cold about signing Jay Fiedler. Read what the Newark Star-Ledger has to say.

Now for that lacrosse. Dartmouth gave it a good shot, carrying a one-goal lead into the second half of yesterday's hard-fought national championship game. In the final analysis, however, Northwestern defended its title by, well, by defending the Big Green. A Dartmouth team averaging 26 shots per game was limited to 10 by the Wildcats, who combined an aggressive defense with a passive offense that kept the ball out of Dartmouth's hands. Here's the Boston Globe story. The Dartmouth recap is here. ... Among those in the record attendance of 5,684: Dartmouth President James Wright and wife Susan. I know they were there because I saw them, but ... even if I hadn't seen them I would have known they were there because my wife told me after the game she lent them her sunscreen. ;-)

It Could Be "D" Day in Boston

It has taken a while to sort through the specifics, but here they are: For as successful as they have been, no Dartmouth women's team has won an NCAA-sanctioned national title. The Big Green gets the chance today at noon in Boston when it plays defending champion Northwestern for the title in women's lacrosse. If you get CSTV you can watch the game live. I'll be there on assignment. ... A couple of tidbits quoted from a Dartmouth release:

• Dartmouth and Northwestern have faced off six times since 1983, and the Wildcats lead the series, 5-1.
• All games have been at neutral sites, including last year's matchup that the Wildcats won, 8-4, in the NCAA semifinal at Navy.

Also according to the Dartmouth sports information office, Dartmouth is bidding for its fifth NCAA-sanctioned national title. The others:

• golf in 1921
• football in 1925
• skiing in 1958 and 1976.

More from Dartmouth: "There have been other national banners -- 21 in all -- but the only women's were the AIAW Ski Championship in 1977 and ICSA sailing titles in 2000 and 2002."

Sophomore cross country skiing and track standout Ben True qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field National Championship by finishing second in the 1500 meters at the NCAA East Regional Meet in North Carolina in a time of 3:52.75. The NCAA's are slated for June 7-10 in Sacramento. True is a terrifically talented and unassuming kid who, to reach his full potential, might have to choose one sport over another before long. Here's a story I wrote about him last year.

Dartmouth On Brink of Rare National Championship

Thanks to a 14-8 victory over Notre Dame last night, the Dartmouth women's lacrosse team will play Northwestern tomorrow for the national championship and a page in the college history books. (It appears I'll be at the game down at Boston University on assignment.) From the release about the win over the Fighting Irish:

In the history of Dartmouth athletics, Big Green teams have won only four recognized, NCAA-sanctioned titles -- golf in 1921, football in 1925 and skiing in 1958 and 1976. There have been other national banners -- 21 in all -- but the only women's was the AIAW Ski Championship in 1977.

Former tailback Ikechi Ogbonna competed in the hurdles at the NCAA regional track championships in Greensboro, N.C., but did not make it to the finals. Two other Dartmouth athletes did qualify including ski/run phenom Ben True, who was second in his heat in the 1,500.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story on what it considers five of the top candidates to be the next commissioner of the NFL. Four of the five have Ivy League degrees including Reggie Williams, the former Dartmouth and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker.

Remember a week ago when it seemed to be a slam dunk that if he were healthy, Jay Fiedler would be the backup quarterback for the New York Giants next fall? It could still happen, but the odds got a little longer when the team signed Rob Johnson yesterday. From the New York Daily News:

The Giants made no secret of their desire to add a veteran quarterback - Accorsi previously expressed interest in Jay Fiedler, who is coming off shoulder surgery - but the acquisition of Johnson comes as a surprise, considering his recent history. He spent the past two years working in California at Camp Quarterback, which is run by his father.

The New York Post summarized the race to back up Eli Manning this way:

Johnson's addition gives the Giants four backups behind Eli Manning. He joins Tim Hasselbeck, Jared Lorenzen and Josh Harris. The Giants also are interested in Jay Fiedler once he recovers from the shoulder injury he suffered last season with the Jets. Fiedler also played for Coughlin in Jacksonville.

Putting a Number on Facilities Improvements

The Dartmouth Review last week ran an overview of the improvements in Dartmouth athletic facilities in recent years. Anyone who has been around Hanover knows there's an unbelievable amount of construction going on at the college as a whole and on the athletic front in particular these days. Just how much work has been done or is about to be started? Here's something eye-popping college president Jim Wright said May 19 in his remarks to the Dartmouth Alumni Council:

"If we look back over the improvements made over the past seven years and include also the work planned on the varsity house and the new soccer facility, we will have spent well over $70 million on athletic facilities and just about every part of the athletic program will have seen improvements."

Thanks to a subscriber for alerting us that the Ivy League Football Association has donated $50,000 to the National Football Foundation's Play It Smart Program. According to an NFF release, "Play It Smart trains 'academic' coaches to work with high school football teams in underserved areas during the entire school year, taking the transferable life skills learned on the field and applying them in the classroom and the community."

For its graduation edition, the Brown Daily Herald included a story about the turnaround of Brown athletics that came about during the tenure of the graduating seniors, notably those who played football. The Brown seniors started their college careers by losing their first eight games. They finished it as members of the first Brown team ever to win the Ivy League title outright. Every Dartmouth player hopes to some day echo these remarks from Brown tri-captain Jamie Gasparella:

"As more time passes, the significance of what we accomplished, on and off the field this season, has sunk in more. Being a part of the team that helped restore Brown's strong tradition of success was a goal of the whole team, but especially the senior class."

Matt Dougherty at The Sports Network ranks the I-AA quarterbacks heading into the 2006 season. Not surprisingly, Dartmouth will have to try to stop the QB that Dougherty has ranked as No. 1 in the nation: Ricky Santos. All the rising junior has done with two full years still remaining is throw for more than 7,000 passing yards and 70 touchdowns.

Penn Lists Recruits; Harvard Frosh Bios Up

Penn is the latest school to post its class of incoming recruits. Find the list and a quick blurb here. UPDATE: Harvard's list can be culled from the Crimson's 2006 roster found here. An added bonus: Click on the players listed as freshmen and their bios are already up. That leaves Brown and Harvard as the final two schools to release their lists as the last school to release its list.

Catching Up With Zack Walz

Work continued Wednesday on Memorial Field, including on the east stands. (Click photos to enlarge)

The Arizona Republic's azcentral.com site has a "Catching Up" feature on former Dartmouth and Arizona Cardinals linebacker Zack Walz. Now 30 and still living in the Valley of the Sun, Zack continues working with his company Interactive Sports Profiles, which helps connect athletes and colleges. I wrote a story about Zack's business about a year and a half ago that can be found here. Newcomers may not know that Zack was Pat Tillman's roommate in the pros. After Tillman died, I spoke with Zack and wrote this story.

This morning's newspaper has a story about the sale of the Norwich Inn, which it refers to as a "27-room landmark." The buyer: Joe Lavin, a former senior vice president of franchising for Marriott ... and the father of former Dartmouth placekicker Tyler Lavin '05. Lavin shares the Dartmouth record with four field goals in a game and is the only kicker in school history to hit more than one field goal of 50 or more yards. (He had three: 52, 51 and 50 yards). He probably would have had another one or two but he was injured most of his senior year when he did not make a single field goal.

In a Philadelphia Inquirer story about former Penn wide receiver Rob Milanese it mentions that he and Dartmouth grad Brian Mann were the only Ivy League players in the Arena League this year.

He's been mentioned before on the Blog, but today's Boston Globe has a full story about a two-sport captain and decorated offensive lineman coming to Dartmouth but not playing football.

A subscriber sent along a link to The New Yorker review of Game Theory, which tries to do for basketball what Moneyball did for baseball.

Today's Daily Dartmouth has a story about a former Dartmouth baseball player who won a charity drop-kicking contest with Doug Flutie.

Dartmouth Student Assembly Approves Dropping Playoff Ban

Hidden deep in a story in today's Daily Dartmouth about the final meeting of the year: The Student Assembly took up the football playoff issue:

The Resolution to End Ivy League Ban on Football Postseason, which is similar to the one recently approved by the Ivy Council, was also approved last night.

It's a small step, but it's a step.

Names in the News

Incoming tight end Carroll Papajohn gets a mention in this, uh, column in the Gulf Breeze News. ... The Dartmouth Review had a very interesting Q&A with Athletic Director Josie Harper earlier this month. Commenting on the dynamic of a woman athletic director at a school that long has taken football seriously, Harper said:

I’ve had alums saying, “Oh my god, we can’t win in football, and now we’ve got a woman AD.” And I basically said, “Okay, so who was in charge before me?” I said as long as John, at that point in time, doesn’t send a note, “Josie, it’s third and ten, what do we do?” I think we’re okay. My job was, and my job is, to get every resource we can and to make sure we hire the best possible people. It’s not my job to coach soccer. It’s my job to provide the resources so the coaches can be successful.

The Review also has a scattershot review of Chris Lincoln's book, Playing the Game. Hard to tell whether the reviewer liked the book or not, although the writer does pay it this somewhat backhanded compliment:

"... (T)he focus of Playing the Game is not tight prose. It effectively achieves what it sets out to do—provide insight into the world of Ivy League athletic recruitment. Lincoln examines each facet of the complex and shadowy process, from initial scouting to financial aid offers to academic regulations."

Former Dartmouth football player and Olympic shotput silver medalist Adam Nelson talked a little about his days on the gridiron in this story for the Eugene Register-Guard in advance of Sunday's 32nd Prefontaine Meet. (Could it possibly be the 32nd annual?) From the story:

Once a linebacker at Dartmouth, he was moved to defensive tackle because "as my butt got bigger, they moved me closer to the line.
"I'd like to think I could've made it in football," said Nelson, long interested in theater, "but as an offensive lineman, I'd be hard-pressed to find a spot at 6 foot and 255 pounds. Wish I had their paychecks, though."

It's not football, but it is Ivy League athletics: If you have the time, be sure to read this lengthy story about recent Penn graduate Friedrich Ebede, a former Penn basketball player who escaped Cameroon when his father became a political prisoner:

"With sweat rolling down his cheeks and his heart about to leap out of his chest, he headed to a plane at the airport in Douala. His passport had his photo, but bore the name of another man."

Minnesota Recruit Stars on Track

It's easy to underestimate what's left of the visiting stands. Before you do, check out the size of the stands in relation to the dump truck in a picture shot Monday. (Click on photo to enlarge)

---

Incoming recruit Tony Pastoors of Minnesota helped Totino-Grace to its first Class 2A state track title by winning the 400 meters and anchoring the 4x400 relay. He's quoted in this Minneapolis Star Tribune story. The defensive back/quarterback/athlete has been named to the roster for the "Metro" team in the 2006 Minnesota High School All-Star Football Game to be played June 24 at St. Cloud State University.

The New York Giants' interest in Jay Fiedler is apparently quite real. This New York Post story (with a nice photo) includes this quote: "When the time comes, we'll work him out," GM Ernie Accorsi said yesterday. "We're interested in him."

The Any Given Saturday Division I-AA poll, which "has been the first released national poll each year since it's inception in 2004" has UNH second and Colgate, Harvard, Penn and Brown all receiving votes.

Any Given Saturday Poll Preseason Top 25
(First place votes in parenthesis; Dartmouth opponents boldfaced)
1. Appalachian State (45)
2. New Hampshire (31)
3. Northern Iowa (7)
4. Montana (2)
5. Furman (2)
6. Cal Poly
7. Youngstown State
8. James Madison (2)
9. Illinois State
10. Delaware
11. McNeese State
12. North Dakota State (1)
13. Georgia Southern
14. Massachusetts
15. Eastern Illinois
16. Hampton
17. Southern Illinois
18. Coastal Carolina
19. Montana State
20. UC Davis
21. Texas State
22. Nicholls State
23. Eastern Washington
24. Eastern Kentucky
25. Richmond

Others receiving votes (minimum of 5 votes): Lafayette (56), Western Kentucky (47), Colgate (46), Lehigh (45), Grambling (44), Idaho State (43), South Carolina State (43), Harvard (29), Portland State (24), Northwestern State (22), William & Mary (21), Hofstra (17), Jacksonville State (17), Weber State (17), Western Carolina (14), Maine (10), Sam Houston State (10), Brown (9), Southern University (9), South Dakota State (8), Wofford (7), Penn (6), Missouri State (5), Towson (5), Villanova (5)

Dartmouth has released its list of men's basketball recruits and notable among them is a junior college transfer, 6-foot-9 center Kurt Graeber of Fullerton College. Graeber walked on at Arizona State but left for Fullerton when he realized he'd made a mistake. A top prep student and player, he was an Ivy League recruiting target coming out of high school. While junior college transfers aren't unheard of in the Ivy League (Cornell has had a number in basketball, Columbia in football and I even remember one at Harvard) they are extremely rare at Dartmouth. The last I can remember was a quarterback who started his career at Colorado State, transferred to a California juco and then made his way to Dartmouth. It's doubtful Graeber's admission signals any kind of admissions shift in Hanover, but he's an interesting story -- and pretty good player from what I hear.

Loyola Keeps Turning Out Ivy Leaguers

Incoming offensive lineman Jonathan Summers is one of a handful of track athletes at Loyola High School of Los Angeles headed to Ivy League schools. Another is set for Stanford. Dartmouth already has two Loyola products on the field in safeties Ian Wilson and Casey Frost. Senior Joe Killefer, a tight end until this fall, also came out of the Loyola program. What gives? The LA Times takes a look. ...

Speaking of college admissions, the New York Times has been following the athletic recruiting dance at Pennsylvania's Haverford College all year. The latest story in the series shares how things turned out. It's an interesting read including bits about the athlete who surprised Haverford by announcing she was going to Harvard ("her advisers had said it would be 'virtually suicidal' to disclose that she had applied to Harvard because it would demonstrate a lack of interest in Haverford") and another who was turned down by Haverford but accepted by Brown.

PHOTO: I was on campus doing some work most of the day yesterday and when the sun finally came out in early evening Baker Tower glowed against a dark and threatening sky. It was too good a picture to pass up.

Boston Herald Questions Interest in Fiedler

The Patriots: Are they, or aren't they interested in signing Jay Fiedler as a backup to Tom Brady? Should they, or shouldn't they? The Boston Herald tackles the subject here.

Memorial Field Update II

With work progressing nicely on the renovation of Memorial Field an audible has been called. The original plans called for the scoreboard to be moved this summer from in front of Davis Varsity house to the other end of the field, behind the south end zone. A change in plans will see the scoreboard remain in place for one more year and a new board erected behind the south end zone that will be unveiled at the same time as the new varsity house a year from now.

The reason? The old board (which isn't all that old because I remember doing a story about it going up perhaps 10 years ago) uses light bulbs. Lot of 'em. Newer, more efficient boards, use LED technology. By holding off for a year, the college will have a greater window to explore the new technologies -- and perhaps gift opportunities -- that would allow for a better board. (Coach Buddy Teevens has said in the past he'd like to get a board with video capabilities similar to the boards at Columbia and Penn and those don't come cheaply. While that may be a long shot, you never know ... .)

The rains let up yesterday, allowing the Dartmouth women's lacrosse team to post a 7-6 win over Princeton in the NCAA Tournament and advance to the national Final Four.

Dartmouth Hosts National High School Rugby Championships

High Schoolers reached for a national rugby championship Saturday at Dartmouth.
(Kelly Wood photograph)
The crowd wound along the sideline and onto the bank behind the end zone.
(Kelly Wood photograph)

After our Little League team (the 6-1 Green Machine by the way) finished up an "exhibition" doubleheader sweep, we headed over to the rugby field to catch the final game of the national high school national championships. It was quite a show at an impressive facility. I said this before, but if you come to town, be sure to take a drive by the Corey Ford rugby clubhouse and fields.

Memorial Field Update

Memorial Field is a mess these days and that's a good thing. For this photo (courtesy of Dartmouth) and other views, click here.

I was able to track down a little more information on the FieldTurf installation at Memorial Field. The surface that will be put down is next generation "reinforced spine" monofilament. I don't know exactly what that means and the FieldTurf site didn't offer much in the way of explanation -- that I could find. Apparently, this particular turf has been installed in only a handful of facilities to date. Two of them are high schools in Mesquite, Texas, where Dartmouth representatives had a chance to inspect the surface. Here's a photo of one of the fields in Mesquite that doesn't give much insight to the field but gives a whole lot of insight to high school football in Texas. ;-)

Another note on the field tomorrow ...

Jay Fiedler is ranked as the second most-desirable quarterback remaining on the free agent market according to this scout.com analysis which concurs that the Giants and Patriots are two of his most ardent suitors.

Field Work Picks Up

All pictures taken Thursday, May 18, 2006.

ESPN.com has a terribly sad but important story on Kyle Ambrogi, the University of Pennsylvania tailback to who took his own life last fall. It's an important story for what it can help us learn about depression and how to identify it. It's a sad story because Ambrogi really did have everything to live for and somehow it wasn't enough. And it's sad because friends and family tried to help him, and at the end of the day there was nothing they could do. There's a video component with the story and a sidebar as well.

Dartmouth alumni (and others) may find the NCAA's statement on the College of William & Mary's nickname/mascot/imagery interesting. From the NCAA statement:

The NCAA staff review committee has included the College of William and Mary on the list of colleges and universities subject to restrictions on the use of Native American mascots, names and imagery at NCAA championships.

The staff review committee reviewed the College of William and Mary’s institutional self study and corresponding documents and determined that, based on the use of Native American feather imagery in conjunction with the nickname “Tribe,” the College of William and Mary should be included on the list of colleges and universities subject to the provisions of the policy.

From an interesting AP story:

When Grant Cochran graduates Saturday, a family tradition that has stretched over 17 years will come to an end.

He's the sixth brother in his family to travel the 2,350 miles from Kent, Wash., to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -- just across the Hudson River from Albany. Grant is also the last to play college football.

It's not about football and it's not about the Ivy League, but this Washington Post story about some of the nation's historically black colleges fielding baseball teams made up largely of white players is an interesting and provocative thought-provoking read. (Thanks to a subscriber for recommending it.) An accompanying graphic points out that 6.5 percent of students in the MEAC are white while 45 percent of the baseball players are white.

Five Years of College Football Discussed

Five years of college football? It probably won't happen but there's discussion among members of the American Football Coaches Association of eliminating redshirt seasons and instead giving college football players five years to play five full seasons as this story explains. The guess here is that Division I-AA would be part of that plan, but don't for a second think the Ivies would jump on board if this ever comes to pass. Not gonna happen.

UPDATE: I received an email that the link to the story about halftime at college football games possibly being cut from 20 to 15 minutes was dead. Here's the working link.

The high school rugby national championships are slated for this weekend at the beautiful new Dartmouth rugby facility. The Daily D has a comprehensive look at what's ahead. According to a subscriber, one of the teams coming this way has several players who will be looking at Dartmouth both for rugby and possibly football. ... Hopefully the rain will hold off, but the forecast is not good. After a brief respite yesterday that allowed us to get our Little League practice in, there's rain anticipated today and right through the weekend. We snuck a Little League game in between the rain drops and puddles Monday, but tonight's game could be problematic. This weekend's 3-Pitch Tournament has already been postponed, leaving us hoping the forecast is wrong and we can use the opening to make up a rainout from last Saturday. I love Seattle but I didn't know I lived there.

In 2000 the Dartmouth football team had promising 6-foot-4 freshman quarterback named Eddie Lucas. After a series of injuries he would have been the starter the next fall, but he wasn't even on the roster. The lanky shortstop had decided to focus on baseball in hopes of a professional career and that turned out to be the right decision. He was drafted out of Dartmouth in the eighth round by the Kansas City Royals and is now playing third base for the High Desert Mavericks in High-A ball. Switched to third base, he's batting .281 with 12 doubles, two homers and 18 RBI's in 33 games. After a slow start, he went 12-for-16 with two doubles, five RBI's and five runs scored in a recent torrid stretch. For a story about Lucas and how he made it from Dartmouth to pro ball, click here.

An email to the Fairbanks newspaper trying to learn a little more about Dusty Posey, the offensive lineman who will be heading to Dartmouth from Alaska next fall, resulted not only in Dusty getting a little ink, but yours truly as well. Check this link. Posey, by the way, has been selected as a Student-Athlete of the Month for Region 6 athletics in Alaska. As a result, he will be featured on the news and in commercials throughout June. He has served as the president of the Alaska Native Youth Leadership Club at West Valley High School in Fairbanks and recently placed second in the shot in the regionals to earn a berth at states. He'll bypass that in favor of a family graduation trip to Seward where whalewatching will be on the agenda.

Not every football all-star coming to Dartmouth intends to play the game. Click here to read about a high school standout who will be watching from the sidelines. ... Want to see something that drives Ivy League coaches crazy? This story in the St. Petersburg Times (a newspaper that should know better) talks about a quarterback who chose to play basketball at the Citadel instead of possibly playing QB at Dartmouth because Division III football didn't appeal to him.

Princeton's Dean Fred Still Enjoys the Games

UPDATE: Sunshine in the Upper Valley! The forecast is a little dicey and my son's 3-Pitch Little League Tournament this weekend could be in jeopardy, but at least the sun is shining now. Hooray!

There's an interesting story in the Daily Princetonian about a writer for the paper meeting retired Princeton Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon at a softball game. A revealing quote from the man the writer refers to as Dean Fred:

"Catching our teams in action never gets old for me. Perhaps that's because I treat each contest as an original short story to be savored. I share the participants' excitement when they win and their disappointment when they lose."

If you are in the Jay Fiedler Pool, trying to guess where the former Dartmouth quarterback will be carrying a clipboard next fall, the best bets at this point appear to be with the Giants or the Patriots. The Giants have expressed interest throughout and this story in the Newark Star-Ledger suggests that interest hasn't waned. The Patriots have been on the radar screen as well and Jay's agent, Brian Levy, suggests in this story that the interest is mutual. Says Levy:

"I know that over the years he and Belichick have had a nice respect and understanding of each other. Jay always enjoyed playing against the Patriots, because he never knew what they were going to throw at him."

That Division I-AA postseason game between a team from the Northeast Conference and one from the Pioneer Football League is now official. A two-year agreement has cleared the way for the new Gridiron Classic. San Diego won the Pioneer title last year while Stony Brook and Central Connecticut won the NEC. ...

Former Colgate star Jamaal Branch has been named NFL Europe Offensive Player of the Week after a big game running the football for the Cologne Centurions.

Fifth-Year Seniors Will Bolster Senior Class

Have you found yourself wondering what Memorial Field will look like this fall? I came across this post card from the mid-'60s that gives a feel for how it might look. If, as expected, the bleachers are put up in the end zone, the only real difference will be the small set up sideline bleachers at the end zone. Long-time followers of Dartmouth athletics will note Davis Rink in the upper right corner of the picture.

UPDATED at 10:30 a.m.
I promise not to tell Coach Teevens that one of his anticipated varsity receivers for this fall caught a touchdown pass playing flag football in a muddy fundraiser on Memorial Field. Just hope he doesn't read this story in The D. ;-))

A Conversation with Buddy Teevens
I had a chance to sit with Buddy Teevens last week to talk about the status of the Dartmouth program as he looks ahead to next fall. Periodically in the next several weeks I'll post snippets from our conversation. Today he talks about having a handful of fifth-year seniors returning in wide receiver Ryan Fuselier, tailback Jason Bash, offensive lineman Mike Shannon and defensive linemen Mike Rabil and Brian Osimiri:

“I take it as a tribute to our program that the experience they had was such that they want to continue academically as well as athletically. From a coaching standpoint you come in and initiate a lot of change. You think you know where it’s going but you never really know the impact it has on an 18- to 22-year-old guy. To have a number of fifth-year players decide, despite the lack of success in recent years, that they see good things happening is a tribute to them and to our coaching staff. We have a small senior class, relatively speaking, so what we have are guys who have been through hard times and are firm in their resolve to change the face of Dartmouth football.”

With the retirement of Doug Flutie, Jay Fiedler's name is being bandied about in Patriots Nation as one of the potential backups for Tom Brady. The Boston Globe and Providence Journal both brought him up. Strangely, Jay figures in the lead of this story in Poker News. (I don't even know how to play poker, but does Green Alert search high and low for this stuff or what? :-)

Finally this: When the NCAA Football Rules Committee suggested schools have the option to cut halftime from 20 minutes to 15, not everyone was pleased as this story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted.

Support the Green Alert Blog! Non-subscribers: If you enjoy visiting the Blog (and the site meter suggests a lot of you do) please consider tossing something into the GREEN ALERT TIP JAR. I put a lot of time and effort into digging up material for this site, which has had postings every single day since the beginning of last August, Christmas and Thanksgiving included. Move over Cal Ripken! ... Anyway, I'd kind of hoped that non-subscribers who appreciated being able to access the Blog (and get full coverage of spring football) for free might drop a few shekels into the jar, but alas the only noise it has made in several months was when I convinced my mother to toss a fiver into it to see if it was working. (The good news is she let me keep it!) If you are so inclined, click on the link above and help keep us in dogfood. (You can even do it anonymously if you'd like.)

Dig This

The bulldozers were out in force on Memorial Field Monday, right on schedule. Three of them were tearing up the track in anticipation of both a new track and the installation of FieldTurf.

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Lyons' Defense Taking Charge

It's been raining for days here in the Upper Valley and the forecast is for rain all week. This is a usually small waterfall on the winding road up our mountain.

Update: Missed this one the first time around. Here's a link to a lengthy Hartford Courant story on new Columbia football coach Norries Wilson. Sounds impressive.

Lyons Gets it Going
Former Dartmouth coach John Lyons is having some fun these days as defensive coordinator of NFL Europe's Cologne Centurions. Here's how a writer started his preview for yesterday's game: "With Cologne’s defense playing at arguably the highest level in NFL Europe ..." Turns out, the writer was spot on. The Centurions went on to a 25-7 victory over the Berlin Thunder, eliciting these quotes from Lyons in a story on nfleurope.com:

“We certainly have been getting a great deal of pressure from our defensive line, and part of that has to do with our secondary forcing (opposing) quarterbacks to pull the ball back down sometimes. If we continue to both pressure the quarterback and cover well in the secondary, we will be tough to beat. ...

“Things have been going well for our defense these last two weeks, and we need to continue to build on that. The guys need to keep playing the same way they have been, because we are playing really hard and with a lot of confidence defensively.”

Hmm. "We will be tough to beat." JL didn't throw many quotes like that my way, even in 1996 when the Big Green went 10-0.

After trying to stop Jamaal Branch as head coach at Dartmouth, Lyons was cheering him on as he ran for 124 yards with the Centurions.

The Los Angeles Avengers wrapped up their Arena League season yesterday with a win over Las Vegas. Brian Mann again had to watch Sonny Cumbie start and play well at quarterback once again. Brian did catch a pass for two yards. ;-). Digging through the stats, I've found that Brian's 14 total tackles on special teams rank ninth on the squad in overall tackles, which seems pretty remarkable for a quarterback.

An Interested Onlooker

Happy Mother's Day!

One of the interested onlookers at the Dartmouth Green and White scrimmage last week was Kevin Demoff '99, who is finishing up classes at Tuck. Kevin, who helped open the door for Brian Mann when he was general manager of the Los Angeles Avengers, will be going to work for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after he collects his MBA in June. Several years ago I wrote this story about Kevin, who wrote for the Daily Dartmouth and did color commentary for football radio broadcasts as an undergrad.

Speaking of Brian Mann, there was this in the latest Avengers game notes: "QB Brian Mann, who started three of the first four games for the Avengers this season, is now the backup and is contributing significantly on special teams, having made 14.5 tackles on kickoff coverage in recent weeks (No. 7 in the AFL)." I'm not quite sure what he's No. 7 in (tackles on kickoff coverage?) but it sounds good. I'm sure BMann would rather be avoiding tackles than making them, but it doesn't surprise me that he's found a way to contribute. ...

Like Princeton last fall and Dartmouth this spring/summer) William & Mary is installling a FieldTurf surface. For a blurb about what's going on a W&M, click here. I'll be shooting photos periodically of the work at Memorial Field but, if these photos from William & Mary are any indication, there will be a lot of pix of dirt before there's anything really interesting. ...

Matt Dougherty writes in his Sports Network column about the importance of the nonconference schedule for schools with postseason hopes. Sadly, the only Ivy mention is about Ivy schools as the opponents of schools with postseason aspirations. All the noise that had been building for the Ivies to be allowed to go to the postseason appears to be quieting down. ... Dougherty also suggests the UNH-Northwestern game could be a shootout. I've been thinking the same thing myself.

Nice Note on a '10 Coming from Alaska

I just found a very nice anecdote about incoming walk-on Dustin Posey, a lineman from Fairbanks, AK., in a year-old copy of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I had a chance to meet Dusty on the sidelines of a Dartmouth practice a couple of weeks ago when he was visiting campus and he was deciding where to go to school. He seemed like a nice kid and after reading this I'm sure he'll be a nice addition to the Dartmouth football "family."

Around the Ivy

Dartmouth named Mike Rabil and Preston Copley captains last week. Just announcing their captains are Brown and Penn. Released earlier were names of Columbia's captains. Harvard made its selection public at its season-ending banquet....

Driving by Memorial Field late in the week there's a piece of heavy equipment (don't ask me if it's a front-end loader or a bulldozer 'cause I won't be any help) that has dug up a pile of blacktop behind the south end zone. That's the first sign of Stage II of the Memorial Field project. The original word a couple of months ago was that "the bulldozers would be lined up" to start work on May 15 -- Monday -- with the conclusion of the track season. We'll see. I'm confident everything will be done in time for the season, but this morning's newspaper had a scary little tidbit out of nearby Hanover High School, which is installing its own turf field. Apparently delays over there mean they'll be opening their season back on the grass. Stuff happens. Hopefully it won't happen on the Dartmouth project.

Casey Cramer Anecdote

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Non-subscribers: If you enjoy visiting the Blog (and the site meter suggests a lot of you do) please consider tossing something into the GREEN ALERT TIP JAR. I put a lot of time and effort into digging up material for this site, which has had postings every single day since the beginning of last August, Christmas and Thanksgiving included. Move over Cal Ripken! ... Anyway, I'd kind of hoped that non-subscribers who appreciated being able to access the Blog (and get full coverage of spring football) for free might drop a few shekels into the jar, but alas the only noise it has made in several months was when I convinced my mother to toss a fiver into it to see if it was working. (The good news is she let me keep it!) If you are so inclined, click on the link above and help keep us in dogfood. (You can even do it anonymously if you'd like.)

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There's a wonderful Mother's Day anecdote featuring Casey Cramer on the Carolina Panthers' site. (There's also a photo of the former Dartmouth tight end there.) Don't miss this one.

Wandering through Alumni Gym this week I heard some interesting news out of the Dartmouth women's basketball program. Among the teams heading to Hanover next winter for the annual holiday tournament will be perennial national powerhouse Duke. Don't be surprised if Dartmouth and Duke play in the opening round of the tournament. While it will make it awfully hard for the Big Green to advance to the championship game of its own event, a chance to play the Dookies might be (will be) too hard to pass up. ... A couple of other women's basketball tidbits: Coach Chris Wielgus' Big Green has been invited for the first time to the preseason NIT. Also, the season-opener will be at Vanderbilt. It sounds as if the two-time defending Ivy League champions are going to have quite the non-conference schedule next winter.

Four Other Schools Release Recruit Lists

Over the past few years the Ivy League office compiled and released the full conference football recruiting list in one fell swoop. This spring individual the schools are releasing their own lists. Four schools in addition to Dartmouth have released their lists. You can find them by clicking on the school names:

• Columbia
• Cornell
• Princeton
• Yale

Outstanding Recruit Video Now Up

The video of incoming recruits on the Dartmouth web site is now available as a Windows Media Player file that even Mac-centric me could watch. Here's the best news, the picture is almost the size of your computer screen as opposed to the other versions.

I watched the whole thing (it takes a long time to load on my connection but it is well worth it) and while I'm loathe to single any of the recruits out, do watch for 6-2, 290 offensive lineman Alex Stonehouse's pancake blocks. Oh my.

Cato, Mann Teams Square Off In Arena League

UPDATED 10:15 a.m. Former teammates Derham Cato '05 and Brian Mann '03 were on opposing rosters last weekend when the Los Angeles Avengers defeated the Nashville Kats, 73-56, in Arena Football League action. Mann, who opened the season as the Avengers' starting quarterback, has relinquished the role to Sonny Cumbie, a strong choice for AFL Rookie of the Year. Cato, who played last spring for the Manchester Wolves in AF2 and then went to camp with the NFL Europe's Frankfurt Galaxy, was signed May 4 to the Kats' practice squad.

Ben Brielmaier, a 6-4, 310 offensive lineman from Princeton, survived the Cleveland Browns' first free agent camp. The Daily Princetonian writes: "The offensive lineman had a stellar performance at the camp and ended his weekend by signing a contract with the team. He edged out two other Ivy linemen, Harvard's Will Johnson and Yale's Rory Hennessey ..."

Jeff Immelt '78 on the Role of Sports In Learning and Leadership

A subscriber sent along the following excerpt from a Wall Street Journal interview with Jeff Immelt '78, Chair and CEO of the General Electric Corporation and a former Dartmouth football player.

How valuable is sports as a laboratory for learning and leadership? You played football in college at Dartmouth. If you think back to your own development as a leader, what role did sports play for you?

"I think it's huge. Sports combine a bunch of important things. It's about competitiveness; it's about teamwork; it's about knowing when to lead and when to follow; and it's about dealing with both success and failure.

I think competitive, collaborative activities, of which sports is a good example, all help shape very important skill sets for the business world. We look for people who have had teaming kind of events -- such as the military, sports, or theater -- activities that have forced people into group situations and made them learn how to collaborate and compete."

Friends of Football Golf
The Dartmouth Friends of Football Golf Classic is set for June 17. The following message went out from the organizers yesterday regarding the event:

Excitement is building for the 9th Annual Friends
of Football Golf Classic on June 17th at the Hanover CC.

By this time you should have received your invitation in
the mail, so don’t hesitate any longer--fill it out and
send it in. We especially hope that all former players who
will be in town for their Reunions will grab a foursome
and join us.

As in the past, our sponsors have been very generous, but
we still have four (4) major sponsorships remaining
including the Tournament Sponsor at $5,000. Tee and green
sponsorships are also available at $500 and $250. So team
up with some classmates and become a sponsor. The gift is
tax deductible and the money will be well spent by the
football program!!

We have already received some exciting raffle and
auction prizes, including golf at some fine country clubs
including the site of this years U.S. Open-Winged Foot.
We also will be raffling off two (2) tickets to this years
baseball All Star game in Pittsburgh including receptions
and tickets to the Home Run Derby, a fishing trip off Long
Island Sound, Red Sox tickets and much more! If you have
a vacation home, tickets to an event, or something you can
donate to help raise money please let us know!!

We are trying to surpass last year’s record
attendance of 108 golfers so don’t wait to sign up! I will
be ordering some excellent food and beverages soon so I
need to know that you are going to be in Hanover! ...

For the printable brochure and entrance form, click here.

Roster to Swell with Walk-Ons

Add a few more names to Dartmouth's preseason roster for next fall as at least three incoming freshmen and a rising sophomore have indicated they want to walk on to the team. The rising soph, who went through spring practice and played in the Green-White scrimmage, is Nicholas Danford, a 5-foot-9, 180-pound safety from Rollinsford, N.H., and St. Thomas Aquinas H.S.. (bio information). Incoming freshman Dan Koh of Port Washington, N.Y., was nominated for the High School Heisman. As a football, basketball and lacrosse player he received the Citibank News 12 Long Island Scholar-Athlete Achievement Recognition Award. In a win over Hicksville last fall, the running quarterback had touchdown carries of 66, 40 and 4 yards while running for 190 yards on just 10 carries (link). Also headed Dartmouth's way are Dustin Posey, a 240-pound lineman from Fairbanks, AK, who previously lived in Mississippi and Michael Wu, a defensive lineman from the San Franciso Bay area.

The incoming recruit list has been posted with video clips of the recruits in action. Find them here.

Recruit List; Videos on Web Soon

Dartmouth recruits are up on the web with, get this, video highlights! Click here for a look. The videos are down for a bit as the delivery system is tweaked. Be sure to check back. What I saw in the initial dry run of the videos was impressive.

A Little More on the New Captains

The official Dartmouth release is out on new captains Mike Rabil and Preston Copley. Green Alert Take: Coach Buddy Teevens was pleased that a lot of players got votes for captain. It shows, he said, that the team has a lot of leaders. As I usually do, I tried to guess before the voting who would get the nod. Last year I correctly pegged Josh Dooley and Anthony Gargiulo. This year I had an inkling that Copley would be one of the two. Rabil was a bit of a surprise, not because he doesn't deserve it; he does. But because it's a little out of the ordinary for a fifth-year senior to be captain. I think the players chose well. I also like Coach Teevens' idea of electing representatives of each class to serve as liaisons to the coaching staff.

... Incoming recruit Jonathan Summers, who looked every bit of the 6-foot-5, 315 pounds he is listed at when he was in town from Los Angeles last weekend, has been named to the CalHiSports.com All-State Grid-Track Team. Find a capsule about Jonathan here. ... The Daily Dartmouth had a breakdown of this year's admissions and wrote, "women dominate the largest ever proportion of the incoming class at 51.6 percent with 35 more women currently planning to enroll than men." ... And for those of you who commiserated with me Saturday about missing my son's Little League game (I'm co-coaching the Hanover Green Machine) they apparently didn't miss me. They won 12-0 with my son hitting a homer, double and single in four trips. (Kind of sorry about missing his first HR, actually.) The Green Machine, by the way, improved to 4-0 last night with a showdown against the Hanover Maroon SeaWolves looming Thursday evening. ;-)

New Captain Comments

I had a chance to grab a few brief comments from newly elected captains Mike Rabil and Preston Copley immediately after Saturday's post-scrimmage barbecue.

Mike Rabil: "It hasn't really sunk in yet. There's so much tradition here that to be selected by my peers I'm at a loss for words. I'm excited. My main reason to come back (as a fifth-year senior) was so we could win, no personal accolades. I really want to turn this thing around. I'm really competitive and I think Coach Teevens has brought in a system that I want to be a part of as long as I can. Hopefully we can turn this thing around. It's all I'm really focused on."



Preston Copley: "I'm completely floored. It's such an honor. It's your dream as a kid just to play in college so this is just icing on the cake. It's absolutely amazing. It's a big responsibility. I'm glad the guys had faith in me. I'm going to do my best for the team, just like the others will. (Last year's captains) Josh Dooley and Anthony Gargiulo are not guys that come around every year. I know full well that those footsteps are there for me to follow. I'm just glad to have been on their team and have the chance to see how they led. It's their groundwork that has been laid."
(Photos courtesy of Dartmouth Sports Information)

The Daily Dartmouth has a recap of the Green-White in today's edition. For more photos and a parent's perspective on the afternoon, check out Sue Cummings' Dartmouth Football Parents News & Notes site. ... Former tailback Ray Rochester, now the Vermont Golden Gloves super heavyweight champion, scored an impressive knockout in Fight Night at Dartmouth action over the weekend.

A couple of names to add to the growing list of Dartmouth opponents heading to pro camps in a bit: Princeton linebacker Justin Stull to the Redskins and Holy Cross utility back Steve Silva to the Buccaneers. ... A little more on the "Name Change that Wasn't" and another suggestion for what Division I-AA might be called. ... The UNH outlook is available if you dare. ... Here's a stunner: Colgate has put video of its incoming recruits up on the Raiders' football web site. If you've got a fast-enough connection, this can be kind of fun. Not many I-AA schools take publicizing their programs this seriously. I went straight to their tailback recruit to see who Dartmouth might be chasing for the next four years and he looked like a typical Colgate back. Tough to catch.

Honors Handed Out at Spring Game

At halftime of Saturday's Green-White scrimmage Coach Buddy Teevens grabbed a microphone and recognized a group of players who made significant gains in the weight room and another group featuring those deemed to be most improved by position.

Strength and Conditioning Gains
Linebacker Mike Whitticom
Linebacker Justin Cottrell
Offensive Lineman Jared Dowdakin
Linebacker Taylor Babcock
Linebacker Andrew Dete
Defensive End Malcolm Freberg
Wide Receiver Phil Galligan
Defensive End Rehan Muttalib
Corner Jason Reid
Safety Casey Frost
Kicker Erik Estabrook

Most Improved by Position
Offensive Lineman Mike Shannon
Offensive Lineman Lucius Alexander
Offensive Lineman Alex Rapp
Offensive Lineman Elliot Dial
Defensive Lineman Dan Cook
Defensive Lineman Malcolm Freberg
Defensive Lineman Max Copello
Defensive Lineman Rehan Muttalib
Running Back Hudson Smythe
Running Back Dan Siegfried
Fullback Ryan Mahoney
Tight End Don Bly
Linebacker Mike Whitticom
Quarterback Mike Fritz
Wide Receiver Sam McDonald
Wide Receiver Phil Galligan
Wide Receiver Zack Cable

(Note: Among the several players recognized both for strength/improvement gains and improved play is linebacker Mike Whitticom. One of the advantages I have doing this site is that I've been around long enough that I have what we used to call at the newspaper "institutional memory." It comes in handy, but occasionally it can cause a problem. Such is the case with Mike Whitticom. Because I've been around long enough to well remember his brother Jamie '96, I've been guilty a few times of calling the younger brother by the older brother's name. I think I'll get it right from here on. At least I hope so. Sorry, Mike ;-)

Michael Dougherty had 269 yards and two touchdowns passing and Derrick Knight had 78 yards and two touchdowns rushing in Brown's spring game in Providence Saturday. Green Alert Take: Isn't it nice to see a recap of a Brown contest and not see Nick Hartigan's name?

Uh oh. UNH quarterback Ricky Santos completed 20-of-22 passes including 17 straight in the Wildcats' spring game. Green Alert Take: It could be that the UNH defense is suspect but we all know better. With Santos and David Ball back the Wildcats will be a handful again next fall, even if the defense is only ordinary.

Green-White Scrimmage

UNOFFICIAL GREEN-WHITE STATS
Rushing
Jason Bash 11-58
Hudson Smythe 9-36
Mike Fritz 3-28, 1 TD
Tom Bennewitz 4-26
Milan Williams 4-23, 1 TD

Receiving
Phil Galligan 6-83, 1 TD
Ryan Fuselier 3-55, 1 TD
Jason Bash 3-28
Brendan Holm 1-15, 1TD

By Bruce Wood
www.biggreenalert.com

Hanover -- The goal, Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said on the eve of Saturday's Green-White scrimmage, was to turn his players loose in a game-like situation and see who made plays.

To his satisfaction, a lot of them did just that in the White team's 21-14 win over the Green, with wide receiver Phil Galligan pushing White quarterback Josh Cohen for the unofficial MVP award.

A 5-foot-11, 175-pound freshman from Moraga, Calif., caught six passes for 83 yards and the day's first score. Galligan, who did not catch a varsity pass last year but led the jayvees with 17 catches for 280 yards, also went the length of the field to chase down Casey Frost at the 1 after Frost had returned an interception 94 yards.

"Galligan did a great job," said Teevens. "I don't know how many he had but he had most of them. He had a lot of catches. He's got real good quickness. He moves around a lot. ...

"(He's) a great effort player. He's got some speed and quickness. ... He'll be a guy that will figure in. He really competed. We moved him up on the depth chart as time progressed and he'll be a guy who will challenge everybody in the fall."

Galligan deflected that kind of praise on his teammates. "With (Jason) Bash running so well (11 carries for 58 yards) it helped open up the pass. He did a great job. The quarterbacks looked good and we're looking pretty good at receiver, too. We had a lot of great plays by receivers."

Cohen, another competitor, was on field for just 13 snaps in the first half and 21 official snaps in the game. But after going three-and-out on his first three possessions, he helped the White team score touchdowns on the second three, finishing the day 9-for-12 for 124 yards with two TD's.

Tom Bennewitz and Mike Fritz shared QB duties for the White team, completing 16-of-26 throws for 177 yards and running for a combined 54.

"(They) made it a hell of a lot more competitive today in game situations," Teevens said of the quarterback derby. "Bennewitz, we saw that last year. Fritz had a broken thumb so we didn't have a chance to watch him a year ago. So there's three guys that executed offensively.

"The other two have got a little more mobility and they made some plays. From Josh's perspective, at the tail end he had to make a bunch of throws. We were a little conservative with him early on. A lot of runs and 3-and-out, 3-and-out. When we opened it up he made a few throws. There were a couple errant ones but he's good enough to make all those throws. They'll all be talking and all be amped up coming into the fall."

A couple of receivers who served notice they will be heard from were Ryan Fuselier, who caught three balls for 55 yards and one touchdown and fellow wideout Brendan Holm, who soared for a 15-yard TD pass.

"(Fuselier) has been very, very steady for us," said Teevens. "Giving what we were seeing defensively, some of the perimeter guys were more open than the interior guys. But as a big, tall guy, the 'Fargo' or the fade in the end zone was important -- to go up and get that. He blocked well as well. So a lot of unselfishness, which was nice to see."

Dartmouth might have the tallest receiver corps in the league next year with Fuselier and Holm at 6-5 and rower-receiver Zack Cable close to 6-6.

"(Holm's) been fun to watch," said Teevens. "He's new to the system so he's a little unsure, but you see the raw athleticism. Once he learns ... . The other kid is Cable. Zack made a big catch and turned up the sideline. Those guys didn't know anything about anything three weeks ago. So in a short period to go and play regular, we're helping ourselves with big guys."

Not all the receiver highlights were catches. Andrew von Kuhn brought a smile to Teevens' face during the limited special teams plays.

"(Von Kuhn) stoned one of our guys," the coach said. "Just knocked him out. (He's) very physical. That's what we are looking for. Who can go down and execute? Who stays in their lanes? We saw enough (special teams) to say it was productive."

On the running side, Bash impressed with his quickness, Milan Williams with his moves, Hudson Smythe with his hard running and Andrew Seidman with his toughness.

"(The run game was) sporadic," Teevens said. "We hit some and missed some. I thought the running backs -- you saw (Williams) zip, zip zip. He's a tough guy to bring down. I thought Bash was consistent. And Conn Smythe ('I call him that after the old hockey award,' Teevens said) really showed some lean and intuitiveness to find some plays.

"And then Andrew Seidman came out with a broken finger. They wrapped it all up and he had to carry with the left hand but he played."

Teevens was pleased by the performance of the offensive line -- which played for both teams -- and saw much he liked on the other side of the ball as well.

"Defensively we've got to continue to get off blocks," he said. "We got caught on occasion but (Mike) Rabil and (Brian) Osimiri inside did some things. Max Copello was on the field a bunch. And there were 80-some snaps. He just learned a bunch playing against (Preston) Copley and some of the other guys. And Rich Cummings played a little bit. (Matt) Dratch played a bit. We've got to improve in that area, obviously. We had some practice doing it today."

The big play in the secondary was turned in by Frost, who picked off a pass at the plus-four, broke to the right side and was a step away from a touchdown before Galligan ran him down. Williams got the score two plays later by banging into the left side of the line, bouncing outside and then running over a defensive back at the line.

Galligan's length-of-the-field dash to catch Frost called to mind when Buffalo's Don Beebe chased down Dallas' Leon Lett in the 1993 Super Bowl, although Frost wasn't hotdogging a la Lett.

"I was just running behind him hoping I'd get to him," Galligan said."At first I thought there was no way but he may have (tired out) at the end and that was my chance. I just dove for the legs and hoped I got him right before he made it to the end zone."

No question, there were rough spots. The kicking game struggled. The run game was improved over last year but not overpowering and there were still too many problems with the snaps.

But all in all, Teevens was pleased.

"The thing I was encouraged by was the competitiveness on both sides," he said. "We had guys who hadn't played together in the past and it all worked out really well. It was nice to see it go right down to the wire and nice to see a winning drive at the end.

"A couple of good lessons; the Green team dominated through the course of the afternoon and then the White offense, when they needed it (after a big turnover -- Casey Frost gets an interception and goes about 80 -- (came through). Phil Galligan doesn't stop; chase him down and makes a tackle. And the rest is history."

Because I was the "official" unofficial statistician, I couldn't get down to the field and shoot any pictures so ... . Here's the postgame handshake, at least.
The afternoon concluded with a well-attended cookout where there was plenty of food, a good thing judging by the size of some of the incoming recruits on hand.

Quick Recap of Green and White

(Rather than keep you in suspense while I pull together the full G&W report, I'm posting the same recap that I wrote to help out the Dartmouth sports information office. Check back in a bit for the full Green Alert report.)

By Bruce Wood
www.biggreenalert.com

Hanover -- Freshman Josh Cohen completed 9-of-12 passes for 124 yards and touchdowns in the final minute of both the first half and the second half as Dartmouth's White team defeated the Green team in the final action of spring in Memorial Field, 21-14.

Cohen's 14-yard strike to senior Ryan Fuselier (3 catches for 55 yards) on the final play of the first half made it 7-7 at the break. Trailing 14-13 as the final possession began, Cohen drove the White team 65 yards in six plays with the winning points coming when 6-foot-5 junior Brendan Holm went high to pull the ball down in a crowd at the goal line with 53 seconds to play.

Junior Mike Fritz drove the Green all the way to the 13 yard-line on the ensuing possession only to have time run out.

Statistical leaders on the day included freshman Philip Galligan with six catches for 83 yards and one touchdown for the Green, senior tailback Jason Bash with 11 carries for 58 yards for the same squad and freshman safety Casey Frost, who returned the game's only interception 95 yards to the Green 1 before being tackled by the hustling Galligan.

"It was a good day," Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said. "... I was encouraged by the competitiveness on both sides. We had guys who hadn't played together in the past and it all worked out really well. It was nice to see it go right down to the wire and nice to see a winning drive at the end."

At the conclusion of the post-scrimmage cookout, senior defensive tackle Mike Rabil (Gaithersburg, Md.) and junior offensive tackle Preston Copley (Louisville, Ky.) were introduced as Dartmouth's 2006 captains.

The Big Green opens the season at Colgate on Sept. 16.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

It's 53 degrees and slightly overcast, a fine day for the Green-White scrimmage. Check back late this afternoon for a wrapup of the day's action. (It won't be up as early as I would like because getting hold of Coach Teevens will likely be impossible until after the post-scrimmage barbecue, and because I'll be the only one keeping stats at the game. It takes time to compile those numbers ;-) ... Otherwise it's a quiet Saturday. Columbia has released its 27-player incoming class and has the leader in the clubhouse for best new name in the Ivy League: 6-foot-2, 200 pound quarterback Millicent Olawale of Long Beach, Calif.. First runnerup: 6-2, 310 Moose Veldman of Mesa, Ariz.. I'm just guessing here, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest Moose wasn't his given name. Still, it would have been kind of cool to have a Moose at Dartmouth. An aside: A few years ago Dartmouth baseball had a player whose first name was Yale. I always thought he would have been a nice fit in New Haven. ... Casey Cramer sat out a Carolina Panthers minicamp due to "injury." I haven't spoken to Casey recently, but my guess is he's taking it slow after his offseason shoulder surgery. ... Jay Fiedler hasn't always been a fan favorite, but the folks who run Dawgbones.com seem to like him as a potential backup QB for the Browns, writing: "The Browns need to sign a veteran free agent and 2 names jump out immediately, Kerry Collins and Jay Fiedler." ...

A couple of thoughts on last night's posting that tailback Chad Gaudet won't be able to play this year as a result of the knee injury he suffered on his first carry last fall. I've been watching Dartmouth football for 20 years and I had Chad pegged to do great things for the Big Green. Before last year I predicted he had a shot to graduate as Dartmouth's all-time rushing leader if he could stay healthy. When he broke into the lineup midway through his freshman year, the entire team picked up and I thought he would be a lynchpin of the Dartmouth football renaissance. He's got a tough road ahead and all you can do is wish him luck in his bid to return a year from now.

Give the Edge to the Green. No, the White.

Practice has broken up and I'll be posting a story tonight in advance of the Green-White. But ... first a dinner date with the patient woman who believes enough in me (and the possibilities of this endeavor) to allow me to see if I can make a go of it. Check back later. It's 10:15 p.m. and we're back from a nice dinner. I'm hoping to have today's story posted by 11 p.m. Eastern (although that might be a tad optimistic ;-)

11:10 p.m. -- Here it is ...

Game Day
By Bruce Wood
www.biggreenalert.com

Hanover -- Game on.

Three weeks of four-day-a-week spring practice come to a conclusion for the Dartmouth football team with Saturday's 11 a.m., Green-White scrimmage and the players sound almost as excited at the prospect as their coach.

Credit the new format where the players drafted their own teams for a good part of that enthusiasm.

"We pretty much already did the (offense vs. defense) Green and White type deal last Saturday," said defensive lineman Mike Rabil. "That was good for us to get evaluated and compete. But playing against each other brings another level of excitement to it.

"This way we get to cheer for the offense instead of rooting against the offense. The guys are pretty pumped about it."

Count tailback Jason Bash among the pumped.

"It's a lot better," he said of the regular game format. "Offense-defense is how we do it every practice. This is a nice change. Now we get to root for the defense too, which we don't really get to do.

"But," he reasoned, "it's going to be tough for me. I'm gonna root for (White tailback) Milan (Williams), but then I'm also going to be saying, 'Let's go Green D.'"

On being told that Rabil would be rooting for the offense and Bash for the defense, Teevens smiled.

"That's part of the reason to do it this way," he said. "Sometimes it's very polarized, offense-defense. When you put it together like this there's a cohesiveness that is important.

"You have to count on both sides for your team to be successful. I keep telling the guys that. We will have success based on the way the entire football program executes on Saturdays. It's not one side does its job and the other one doesn't."

Which is not to say the two teams are going to take it easy on the other side Saturday. Not in the game. And not in the pregame smack talk.

"We're ready to go and we are going to run all over those guys," Bash said, with, and he's not going to like this, almost a twinkle in his eye. "We had a smart draft. We picked up a strong defensive line with Rabil and (Brian) Osimiri in the middle. We'll have a strong run D and run all over them.

"We're gonna rush for 150 or 160 yards. And we're going to go deep. We'll pound it, pound it and then go deep to Phil Galligan. That's how we're going to do it. I think we'll win by 2-3 touchdowns if we play long enough. Let's just say the White team is going to be struggling."

In a moment of candor, Green teamer Rabil said, "The teams are pretty evenly matched, actually."

And who should be favored? "Obviously the Green team," he said with a smile.

What will happen is anybody's guess, but if the scoreboard happens to light up a bit more than it did last fall, that will be fine with Teevens.

"We'd like to see it productive," he said. "It would be fun to score some points and I think that could happen.

"We're simplifying the defense and there will be guys not used to playing next to each other so it might be advantage offense in that regard. We'll throw the ball a fair amount.We'll grade the quarterbacks on decision making as well as accuracy. Defensively, I'm sure the guys will be flying around what I'm looking for is tackling. People who make tackles."

AND THE CAPTAINS ARE ... to be announced following the scrimmage. Voting took place after Friday's practice. ... To be announced at halftime of the scrimmage are the most improved players (by class) as well as those who made the largest strength gains in the offseason.

AND THE QUARTERBACKS ARE ... live. Or maybe they aren't. "As we speak," Teevens said early Friday evening, "we're going live with the QB's. But we'll see how I sleep tonight and go over that tomorrow."

AND THE REST OF THE GAME IS ... live. "It really is a live deal," said Teevens. "We'll cut block inside. We'll cut block outside."

FRIDAY'S PRACTICE WAS ... "Fairly good for the first time we've gone back to back," the coach said. "You could see the guys are excited about playing. We threw the ball fairly well today but dropped it too often. We have to correct that on Saturday. As I told the guys, we will grade this, we'll evaluate assignments. (We're looking for) guys who take care of business and do what they've been coached to do during the course of the spring, and guys who make plays and play with enthusiasm."

SATURDAY'S FANS WILL INCLUDE ... a dozen or so members of the incoming freshman class and their families. Parents from Montana, Texas and Pennsylvania were among those in attendance at Friday's practice.

INJURY UPDATE: Teevens confirmed Friday that tailback Chad Gaudet, expected to be the primary ballcarrier last fall until being lost for the season on his first carry, will miss this entire season. "He had a significant injury," the coach said. "He's ahead of schedule and he's optimistic but it's a tough deal."

Gaudet took a Colgate helmet to the outside of the knee and suffered a compression fracture that knocked down the tibula plateau. Bone grafts, plates and screws are normally required to repair that kind of injury.

HITTING THE ROAD Following the scrimmage, Dartmouth's assistants will hit the road for spring recruiting. Teevens will be around for another week before heading out himself.

Wrapping Up the Week

UPDATED with Nick Hartigan news, 10 a.m.: Josh Doherty, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound tight end from Silver Lake Regional in Massachusetts -- Coach Buddy Teevens' old high school -- gets a quick mention in this story. ... Three Ivy League offensive linemen will attend a Cleveland Browns minicamp on a "tryout" basis: Ben Brielmaier of Princeton, Rory Hennessey of Yale and Will Johnson of Harvard. ... Still no word on former Brown tailback Nick Hartigan's pro prospects. I think I'll ask around and see what I can find out. UPDATE: Hartigan hasn't signed with anyone, but he will attend the NY Jets free agent mini-camp on May 12th ... Speaking of the Bears, they'll be holding their spring game tomorrow at 1 p.m.. The blurb on the team web site doesn't go into any detail about that, but does quickly paint a brief picture of what the team may look like next fall. ... If I had to rank the sports sections of the Ivy League newspapers, I'd put Penn's first, Columbia's a distant second and Harvard's third. That said, the Harvard Crimson may well produce the finest features. This story about a "prized offensive line prospect" who came to the United States from Sarajevo in 1995 is another terrific read. ... I'll be at the final scrimmage before the Green-White game this afternoon and will be posting a report tonight. ... It's a busy day as I try to wrap up a couple of projects that actually pay ;-) and try to interest someone else in having me do some contract work for them. Keep your fingers crossed.

QB's Will Be a Hit (Or Hit)

No. 1 draft pick Milan Williams (r) is congratulated by GM Dan Cook.
The White team has claims on being No. 1.
The Green team may have something to say about that.

They'll Shed the Red
By Bruce Wood
www.biggreenalert.com

Hanover -- Saturday's Green-White Scrimmage sounded like fun before. Now it sounds like, well, almost like ... a game.

"The QB's came to me the other day and said, 'Coach, we'd really like to go live,' " Buddy Teevens explained Thursday. "I said, `Well ...'

"And they said, 'No, we'd really like to do it.' So I said, 'OK, have at it.' "

All of which means the quarterbacks will "shed the red" vests, making them fair game to be tackled and giving them the opportunity to pull the ball down and run.

"We'll find out about some guys," Teevens said with the semi-wicked grin he's worn ever since revealing the Green-White would be an intrasquad game rather than a controlled scrimmage. "We'll see if Fritzy (Mike Fritz) and (Tom) Bennewitz can make a play. We'll see if Josh (Cohen) makes some intelligent decisions with the ball.

"We'll have a quick whistle on some occasions but if it's a clear rusher, the guy's got to make the sack. It's gonna be fun."

The down side, of course, is that the potential for injury to the quarterback will increase. The up side is that so will the regard their teammates have for the signalcallers.

"I'll be nervous all afternoon but that's how it goes," Teevens admitted. "But I was of the same mindset years and years ago. You are a football player. I do think it will increase the respect the guys have for them."

ROSTER MOVES No, not that roster. The Green and White rosters. Because of an imbalance in the tackle allocation, Rich Cummings has been shifted to the Green team. Thanks to some nifty drafting, tight ends Brett Lowe and Mark Brogna were both on the same squad but they've now been split up. As for who went where, tune in Saturday.

DIAMOND GEMS After the final pitch of Thursday's baseball game against Boston College, Teevens noted that two of Bob Whalen's players will be on Memorial Field Saturday.
"(Kyle) Cavanaugh and (Jason) Blydell were drafted," he said with a laugh. "They weren't present for the draft but their names popped up. They've practiced with us on Mondays so they should be ready to go."

ON TAP FRIDAY "We'll have green and white jerseys on and the teams will work against themselves," Teevens said. "We'll divide the coaching staff. They have one innovative play they can put in on either side. I'll be anxious to see how it goes. Everybody is charged up about it."

BRAGGING RIGHTS It was clear as Thursday's practice wrapped up that excitement was in the air and it wasn't just that spring practice is winding down.

"It was interesting to see," Teevens said. "There was an added edge, especially at the end of practice. The guys were talking a little smack. The guys are really excited about it.

"They have it all handicapped. They are talking a bunch about it. It's fun to do something different. The weather is going to be pretty good and we're hoping with a bunch of folks and parents on campus we can have a good turnout. I expect to see is a bunch of guys flying around making plays on both sides of the ball. Bragging rights are at stake between classmates, teammates, offense-defense, coaches."

MORE THAN BRAGGING RIGHTS Said Teevens: "The way it's broken down, everybody will play and they'll play a fair amount. We told the guys we're going to evaluate it thoroughly and grade it out. Guys who show well, it will be a plus for them going into the preseason period. We expect them all to play well."

THURSDAY'S SESSION With practice moved back a day, closer to the Green-White, Teevens called something of an audible. "We were planning to scrimmage but with the proximity of the weekend deal we opted not to. We did some regular progression without full contact. Then we divided the teams up so they could practice with the guys they'll actually play with."

WORTH NOTING As he often does, Teevens found a few players to single out after Thursday's session.

"Josh Cohen has been more consistent with his throws," the coach said. "(Converted tailback) Julian Collins is off injured reserve and seeing his cuts a little better. (Wide receiver) Zack Cable is showing he's understanding more and more what he's doing. (Fullback) Ryan Mahoney, same situation. It's a chance to get in and show what he can do. Same with (tight end) Donald Bly. We'll see under duress what they are capable of doing. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised at how the guys step up.

"On the defensive side, Max Copello has been very strong. Rehan Muttalib is coming along. Johari Wiggins is showing some progress at linebacker as is Steve Hunt at the cover corner spot. Casey Frost continues to improve the more snaps he plays. Corey Goff, same thing."