One Pundit's Crystal Ball For Dartmouth Football

On New Year's Eve, the Manchester Union Leader has a sports column featuring "fearless predictions from a sports writer holding a crystal ball for the year ahead." Headlined, "What could possibly lie ahead in 2007," the piece includes this:

"Dartmouth football doubles its win total from '06."

That would be going in the right direction, of course, but not nearly fast enough. It would be fine if the Big Green had been 5-5 this year, or perhaps 4-6, but as we all know that wasn't the case. As nice as doubling your win total sounds, going from two wins to four would hardly be satisfying. ...

The Boston Globe notes that when the New England Patriots visit Tennessee at 1 p.m. today tight end Casey Cramer won't be the only former Dartmouth player with a vested interest in a win by the home team. The Globe story reminds us that former defensive back Matt Burke '98 is an assistant coach with the Titans. Find Burke's bio here. ... The same Globe piece mentions that former Yale quarterback Jeff Mroz, released in camp by the Dallas Cowboys, had a workout with the Patriots Friday. ...

Speaking of Ivy Leaguers and the NFL, as noted yesterday three Harvard grads will be on the field today when the Rams and the Vikings square off. (Matt Birk '98, is an all-pro center for the Vikings; Isaiah Kacyvenski '00 is a linebacker and special teams performer for the Rams and Ryan Fitzpatrick '05 is a backup quarterback in St. Louis.) The Harvard sports information office has this note headlined, Metrodome Becomes Harvard's Yard Sunday As Three Crimson Alums Meet.

On the local tournament front, the Dartmouth men's ice hockey team dropped a 3-0 decision to Boston University in the consolation game of the Ledyard National Bank Classic and the women's basketball team upended Dayton in the consolation of the Blue Sky Restaurant Group Classic at Leede Arena. (No. 3 Duke held Boston University to two field goals in the first half of the championship game on the way to a 71-43 win. I staffed the Duke games for the Associated Press, which wanted the first story within five minutes of the last basket and an optional story with quotes later. It's a whole lot easier to turn around that first story when a team takes a 30-8 lead at the half, thank you very much. ;-)

And finally, that Hanover High freshman who missed qualifying for the New Hampshire state championships in the 1500 meters last week by one-tenth of a second handily won her first varsity race yesterday (and qualified for states) by slicing nine seconds off her previous time in another meet that featured teams from all over New Hampshire and Vermont. Next on tap: Attempting to qualify in the 3000.

We got about five inches of snow up here on the mountain yesterday, more than enough for the plow driver to clear our driveway and take some of the sting out of his Christmas bills. (You can get 8 inches in March and he may or may not show, but get a dusting in mid-December and he's right there.) Whatever. It's absolutely beautiful out the window this morning with snow dusting the pines and a clear blue sky. Current temperature: 8 degrees.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2007. See you next year!

Tournaments Pack 'Em In

Friday was a big night in Hanover with the women's basketball team playing No. 3 Duke before a Leede Arena women's basketball-record crowd of 2,153 and the men's ice hockey team taking on North Dakota in front of 4,500 at Thompson Arena. Neither team enjoyed much success in its own holiday tournament with the hoop team falling, 77-40, and the icers surrendering three goals in the final period of a 4-1 loss. ...

Traffic was horrendous and there were complaints about parking but to be honest, the combined crowd of 6,653 was less than Dartmouth football drew for at least three games this fall, so I'm not sure what the problem was. ... And as it turns out, the rumors of a massive protest at Thompson Arena proved to be greatly exaggerated. One lone English professor showed up to protest the Fighting Sioux mascot/nickname. ... Both the women's basketball team and the ice hockey team will be playing in the consolation games of their tournaments tonight. ...

In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek roundup of the year from the San Jose Mercury News, the Dartmouth football fracas gets this mention:

"Dartmouth and Holy Cross got into a postgame brawl, throwing books and pens and stuff."

Do you think this quote from a widely circulated St. Louis Post-Dispatch story hurts Harvard's chances of recruiting the best and the brightest football players?

Although 24 players from Harvard have played in the NFL, never has one game included three products of the esteemed academic institution situated in Cambridge, Mass. That will change Sunday, when Rams linebacker Isaiah Kacyvenski and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick meet up at the Metrodome with Vikings center Matt Birk.

A high school football player from Pennsylvania has won a full scholarship to Columbia. Yeah, right.

As Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend. This is a true story. Honest. The kid, who was a pretty fair tailback in Sharon, Pa., has won a full ride worth more than $160,000. Boy oh boy, Columbia means business this time, huh?

Now for the fine print: It wasn't an athletic scholarship. He isn't a recruit and it doesn't sound as if he's going to be playing football for the Lions.

Read all about it here.

Big Weekend In Hanover

Exciting times in Hanover tonight as Duke, the No. 3 team in the nation in women's basketball is in town for the annual holiday tournament, and North Dakota will be in Thompson Arena for the annual men's ice hockey tourney.

As you well know, the North Dakota visit has garnered a great deal of media attention because of the school's Fighting Sioux nickname and logo. The New York Times and Boston Globe both have stories today with the Times' piece featuring a large, colorful representation of the logo.

To keep you busy, here are names of some high school seniors who are reported to have expressed some interest in Dartmouth. Two things to keep in mind: 1) that's reported to have some interest by recruiting services, and 2) the list of schools for each is relatively lengthy, so don't start penciling any of them in on your depth chart. But it's fun to Google 'em and see what comes up, so ... Defensive end Marcus Richtel, Castle Rock, Colo.; Quarterback Keiffer Garton, Castle Rock, Colo.; Wide receiver Brett Skene, Denver, Colo.; Corner back Daniel Harper, La Verne, Calif.;Tight end Chris Blohm, San Francisco, Calif.; Linebacker Clayton Hanks, College Station, Texas; Quarterback Patrick Sanders, Carthage, Tenn.

Following Up On A Linebacker Commitment

A year-end roundup from a South Carolina newspaper again mentions that Hammond linebacker Carter Scott is heading to Dartmouth (as posted in the Green Alert blog a few weeks ago). Scott is 6-foot-1, 210 pounds and his school's all-time leading tackler. Find a head shot of him here, and a picture of him as Homecoming King here. ... This latest mention of Scott send me surfing backward and I found this from The State:

"As he helped the Skyhawks push through their undefeated, state championship season, linebacker Carter Scott was fielding offers from Ivy League programs including Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. Scott has now verbally committed to play for coach Buddy Teevens at Dartmouth College, becoming the first Hammond football player to commit to an Ivy League program."

For a couple of other kids from Florida that Dartmouth has shown some interest in, click here. One is a 6-2, 221 linebacker named Kyle Timpane (22); the other a 6-foot, 200 running back named Zach Tronti (36).

We went to see We Are Marshall yesterday. I must admit I wasn't sure Matthew McConaughey was right for the part of coach Jack Lengyel, but to his credit, he did a terrific job and absolutely pulled it off. It's not an Oscar-caliber movie, but it's well worth seeing. ... The kids got a DVD of The Invinceable for Christmas and watching it the other evening our 7th grader was using the pause function to freeze still shots of former Dartmouth quarterback Brian Mann, who played the Eagles quarterback in the movie.

We'll be leaving the Princeton area to head back to the Upper Valley today. Word is the little snow we got the other night is still on the ground. It will be nice to see it.

A Special Holiday For Hughes

The Princeton Packet has a lengthy home-at-the-holidays story with Princeton head coach (and former Dartmouth assistant) Roger Hughes and his family. It's a behind-the-scenes look at life for a coach's family.

Old friend Alex Wolff of Sports Illustrated is the owner of a team in the "new" American Basketball Association, the Vermont Frost Heaves. (For the uninitiated, a frost heave is a bump in the road that recurs in the same place every spring and requires replacing the exhaust system on your car every several years if you don't learn where those frost heaves are going to be or don't respect what happens when you go over them at more than 5 mph.) One of the promotions ABA teams use (beyond the red, white and blue basketballs) is saving a seat on the end of the bench for a celebrity of some sort, who is in uniform and allowed to put in a few minutes on the court. While some end-of-the-benchers are purely window dressing, UNH football standout David Ball will be anything but according to this story.

Former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer is doubtful for the Tennessee Titans' game with the New England Patriots because of a neck issue according to this story. Cramer gets a mention in the Patriots' game notes here.

Good News For the Gilchrists

A little neat news from the Dartmouth family ... with a footnote about next year. According to a newspaper story, before this year senior defensive end Cullen Gilchrist was the only player in Dartmouth (Mass.) High School history to make the all-state team. That changed when the leading tackler/offensive guard on this year's 10-0 team earned the honor. The player's name? Jimmy. Jimmy Gilchrist, Cullen's brother. According to the story, Cullen will be around to see his brother's all-state ceremony because he's, "taking the spring quarter off, so he can remain eligible for football season next fall." Pencil in one redshirt senior.

And if you are wondering, the story says the younger Gilchrist is considering track and football at UMass, Northeastern, Hofstra, Bentley or Bryant University.

Dartmouth (along with Penn, Villanova and a handful of schools) is in the running for a very durable back from the Philadelphia area. How durable? Durable enough to set a city record with 53 carries (for 259 yards) in one game last November for Germantown Academy. On his way to winning the Times Herald offensive player of the year award, 5-foot-11, 195-pound Alex Holcombe ran for 1,775 yards (leading Philadelphia) and scored 23 touchdowns (tops in the city) while averaging a whopping 33 carries. Holcombe has also been a national caliber decathlete in high school and may pursue both sports on the collegiate level. The story includes this: "Shortly, Holcombe will choose from a long list of suitors that includes Brown, Bucknell, Villanova, Penn, Dartmouth, William & Mary, Richmond, Williams and Johns Hopkins."

Former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer is getting quite proficient at being mentioned in stories about his Tennessee Titans teammates. This Tennessean piece about Kevin Mawae notes that Cramer sought advice from Mawae about an operation he might need after the season.

We're headed down to the Princeton area this morning for a little time with my wife's family but the laptop is making the trip, so be sure to check back as the streak of consecutive days with a post dating back to our cross country trip last July should remain intact ;-)

The Best Tradition In College

Christmas and holiday wishes to all of you ... and a quick post.

For a meaningful treat on this day, read Rick Reilly's 2003 Sports Illustrated column about what he calls "the best college tradition." I recently wrote a story for the Middlebury College alumni magazine and in the process came across a relative of the fellow Reilly's column is about That got me wanting to re-read the story, and I was pleased to find a link to it on the web. I thought the column was about everything that's right in college sports the first time I read it almost four years ago, and it stands the test of time. Don't miss this one.

One quick bit of news before I get back to the family: Another quarterback has chosen a scholarship instead of Dartmouth according to this story. Portland High School (Maine) QB Chris Treister completed 60 percent of his passes for 1,846 yards and 18 touchdowns this year. He also ran for 574 yards and scored eight touchdowns. He visited Dartmouth, Brown, UMass and Maine before deciding to stay home and play for the Black Bears. Harvard and UNH were also on his radar screen.

Season's wishes,
-bw-

A Few Wishes For Dartmouth's Football Future

To read a few holiday wishes for the Dartmouth football program, visit Green Alert premium. Those wishes run the gamut from a big running back to, well, to hedges. That's right, hedges.

Thanks to all the subscribers who made this second year of Green Alert a success and to all the daily visitors to the Blog. Best wishes at the holidays. Travel safely if you are hitting the road, cherish the time you have with your family and friends ... and don't be a stranger ;-)

-bw-

Maine RB Considering His Options

Surfing for information on potential recruit Jared Turcotte, the 225-ish pound running back from Maine who was that state's Sports Illustrated and Gatorade Player of the Year, a story popped up mentioning several schools -- but not Dartmouth and Harvard, two mentioned prominently in previous stories.

From the Portland Press Herald: "Turcotte is considering Maine, Bucknell, Holy Cross, Brown, Bowdoin and a few other schools ..." The story mentions these 2006 statistics: 1,813 yards rushing, 23 touchdowns and almost 8 yards per carry. For his career: 4,562 yards rushing. ...

From the Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal: "Turcotte plans to continue playing football in college and has drawn attention from numerous Division I, I-A, Ivy League and NESCAC schools. He plans to make a decision by the time National Letter of Intent season opens in February." The Lewiston paper lists him at 6-1, 220 and notes that, in addition to his running, he caught four TD passes, threw one, had 113 tackles, returned an interception for a TD, recovered a fumble for touchdown and returned punts and kicks. No word on whether he cleaned the stands and mowed the lawn in addition to taking care of the team's punting and kickoff duties.

A Minnesota high school quarterback has Dartmouth, Harvard and Columbia among his suitors according to a brief mention in this story.

Dartmouth lost a potential recruit to PSU. No, not Penn State. And not New Hampshire's Plymouth State. Portland State University in Oregon. According to this story, the 6-foot-180 quarterback offered by Idaho had considered Dartmouth along with Cornell and Colgate. Washington and Oregon State invited him to walk on.

Enough non-news about recruiting. Here are a couple of excerpts from a tremendously revealing story:

With the accent on de-emphasis, some Ivy alumni find the results deplorable.

and ...

Yet Ivy League administrators are happy. With uniform admission standards, they turn up with teams of roughly equal strength that beat each other with unpredictable irregularity, making up in excitement what they may lack in consistent skill. They even produce a few topflight football players.

Sound familiar? If you scan the message boards and listen to alums, you'll hear this stuff every day. But here's a surprise: The excerpts above appeared in a Dec. 1, 1958, issue of Time Magazine. Some things never change. Find the full story here.

And finally, that certain Hanover High School freshman who was running her first 1500 meters yesterday at Levenone Field House exploded past the leader on the back straightaway of the last lap and won her heat handily -- with a big smile on her face. Here's the kicker: She ran 1500 meters and missed qualifying for the state championships by 0.33 seconds! She'll get another chance next week.

Check back later today (or early this evening) for a Green Alert special. ...

Of Nittany Lions and Dartmouth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dougherty Wraps Up 2006

Matt Dougherty, the former Dartmouth Sports Information intern who does such a tireless job covering Division I-AA (sic) football for The Sports Network, wraps up the year with his "best of" column. Among other things, he rightfully laments the fact that we never had a chance to see how Princeton would have fared in the playoffs. And he takes a little shot at the NCAA for the change in I-A, I-AA (oops) nomenclature. ... Matt's early pick for the top-10 next year includes New Hampshire, which loses David Ball but will see the return of a very dangerous Granite State-bred flanker named Mike Boyle, who was injured much of this year. Also joining the UNH program are a couple of interesting recruits as this Manchester Union Leader story notes. Oh, and there's a fellow named Santos who will be guiding the offense. Again.

Brown may have the inside track for an Arizona quarterback with some pretty astonishing numbers if, and it's one of those big ifs, he doesn't go Division I-A. (oops). The kid completed more than 60 percent of his attempts as both a junior and senior, throwing 21 touchdown passes and passing for almost 3,000 yards in 11 games. Apparently Harvard and Yale have also shown some interest. I'm reminded of a story people tell about Bob Blackman, the legendary Dartmouth coach. It has a ring of truth to it. What people say is Blackman's goal was to have the best quarterback in the league on the field and the next-best on his bench ... so he didn't have to play against him.

We had a good trip up to Burlington yesterday to see the Dartmouth men's hoop team battle Vermont. The fans up there are nothing short of rabid. It's a dramatic contrast with the Hanover wine-and-cheese crowd. I didn't see one this time around, but they have the best T-shirts up there. They say: "UVM Football, Undefeated Since 1974." That, of course, is when the school gave up the game. There are occasional rumblings about starting the sport up again, but don't expect that dog to hunt, as they say.

There's a nice Hartford Courant piece about former Dartmouth hockey standout Hugh Jessiman (aka Huge Specimen) visiting sick children in the hospital while playing for the Hartford Wolf Pack hockey team. Jessiman, you may recall, was the top draft pick of the New York Rangers several years ago.

Stretching a little for football content this morning ;-), Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher has two daughters playing basketball at Princeton and will host them overnight at the end of their holiday trip to Pittsburgh. We saw Cowher at the Ivy League playoff against Dartmouth last March in New Haven. My kids keep hoping he'll show up in Hanover one winter.

Thanks to another reader for clicking the tip jar over to the right. I wish I had a bell I could ring when that happens so everyone could hear it. I appreciate the encouragement to keep going. ... Now I'm off to battle the traffic in West Lebanon, not for shopping, but to make a dump run. Ah life in the country.

Familiar Name Is Coach of the Year

There are ill feelings between some at Dartmouth and Holy Cross in the aftermath of this year's postgame fracas, but there's no denying that former Big Green assistant Tom Gilmore did a terrific job last fall with the Crusaders. Click here to read an extensive profile of the former Big Green assistant who was named Patriot League coach of the year. The story includes a nugget that caught me by surprise; "Spike's" brother played at Ohio State and in the NFL.

Wide receiver Ryan Fuselier gets a nice mention in this story in the San Diego area North County Times after winning a number of impressive awards this fall and leading the Ivy League in catches.

It's a short blog today because the kids and I are heading up to the big city of Burlington, Vt., to catch the Dartmouth men's basketball team tonight. We'll do some Christmas shopping on the wonderful downtown mall, try to catch a matinee of Charlotte's Web at a stadium-seating theater (there aren't any of those around here and the kids are psyched), and if there's time ride the Lake Champlain ferry to New York (unless it's closed for the winter, which I think it is, but with this weather who knows?). Then we'll get something to eat at famed Al's French Frys, and take in the game. Catch you later.

Defensive Lineman Interested in Dartmouth

From an article in Florida's Bradenton Herald about a defensive lineman at Southeast High who carries a 4.0-plus average, served as defensive captain of the school football team, plays forward on the basketball team and earned the Manatee County Scholar-Athlete Award: "All the while, he was applying early to Dartmouth and fielding calls from the football coaches at Yale." Not sure exactly what to make of that. One thing is for certain: If he ends up at Dartmouth, he might want to keep his varsity jacket out of sight. His high school team's nickname is the Seminoles.

Speaking of awards, Yale offensive lineman Ed McCarthy is this year's winner of The Swede Nelson Award, given annually to a football player in New England for outstanding achievement in academics, athletics, sportsmanship and citizenship. Dartmouth winners over the years: offensive guard Kevin Noone (2002); quarterback Jay Fiedler (1992); defensive back Brad Preble (1990); linebacker Jerry Pierce (1980); running back Alan Rozycki (1960). ... Yale's McCarthy will miss the awards dinner because he will be in Dublin doing research for his senior essay on the Irish War of Independence. Only in the Ivy League ;-) ...

McCarthy was the lone Ivy Leaguer to make the Sports Network All-America first team. Five Ivy Leaguers earned mention:
First Team Offense
Ed McCarthy Yale OL Sr. 6-5 302
Third Team Offense
Clifton Dawson Harvard RB Sr. 5-10 210
Third Team Defense
Mike Berg Harvard DL Sr. 6-2 265
Zak DeOssie Brown LB Sr. 6-4 240
Third Team Punter
Colin McDonough Princeton P Sr. 6-0 185

It's curious to me that Yale tailback Mike McLeod hasn't gotten a little more love from the people who pick these awards. He did outrush Dawson this year. And his team did win a share of the Ivy League title.

The Brothers Shannon

The Eagle-Tribune in Massachusetts has a nice story about Dartmouth's Mike Shannon and brother Chris, who just committed to Duke.

Of 2 QB Recruits: One Reported Coming This Way

Still nothing official on the recruiting front except:

• news that the quarterback son of a former Dartmouth signalcaller is headed to Princeton
• and a published report saying the quarterback son of another Dartmouth alum is heading to Hanover.

Missed this the first time around but a recent Rocky Mountain News preview story about the Kent Denver boys basketball team referred to, "6-foot-5 senior Will Deevy (... bound for Dartmouth ... for football)." (Already at Dartmouth is wide receiver Ian Ferrell, one of Deevy's targets at Kent Denver year ago.) ... For a Rocky Mountain News story about Deevy prior to football season, click here. From that story:

"With his natural size and good arm strength, he grabbed the attention of college recruiters at every stop. Before going to the CU camp, Buffs coach Dan Hawkins told Deevy he was 'an unknown commodity.' That description didn't last long, as the Buffaloes started corresponding with Deevy after the camp."

... Deevy's high school basketball teammate Robbie Pride is a freshman on the Big Green hoop squad.

The son of a quarterback alum going elsewhere is Brett Kan, whose father Darryl (Wong) '82 had a couple of NFL tryouts after graduating from Dartmouth. (See earlier Green Alert post). Kan, who passed for for 2,566 yards and 17 touchdowns for his Hawaii high school this year, is headed to Princeton according to this story.

For thoughts about Columbia football's place in the Ivy cosmos, check out Jake Novak's Roar Lions Roar blog. I shared the Optimist-Pessimist concept with Jake after the season and he's taken it to a whole new level (with The Freshman and The Old Alum), not surprising given that he's a comedy writer.

Former Brown quarterback and coach Mark Whipple was bypassed for the head coaching position at Boston College, which is hiring Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski according to the Boston Globe. Jadogzinski might have had the edge on Whipple because he had been on the BC staff and is less likely to rock the boat, according to this Globe story.

Stanford has rolled the dice and tapped Jim Harbaugh to be its new head coach as reported here. The former NFL quarterback, whose father was an assistant at Stanford, had tremendous success at non-scholarship, Division I-AA San Diego, but this will be his first head coaching job in the I-A ranks (or whatever they call it now). ...

A couple more notes before sending you on your way this morning. ...

First, I staffed the Dartmouth men's basketball win over Quinnipiac last night for the Associated Press and Basketball-U. The game was televised on NESN (New England Sports Network) and if you happened to tune in you might have seen a very pretty young lady holding up a sign that called Leon Pattman Dartmouth's meaN grEen Scoring machiNe (NESN, get it?). The sign-maker was a certain Hanover High freshman who gets mentioned here on occasion.

The best part of the night for our family, however, came at halftime. As a promotion, young fans were given green sheets of paper with instructions that they should fold them into paper airplanes, sign their name on the wings and fly them on command at halftime toward the jump circle. The plane closest to the middle would win a prize.

The winner? A certain 12-year-old who had been told he couldn't go to the 7:30 game unless he took a nap after school. He wasn't crazy about that idea, but the $100 he scooped up for his accurate flight made it all worthwhile. The funniest part of all might have been when someone, with tongue firmly in cheek, asked my son -- who has lived at Dartmouth since he was an infant and is known by most everyone around the gym -- for some identification before handing over the loot.

By the way, Dartmouth capped a pretty good night by winning its third game in a row after opening the season with six losses. That's a nice rebound. It's probably not a coincidence that the turnaround came when Leon Pattman, who missed the first six games with a high ankle sprain, returned to the lineup. The former Ivy League Rookie of the Year is averaging 19.0 points in his three games.

Finally, I'd like to thank the subscriber who clicked on the tip jar off to the right of this page and sent something this way yesterday. I put that jar up so non-subscribers who regularly come by can show their appreciation for the time I put in on this every day if they wish. It was very kind of someone who already helps keep Green Alert going to throw something in the kitty. Thanks. It makes it easier to keep going on those days when I wonder if it's worth it.

The New SAT And The 100 Meters ...

Big deadline today for a freelance piece (which actually helps pay the bills), so I can't spend much time blogging (where that nifty little tip jar thingie over to the right just sits there and mocks me ... hint ;-) ...

From a story about Harvard landing a 6-foot-5, 260-pound guard: "He maintains a 3.86 GPA and has scored 1,940 on the new SAT." Green Alert Take: A 1,960 on the new SAT? I have no idea what that means. This is like when track gave up the 100-yard dash for the 100-meters. I knew exactly how fast he was when a local high school football star near where I grew up ran a 9.5 for 100 yards. I have no idea what an 11.1 is over 100 meters. Ditto for the 440 and the mile vs. the 400 meters and the 1600. And don't get me started about metric measures in the shot put or high jump. Any wonder why track in this country is struggling?

Former Dartmouth tight end and USA Sevens rugby player Joe Killefer gets a mention in this story.

I stumbled across this St. Louis Dispatch story about a 14-year-old 6-foot-6 high school freshman basketball player getting a scholarship offer from Illinois and giving coach Bruce Weber a non-binding commitment. (I found the story because one of the only other players from the small, private school to play in college sat the bench for a while at Dartmouth.) Green Alert Take: I've read about early commitments before and always thought they were a little crazy. Having a daughter who is the same age as this kid I can now appreciate just how ridiculous this stuff is. I'd like to see a story following up on kids like this four years later.

The (Script) Doctor Is In ... A North Dakota Paper

A brief Dartmouth mention out of North Dakota ... and the words "Fighting Sioux" are nowhere to be seen! The Bismarck Tribune has a story about a local production of "Don't Hug Me Christmas Carol," which happens to have been written by a former teammate of one Eugene F. Teevens. To see a current photo of gridder-turned-screen writer Phil Olson '79, and read his bio, click here. A tight end on the Ivy League championship 1978 team and an All-Ivy track performer, Phil is a Los Angeles-based "script doctor," who has written several award-winning plays and sold several movie scripts. Find his IMDb bio here. ...

It was Heartbreak Hotel in Ann Arbor last night as the Dartmouth women's basketball team was on the cusp of a win over Big 10 Michigan until a previously scoreless Wolverine player nailed a 3-pointer with four-tenths of a second remaining. Final score: Michigan 67, Dartmouth 65. Amazingly, the Big Green was in position for its first win over a Big 10 school despite playing without the services of 6-foot-4 standout Elise Morrison -- who has been out for a full year with a foot injury but is finally expected back for the Ivy League season -- and without starting center Darcy Rose, who had a family issue. The Ann Arbor news has a short account and there's a longer recap on the Dartmouth sports publicity site.

On the subject of women's basketball, this from the Daily Princetonian the other day: "Cornell and Dartmouth rank the lowest in the Ivy League in terms of turnover margin, and not surprisingly, the Big Red and Big Green have a combined record of 1-12 and it looks as though they're getting ready to fight over space in the cellar when conference play begins in the first week of January." Uh, the cellar? Dartmouth is the gold standard of Ivy League women's basketball and it would be a shock, despite graduating the best guard tandem in school history last spring, if the Big Green isn't in the thick of the race this year.

There's an interesting Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers story about a heralded 6-4 high school quarterback from Florida who nearly lost his life in a kiteboarding accident. He's expected to make a full recovery and return to the field next fall. The story says he's heard from Stanford and Virginia but also has an interest in the Ivy League.

Finally, we opened the local paper this morning to find a color photo of a certain Hanover High School freshman who finished fourth or fifth (there's some confusion about that) in the 3000 meters in her first high school track meet at Leverone Field House. There were athletes competing from as far away as Fair Haven, Vt., on the New York border and Nashua, N.H., down by Massachusetts, so it was a neat accomplishment. ... It's interesting. When I worked at the newspaper our kids were generally kept out of the paper, even when they deserved to be in it. I always thought it a little unfair to them to be excluded simply because of what I did for a living. ... A couple of the neater scrapbook items we've cut out for them include a Time Magazine picture of our son shaking hands with Bill Bradley when Bradley was running for president and last spring's nearly full-page story about our daughter playing center field on the baseball team with the boys as an 8th grader.

A Yalie's Look At That Championhip Season

For a Yale player's perspective on why the Bulldogs won a share of the Ivy League football title this fall, visit his blog by clicking here. ...

Recruiting news is still surprisingly slow coming in. Part of that is a function of Dartmouth targeting fewer early decision recruits this year. ... Elsewere ... Columbia has been in touch with a 5-9, 165 Mississippi back who piled up 9,316 all-purpose yards and 106 touchdowns in his career. According to the Clarion Ledger, he's had "scholarship offers from Jackson State and Columbia." Hmmm. Scholarships! Maybe that's the key ;-)

UMass didn't have an answer last night for Appalachian State's former walk-on running back or its 160-pound freshman quarterback as the Mountaineers repeated their national championship with a 28-17 win. Click here for the AP story. ... Living around here, it was a disappointment that New Hampshire didn't make it to the championship game, but having watched last night, the previously top-ranked Wildcats would have had an awfully hard time slowing down the App State offense. ... Speaking of the division formerly known as I-AA, the new title -- Division I Championship Subdivision -- really flows off the tongue, doesn't it? While the TV announcers were stumbling over that last night, they several times referred to the other "subdivision" as I-A. Oops. ... It would be a lot easier if they'd just call them the Bowl Division and the Championship Division.

Speaking of UNH, here's the Sports Network announcement of Ricky Santos winning the Payton Award, with a picture of him holding the tropy.

Harvard's Clifton Dawson was awarded the New England Football Writer's Gold Helmet Thursday at their annual dinner. From the Ivy League release: Dawson led Division I-AA in scoring this season (13.20 points per game), and he broke his own school records with 132 points, 20 rushing touchdowns, and 22 total touchdowns. He rushed for 1,213 yards on 237 carries this season, averaging 121.3 yards per game, good for 12th in Division I-AA. ...

Reality TV: This Corpus Christi newspaper story is about the Today Show turning the cameras on as a high school senior checks the Internet to see if he'd been accepted at Brown. He was. ... I was accepted at all three colleges to which I applied as an undergrad, but I can tell you for certain I wouldn't have wanted TV cameras watching when I opened those envelopes. Yikes. I didn't want anyone watching. ... Just in case.

Off to my son's basketball practice now (Dartmouth students are coaching the team but they are away for break and so I'm helping fill in) and then over to Leverone to watch my daughter run her first race for the Hanover High winter track team. She's running the 3,000.

Don't Miss This Story

There's a compelling, Sports Illustrated-quality story in the Boston Globe today about UMass coach Don Brown. Don't miss this one. Seriously. It's worth reading just for the hilarious story about the late-night Monopoly game. From the Globe:

(Brown's wife) tells the story, for instance, about his first year coaching at Dartmouth in 1982. He was a poorly paid graduate assistant. She was a full-time nurse and mother of three children under 6 years old. At night, Debe would collapse on the bed, and cover her ears in the pillow, trying to drown out the staccato rhythm from downstairs.
That would be the sound of her husband studying the minutiae of safety blitzes on big reels of film. Debe had put up new wallpaper; Don had nailed a sheet of paper to it for a screen. "I would hear that film, 'click-click-click,' 'til all hours of the night," she remembers with a laugh.

The Globe's Bob Ryan talks with Mark Whipple, the onetime Brown coach who led UMass to the 1998 national championship and is now quarterbacks coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers (and a frontrunner to take over at Boston College). Brown tells Ryan:

"When I was at Brown, I was very upset the Ivies wouldn't allow the league champion to go to the playoffs. That's one reason I went to UMass."

New Hampshire's Ricky Santos has won the Payton Award as the offensive player of the year in what used to be called I-AA. The Manchester Union Leader has a story. There's another one here.

Dartmouth gets a mention for giving recruiting attention to a 6-foot-5, 215-pound quarterback in Florida in this story.

I staffed Dartmouth men's basketball last night for the Associated Press and Basketball-U and came away impressed. After an 0-6 start, the Big Green has won two in a row, this latest a 71-50 win over a Stony Brook team that already has a victory over Penn State of the Big 10 this year. If Dartmouth can get everyone healthy -- two potential starters and a third player who had been a starter are out indefinitely -- this team will definitely surprise some people. By the way, the Big Green has a 7-foot-1 center from Seton Hall Prep coming to Hanover next fall according to Basketball-U.

This Video Will Make You Smile

Check out this, ahem, creative news video of a protester up on Dartmouth's Baker Tower, brought to you on Youtube. ...

The Dartmouth '01 who says he's planning to return to campus to finish his degree shouldn't have much trouble paying his tuition after winning $105,000 on Jeopardy. He won four games before finally losing in Final Jeopardy Tuesday. Read about it here. ...

For another look at the text messaging/recruiting issue and the Ivy League's stance, click here. Yale Athletic Director Tom Beckett quoted in the Hartford Courant story:

"We're responding to where the technology is taking us. This is something that needs to be addressed because it's not fair to the (recruits). You can let a piece of mail sit somewhere on your kitchen table or throw it in a box. I'm not sure how you deal with all those text messages."

Stories by the Grand Forks (ND) Herald reporter who visited Dartmouth to investigate the Fighting Sioux controversy can be found here. There's a photo gallery here, a sidebar on Dartmouth President James Wright's letter here, and a story about the letter written by the University of North Dakota president here.

One That Got Away?

There are published stories about a distance runner headed to Hanover and a women's basketball player coming this way, but news on football players is in short supply. One that got away is a tight end/defensive lineman from the Jersey Shore, who was offered by New Hampshire, talked to Penn and Columbia, and ended up at Delaware according to this story. ...

Jeff Garcia is making a splashing filling in for Donovan McNabb as the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback. Garcia and Jay Fiedler were once co-MVP's of the Shrine Game, as this story relates. ...

Casey Cramer was in the right place at the right time this year. He gets but a quick mention in this story, which explains that the Tennessee Titans' tight end position has completely turned over this year because of injury. ...

From the Daily Dartmouth: "The Alumni Council announced last week its slate of three candidates who will vie in the spring for the Board of Trustees seat vacated by resigning Trustee Nancy Jeton '76." One of the candidates is Sherri Oberg '82, wife of volunteer football assistant Curt Oberg '78 (For a Boston Globe story about Curt, click here.) Another candidate is Sandy Alderson '69, CEO of the San Diego Padres.

Former Brown coach and quarterback Mark Whipple is looking like the frontrunner at Boston College according to numerous media outlets including the Boston Globe. From the Globe: "(S)ources with the Steelers, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and BC said yesterday that Whipple was DeFilippo's first choice and could be named as the replacement for Tom O'Brien by early next week unless there is a major breakdown."

For a look back at Princeton's championship season under former Dartmouth assistant Roger Hughes, click here. ...

The Daily Pennsylvanian has a story about the popularity of web cams on the Cornell campus and how families across the country can fire up their computers and feel a little closer to their student in Ithaca. Nothing remarkable about that in this age of the Internet. What caught my eye in the story was something else. Something about Penn. From the story:

Back in Philadelphia, the University has jumped on the surveillance video bandwagon, but for more serious purposes, officials say.

Penn currently uses a video surveillance system called Closed Circuit Television Cameras, but its purpose is to prevent crime, not to reconnect with Grandma Clarice in Des Moines.

Penn operates 82 CCTV cameras, in addition to 200 fixed cameras placed throughout the Penn Patrol zone, which covers 30th to 43rd streets and Market to Baltimore streets...

Eighty-two closed circuit cameras and 200 still cameras to prevent crime. Wow. Have I told you how much I like Hanover?

Onetime Green FB Captain And The NBA Ball

11:15 update: From today's NYT ... Raise the cost of tuition and applications go up. (With two kids heading to college in a few years this is not good news ...)

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You've probably already read about the NBA deciding to ditch the synthetic-cover basketball developed by Spalding. Here's an excerpt from a Bloomberg story:

Scott Creelman, the president and chief executive of Spalding Sports Worldwide Inc., which manufactures both balls, said in a statement that the company would assist the NBA in its transition back to leather.

``We believe the microfiber composite ball offers many superior characteristics to leather,'' Creelman said. ``However, we firmly support any decision that improves player satisfaction.'

Did you know that Scott Creelman '64, was captain of the 1963 Dartmouth football team and an All-Ivy League end? He also also pitched for the Big Green baseball team.

The Money Game

Late last week the Boston Globe ran a story saying UMass football, which will play for the national championship Friday night in the "Division Formerly Known As I-AA," lost more money than any such program in the nation. From the story:

UMass officials said the annual shortfall of at least $2.6 million has been budgeted as the price of sustaining a competitive football program that promotes the school's image, provides a unifying, entertaining resource for students and alumni, and extends opportunities to student-athletes, among other perceived benefits.

From an AP story today on the UNH football program:

... UNH football lost more than $1 million during the last fiscal year, 2005-2006. It spent more than $3 million and brought in a little less than $2 million.

The same AP story writes:

UNH athletics director Marty Scarano said most Division I-AA football programs are expected to operate at a loss, but the gap at UNH should be smaller this year, as ticket sales jumped from 172,000 last season to 320,000 this fall.

Three points:
1. Reading the two stories, it's clear valid comparisons between the programs are almost impossible because of different accounting procedures. I remember trying to compare Dartmouth's available athletic budget numbers to those of other Ivy League schools when I was at the newspaper and the figures made absolutely no sense. It turned out one school would include certain figures and another school would not. When I asked Dean of the College Jim Larimore about the discrepancy, he said it wasn't comparing apples and oranges. It was, he offered in a memorable quote, like "comparing apples and hubcaps."
2. I have no idea where the AP got those UNH attendance figures. According to the stats on the school web site, UNH drew 40,706 fans for home games and 124,199 for road games, a total of 124,199, not even close to 320,000. (Light bulb thought: The numbers are probably dollars; 40,000 fans times $8 would be $320,000. Note to AP: If that's what you mean, use dollar signs.)
3. Because Dartmouth is a private institution, budget numbers like those released for UMass and UNH are unavailable. I suspect, however, that my old newpaper would like nothing more than to have my successor beat his head against the wall trying to uncover Dartmouth's football budget numbers. If he does, I'll not be too proud to share them ... with credit. But don't hold your breath.

Casey Cramer gets another mention here for his play in the Tennessee Titans' win Saturday. ...

The topic of a postseason tournament for Ivy League basketball gets play in the Harvard Crimson and the Daily Princetonian, which notes, "Each of the past 18, and 38 of the past 40, Ivy automatic bids have been awarded to either Penn or Princeton. A postseason tournament would provide a better chance for the league's other six schools to win a bid."

And finally, the answer:
He was a copy editor on the sports desk of a daily newspaper
The question:
What was one of the jobs held by the Dartmouth student who will be trying to win on Jeopardy for the fifth time tonight?
There are stories here and here.

Alum Offers His Take On Sioux Issue

9:15 update: Casey Cramer caught a short pass from Vince Young (my son thinks that is so cool) and gets some props after the Titans drill the Colts top the Texans. Scroll down this story for a short blurb.

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Dartmouth alum, CSTV hockey columnist (and super Big Green sports fan) Elliot Olshansky '04 offers his thoughts on the Fighting Sioux issue in this CSTV video. ...

To the surprise of no one, Boston College has already spoken with former Brown quarterback and coach Mark Whipple about the BC coaching position. Whipple led UMass to the 1998 national championship and is currently QB coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers. There are stories in the Boston Globe, in the Boston Herald and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Yale's Ed McCarthy and the UNH duo of wide receiver David Ball and quarterback Ricky Santos have been named to the 2006 Walter Camp I-AA All-America Team. The full team:

OFFENSE
WR David Ball, New Hampshire Sr. 6-2 200 Orange, VT
WR Alex Watson, Northern Arizona Jr. 5-10 180 Inglewood, CA
TE Ben Patrick, Delaware Sr. 6-4 270 Savannah, GA
OL Corey Davis, James Madison Sr. 6-4 325 Hampton, VA
OL Matt Isenhour, Appalachian State Sr. 6-1 275 Maiden, NC
OL Brennan Carvalho, Portland State Jr. 6-1 310 Kapaa, Hawaii
OL Ed McCarthy, Yale Sr. 6-5 302 Fairfield, CT
C Ryan Jewell, Youngstown State Sr. 6-4 285 Warren, OH
QB Ricky Santos, New Hampshire Jr. 6-2 215 Bellingham, MA
RB Marcus Mason, Youngstown State Sr. 5-9 215 Potomac, MD
RB Arkee Whitlock, Southern Illinois Sr. 5-10 195 Rock Hill, SC
PK Rob Zarrilli, Hofstra Jr. 6-0 193 Brooklyn, NY

DEFENSE
DL Marques Murrell, Appalachian State Sr. 6-2 245 Fayetteville, NC
DL Matt King, Maine Sr. 6-3 242 Stoughton, MA
DL Bryan Smith, McNeese State Jr. 6-3 217 Newton, TX
DL Kroy Biermann, Montana Jr. 6-3 232 Hardin, MT
LB Akeem Jordan, James Madison Sr. 6-0 235 Harrisonburg, VA
LB Kyle Shotwell, Cal Poly Sr. 6-1 235 Goleta, CA
LB Cameron Siskowic, Illinois State Sr. 6-2 225 San Diego, CA
DB Dre Dokes, Northern Iowa Sr. 5-9 162 Springfield, MO
DB Jeremy Wiggins, Appalachian State Sr. 5-9 190 Macon, GA
DB James Ihedigbo, Massachusetts Sr. 6-1 202 Amherst, MA
DB Stacey Thomas, Texas Southern Sr. 6-0 200 New Orleans, LA
P David Simonhoff, SE Missouri State Sr. 6-2 200 Coral Gables, FL
KR Steven Whitehead, McNeese State Jr. 5-8 171 Slidell, LA

Dartmouth began the weekend as one of just two schools in all of Division I that couldn't claim a single basketball victory -- men's or women's. That changed when both teams won on the road. The women squeaked out an overtime victory at Northeastern; the men built a big lead and then survived at James Madison.

A Chance Encounter

No word yet on early decision recruits. For football, at least. ... The kids and I went to see the Manchester Monarchs AHL team last night and stopped by a sporting goods store across the street from the arena. I was asking one of the sales people about bamboo baseball bats. (That's right, bamboo! What is this world coming to?) Anyway, I told him about a professor at Thayer School of Engineering I wrote about who helped develop a composite bat. The sales person asked if I had anything to do with Dartmouth and then told me he got his letter of acceptance Friday. Turns out he's a discus thrower (and a big one). He was recruited by Yale and Duke but decided to apply early decision to Dartmouth. I don't know how good he is, but he was a genuinely nice kid. And big. Might make a nice tight end ;-) ...

Jared Turcotte, the Sports Illustrated Maine player of the year who has expressed an interest in Dartmouth, is the subject of a column in the Lewiston newspaper. Excerpts from the column about his chances at what in some ways is the Heisman of Maine high school football:

Fitzpatrick Trophy XXXVI will make the transition from motivational tool to mantelpiece next month, and the only logical conclusion is that Jared Turcotte of Lewiston will take the handoff and run into Maine high school football immortality with a landslide victory.

And I guess that's what worries me.

We're talking about a young man who rushed for more than 200 yards per game, who holds down a 93 average, who had a hand in 24 touchdowns and 113 tackles, who looks adults in the eye and treats them with the respect and dignity that defines the rest of his daily life.

The Daily Dartmouth has an update on college President Jim Wright promising North Dakota that its hockey team will be treated the way a guest should be treated at this year's holiday tournament. The story includes this:

Wright said he plans to review the College's policy on competing with teams that have Native American mascots. He said (Athletic Director Josie) Harper, coaches, and an athletics committee of faculty members will likely be asked to make recommendations on the issue in January, although Wright noted that there may not be any policy shifts and formal plans for such a review have not yet been organized.

Brown All-American linebacker Zak DeOssie has been chosen for the Hula Bowl, which will be broadcast nationally on Jan. 8. ...

A Sports Illustrated On Campus column headlined Campus Chronicles Greatest Hits, The weirdest and wackiest stories of the year, mentions Harvard twice and Penn once.

A Los Angeles Times column headlined Can a university be nationally ranked in both football and academics? Not if it's Stanford both applauds and takes a shot at the Ivy League:

The Ivy League schools solved this dilemma by opting out of the tainted system. Though the Ivies have a storied football history, the league lost its membership in Division I in 1981 in a dispute with the NCAA over TV revenues, and administrators decided not to appeal. It was a principled move, even if Yale might now have a tough time taking on the Oaks Christian High School team. Conversely, some football powerhouses — USC comes to mind — have seen a decided improvement in their academic reputations even while winning national championships.

Former Dartmouth Assistant In Championship Game

UMass and head coach Don Brown -- a former Dartmouth assistant under Joe Yukica -- are headed to the Division I-AA (sic) national championship game after a 19-17 win at Montana last night on ESPN. From a 1985 Dartmouth football press guide that I just so happen to have sitting on my bookshelf (along with every other one since 1983 ;-):

Don Brown was appointed to the Dartmouth football staff in March, 1984, afte spending one season as the defensive secondary coach at Mansfield (Pa.) State College.

Brown's appointment was a Cinderella story. He resigned from his teaching and coaching duties at nearby Hartford High in White River Junction, Vt., in 1982 to take a part-time Dartmouth football job with hopes of landing a fulltime coaching position.

Brown, 29, graduated from Norwich University with a bachelor's degree in 1977. He was captain and MVP of the 1976 Norwich football team. At Hartford High, he served as defensive coordinator for five seasons from 1977-81 and also coached the varsity baseball team from 1978-82.

I wrote stories for the newspaper about Don on each step of his way to UMass. If I recall correctly, he had two children when he gave up his fulltime job at Hartford to chase his dream. To make ends meet, while he was spending his days working football, he was working at the Hanover Inn at night. It certainly worked out. ... I started wondering, after learning that Tom O'Brien would be leaving Boston College, how long it would be until Don's name came up regarding the BC job. I can stop wondering; there have been several mentions including a story in the Hampshire Gazette headlined: "Brown denies interest in BC head coaching job."

Brown's isn't the only name that has surfaced. From The Sporting News:

Early names include ex-New York Giants coach Jim Fassel, Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Mike Kruczek, New Hampshire coach Sean McDonnell and UMass coach Don Brown.

Fassel's son was a placekicker at Boston College. I covered Stanford's game at Boston College in Buddy Teevens' first season and remember getting out of my car in the media parking area and doing a double-take when I recognized the fellow getting out of the Lincoln Navigator (or Escalade, I forget which) right next to me. Yup, Jim Fassel. That sent me to the media guide to figure out why.

The Boston Herald has floated the name of one current and one former Ivy League head coach who might deserve a look from BC:

At the moment, some of the names making the rounds are former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie, Steelers quarterbacks coach and former UMass coach Mark Whipple, and Harvard coach Tim Murphy.

Whipple, you might recall, is the former Brown QB and architect of the "Whiplash" offense that put his alma mater back on the football map. He guided UMass to its national championship in 1998 and is the quarterback coach who helped Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl.

If I'm BC and I have a shot at Whipple, it's a done deal. As for Murphy, he just signed an extension with Harvard. That doesn't rule anything out -- Brown had done the same thing at Northeastern before bolting for UMass -- but it would be a surprise.

Nothing in the news today about recruits. Be sure to check back because some news will be breaking in the next few days ... I think.

Finally, winter has come to Moose Mountain. We got five inches of snow two nights ago (the Dartmouth campus seven miles away got a dusting) and the temperature when I went to bed after the UMass win was a brisk 4 degrees. ...

Big Day In Big Green Land

I ran into a coach on campus yesterday -- not a football coach, by the way -- who asked me, "Do you know what day today is?" I was going to answer Pearl Harbor Day, but I was relatively certain that's not what he was getting at.

"It's Christmas Eve," he said.

I thought about that for a second. A light went on just a fraction of a second before he tossed out the punch line. "Tomorrow," he said, "we find out what we got for Christmas."

As it turns out, today is the day the coaches get the official word on who was accepted early decision. Talking with Buddy Teevens before Thanksgiving, he said he was targeting 10-12 early decision admits this year instead of the 17 of a year ago. It will take some time for the names of those accepted to become public, so have patience.

Teevens, by the way, visited some familiar ground earlier this week while recruiting in northern California according to this story. ... One of the players Teevens will have to replace, wide receiver Ryan Fuselier, gets a little "pub" in a San Diego area paper. ... Former Brown and NFL star Steve Jordan is the recipient of one of this year's NCAA Silver Anniversary Awards for success 25 years after graduation. Read about it here. ... (Former Dartmouth women's basketball standout Gail Koziara Boudreaux is another of this year's six Silver Anniversary winners.) ... Recent Columbia safety Steve Cargile has been signed to the Denver Broncos' active roster. ... Yale offensive lineman Ed McCarthy was honored as a Draddy Award finalist (scholar-athlete) at The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame's Awards Dinner in New York City. ...

The editors of the Dartmouth Review admits the recent cover was a mistake in this AP story. ... The Columbia Spectator takes Dartmouth AD Josie Harper to task for her letter of apology regarding North Dakota's ice hockey team.

Adam Nelson Means Business

Former Dartmouth defensive lineman (and oh, by the way, Olympic silver medalist in the shot put) Adam Nelson '97 is in his first year at the University of Virginia business school. To find out what's up with Nelson -- the first freshman to play in a varsity football game for Dartmouth after freshman eligibility was restored -- check out this Times-Dispatch story. You can find Adam's home page here.

Casey Cramer as Billy "White Shoes" Johnson? Check out the lede to this Nashville City Paper story about a possible turnaround by the Tennessee Titans.

Dartmouth Coach Buddy Teevens is quoted in this USA Today story about former All-Ivy teammate Robert Cummins '76, who resigned recently as chief executive of Houston-based Cyberonics, which has been under investigation for its compensation practices. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, but there was one glaring error. From the story: "An athletic scholarship to Dartmouth College was Cummins' ticket out of town." Don't think so.

From a Daily Pennsylvanian story about discussions to start an Ivy League basketball tournament headlined, Postseason tourney just not worth it: "The phrase 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' is what comes to mind every time this issue arises." Here's my response: It's broke. When Penn and Princeton have claimed 34 of the last 36 NCAA Tournament appearances, all may be wonderful for those two schools, but it's bad for the league. Here's a New York Times story on the issue.

This has nothing to do with sports, but I saw the headline several times, didn't click through and eventually found myself curious enough to go back to read the story. It's just too weird to ignore. I'll give you the headline to the Brown Daily Herald story and you decide to click or not. Here it is: PW show to unleash 30,000 fruit flies on stage.

Cohen To Return In Spring

A subscriber sent in a question for the recent Q&A asking about the status of quarterback Josh Cohen, who was out of school this fall. I held off answering the question until getting confirmation about Josh's plans. As it turns out, after a couple of terms off the 6-foot-5 QB is planning to return to Dartmouth for the start of spring classes. Listed at 210 pounds a year ago, Cohen has added 15 pounds of muscle both through working out and working a couple of tough jobs. The 2005 Jake Crouthamel award winner (as the underclassman who has contributed most to the success of the team) caught the Big Green's games at Penn, Columbia, Cornell and Princeton this fall. He will be eligible for spring practice according to Coach Buddy Teevens.

Dartmouth President James Wright "says the school will be a good host to the University of North Dakota men's hockey team later this month," according to this AP story.
A columnist in the Harvard Crimson chimes in on the mascot issue. ... A North Dakota newspaper reporter was on campus earlier this week to follow up on the story. ...

Did you know Dartmouth played for the 1942 NCAA men's basketball championship? (Henry. E. 'Bud') Pogue, a member of that Big Green team, has died at 86 according to this story.

Former Strength Coach At Home With Rutgers

The somewhat surprising news that Greg Schiano will be staying at Rutgers instead of pursuing the Miami head coaching position means former Dartmouth strength coach Jay Butler will probably be honing his golf game indoors this winter, as he has ever since joining his former Bucknell teammate's staff in New Brunswick. If you watched Saturday night's game against West Virginia, you caught a few glimpses of the 6-foot-7 Butler on the Scarlet Knights' sideline. And if you watched the Louisville game earlier this fall, you saw film of the impressive new weight room that is both a reason why Butler would stick around his native New Jersey and a big factor in how RU has become a player on the national scene. For Butler's bio, click here. To read a story written when he left Dartmouth to join Schiano, click here. Butler, by the way, is now an associate athletic director at Rutgers.

There's a ton of stuff out there on Stanford firing Coach Walt Harris after just two years. For a slightly different spin, check out this column in the Monterey Herald. It says of Stanford Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby:

The guy who hired Ferentz, logically, had to know he could do better than Harris.

The players told him so, but that was only part of it. The influential members of the Stanford family told him so, but that too was just part of it.

The empty seats in the new stadium. The play-calling. The sour disposition. Why wait another season to fire him just to do it the normal 'Stanford way'?

Meant to mention this a while back, but the portable stands in each end zone of Memorial Field and both goal posts will remain up this winter. In the past, the goal posts had been taken town and the temporary bleachers (erected only in the south end zone in recent years) would be removed after the season. Coach Buddy Teevens has asked that they remain in place so that recruits can see the facility's new "stadium look" during their visits. To borrow a familiar saying, It's a good thing.

An update on Anthony Gargiulo '06 from this morning's paper: In addition to an upcoming workout with the Philadelphia Eagles, the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears (perhaps with a little encouragement from defensive assistant Lloyd Lee '98) have requested more film on the former All-Ivy League defensive end as he looks to find a place in pro football after a year out of the game.

Junior Varsity Put Up Some Numbers This Fall

A tight end who averaged 28.6 yards per catch while finishing among the team leaders in receptions. Two quarterbacks whose efficiency rating surpassed that of Ivy League player of the Year Jeff Terrell and whose yards per attempt were higher than any QB in the Ivies. Two nice wins and a pair of strong showings in tough losses. The final numbers are in on the Dartmouth junior varsity team. Find them, and a review of the jayvee team, on Green Alert premium.

Stanford has fired Walt Harris as head coach after just two years. Discuss among yourselves.

Back At You

Internet is back up. Methinks someone showed up at the office, saw a light was out and threw a switch. Voila. ...

If you were thinking UNH is losing David Ball and so next year's game against the Wildcats should be a little more manageable, consider what coach Sean McDonnell told the Manchester Union Leader:

"We've got the quarterback coming back. Three running backs coming back. We've got four offensive linemen coming back. We've got two very good receivers coming back. A lot of weapons on offense coming back."

Amazingly, New Hampshire lost twice to UMass this fall on batted fourth-down passes within sniffing distance of the end zone and they were knocked down by brothers. Here's the Union Leader story.

Check out the story in last Friday's Princetonian that began with this lede:

Athletics deserves as much intellectual inquiry as the liberal arts, Trinity College philosophy professor Drew Hyland '61 said in a lecture yesterday, asking the audience to imagine a world where wrestling vies with mathematics as a main school subject.

Ivy League basketball coaches at six of the eight school and hundreds of players from their teams have argued for years in favor of the conference joining the rest of the free world and holding a postseason tournament. (Penn, Princeton and their fans, with a vested interest in the status quo, have argued even more vociferously against a tournament.) According to a story in the Norwich Bulletin, the Ivy presidents are giving the concept a little more thought than usual. Advocates of allowing the Ivy League football champion to go to the I-AA tournament will be watching what happens on the hardwood closely. Yale Athletic Director Tom Beckett on the possibility of a postseason basketball tournament:

"It comes up all the time. But this is the first time that there's been enough interest that has turned into, or developed into, an ad hoc group that's been asked to asked to study it further."

A letterwriter takes the Cleveland Plain Dealer to task for not publishing anything about the Princeton-Dartmouth game where Chagrin Fall's resident Jeff Terrell led the Tigers to a share of the Ivy League title.

A columnist from SEC country takes in Harvard-Yale and comes away impressed.

If you haven't read the letter the University of North Dakota president sent Dartmouth President Jim Wright regarding the Fighting Sioux controversy, you can find a PDF file of it here. It's a powerful letter to say the least.

Problems continue with our Internet service. It took 13 minutes to bring up Blogger on dialup (it's v-e-r-y slow here on the mountain) and other pages still haven't loaded, so I'm punting. I'll be talking with our provider it a bit to see what the prognosis is. I am heading into town in a bit for a story and I'll use wifi at the Hanover town library while I'm there to finally update the blog.

UNH Season Comes To An End

Problems with our Internet connection up here on the mountain continue. I'm guessing the high winds Friday damaged the relay. (As if I would have a clue ;-). ...

We had a good trip down to Amherst, Mass., to watch an exciting UNH-UMass I-AA quarterfinal. The Minutemen advanced to a semifinal matchup at Montana when a fourth-and-one UNH pass on its final possession deep in the UMass end was batted down, allowing the home team to escape with a 24-17 win. It was a disappointing end to All-America wide receiver David Ball's career for sure. He finished his four years tied with Jerry Rice for I-AA career touchdowns and 28 yards behind Rice for career yards. UMass made life difficult for New Hampshire quarterback Ricky Santos by sending pressure from every angle and sacking him six times.

The game was called a sellout, the first at UMass in more than a quarter century. The mess left behind by the tailgaters afterward was unbelievable. Walking back to the car it was almost impossible to avoid stepping on beer cans and bottles strewn everywhere. ... The kids and I had a mini-tailgate of our own with a little grill and hamburgers. Unfortunately, someone made off with our LL Bean charcoal starter while we were in the game. It's not an expensive thing but it was really annoying.

To avoid the traffic jam after the game we walked up to the Mullin Center where UMass and Boston College were playing basketball last night. If there had been tickets available we might have caught the game but it was sold out. Quite a party atmosphere outside the arena as the juiced-up football tailgaters awaited the opening of the doors.

Driving home we were able to pick up some of the West Virginia-Rutgers game on the radio. The fourth quarter had just started as we walked through the door. If you didn't stay up you missed a real nailbiter that went to three overtimes before West Virginia could win it. I'm no big fan of Rutgers but you've got to feel for the Scarlet Knights. From what they were saying on the broadcast, a win would have put them in the Orange Bowl. A loss puts them in something called the Texas Bowl.

Links aren't working again this morning so I'll get them to you when I can.

Saturday Blog

Power was out all night and our version of broadband (if you can call our radio relay up here on the mountain that) isn't working. I'm on dialup and for some reason can't get Blogger to allow me to post links. The template looks, well, different.

The kids and I are headed off shortly to Amherst, Mass., for UNH-Massachusetts in the second round of the I-AA playoffs. It's windy and chilly, probably not what the doctor ordered for UNH. The Wildcats are going to have to throw the ball and high wind won't help.

Report: Dartmouth Lands A Linebacker

Update: Reggie Williams' 76 will be the honored former Dartmouth player at the Ivy Football Association celebration at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on Jan. 25. find the Dartmouth release here.... For more about the Ivy Football Association, click here.

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The recruiting season is upon us and with it the first published report of a Dartmouth commitment. That would be 6-foot-1, 205-pound linebacker Carter Scott of Hammond School in South Carolina according to this short story in The State. Scott posted at least 100 tackles each of the past three years and helped undefeated Hammond School win the SCISA Class 3A championship, its first state title in 14 years. To see a head shot of Scott, scroll down this page. ... This story says Scott was elected the talking captain of the South Carolina Private School Shrine Bowl team. ...

Speaking of Dartmouth football players from South Carolina, junior Elliott Dial of Sumter is shown holding a copy of the Dartmouth Review in a photograph accompanying a Boston Globe story about the turmoil on campus. ...

Former Dartmouth assistant Don Brown, now the head man at I-AA powerhouse Massachusetts, is featured in this Manchester Union Leader story that focuses on his days coaching at Division III Plymouth State in New Hampshire. ...

A tongue-in-cheek story in the Stanford Review suggests the Cardinal needs a new rival and recommends Princeton.