Busy Weekend On Campus

It's a big and busy weekend on campus. With this afternoon's end of the NCAA recruiting "dead period" (click here to download an NCAA football recruiting calendar) a group of potential recruits will be on campus. Coach Buddy Teevens has had recruits snowshoeing, skiing and playing pond hockey in the past, but those things won't be on the agenda this year. Not with the minimal snow we've had melting and temperatures approaching -- and perhaps topping -- 50 degrees today. (My 12-year-old asked me the other day, "Can you have a January thaw if you don't have a winter?" I was stumped for an answer. Find more on the weather below.)

Maybe Coach Teevens can tell the recruits that all those stories they've heard elsewhere about how harsh the winters can be in Hanover are greatly exaggerated. ...

While snow sports won't be on the agenda for visiting recruits, there will still be plenty of excitement. More than 2,500 athletes will be in town for the 38th annual Dartmouth Relays, the national lid-lifter each year for the indoor track season. When I worked at the newspaper I'd often be sent over to talk with the most prominent athlete in town for the event. I remember interviewing high jumper Dwight Stones. Pole vaulter Bob Seagren was coming one year but I honestly can't remember if he showed and I talked with him. (Something tells me he missed his connection and didn't show -- which happened with the more famous athletes billed as coming from time to time -- but I can't remember.)

No one particularly famous is expected this year although former Dartmouth football/track star Andrew Hall '05 will be competing in the heptathlon as will Mustafa -- Moose -- Abdur-Rahim '04, an Olympic hopeful who would have been a difference maker at defensive back if they could have convinced him to pull on a helmet. (Click here to see pictures of Moose at the 2004 Olympic Trials -- in a Dartmouth shirt.) ... A certain Hanover High freshman will run the Tri-State Mile tonight at the Relays tonight, her first race at that distance after having some success at 1500 and 3000 meters. ...

Visiting recruits might also take in one of the most exciting days of the season in Leede Arena with the men's and women's basketball teams kicking off Ivy League play with a day-night doubleheader against Harvard. (The men's team caught a tough break this year, by the way. Harvard 7-footer Brian Cusworth -- an NBA prospect -- was eligible for just one semester this season and chose the fall, meaning Dartmouth will have to contend with him two times -- while no other Ivy team will face him. while the only other Ivy teams that will see him, once each, are Brown and Yale.)

Speaking of basketball, the Dartmouth women's team will be without 6-foot-4 senior center Elise Morrison for the second year in a row as she continues to struggle with her recovery from a torn Lisfranc ligament in her right foot. Morrison was the most highly touted recruit in the history of the powerhouse women's program at Dartmouth and one of the most highly regarded national recruits that has come to Hanover in any sport in many years. A broken screw in the surgically repaired foot set her back last spring and a cyst that formed during practice this fall has sidelined her for the season. I'd heard about her tough break earlier but the news broke publicly today.

Rounding out the busy weekend in Hanover, there's women's hockey Friday and Saturday and squash hosting the Snowflake Tournament as well.

And finally, speaking of the weird weather we've been having, New Hampshire's public radio station dealt with the issue this week. Listen to the report by clicking here. National Weather Service climatologist Steve Capriolla: "Mother nature can go through these warming trends and these cooling trends. We've seen that with ice ages coming and going. We know that mother nature can change temperatures on its own. So it could be doing that now. The question is, is man adding to that? And how much is he adding to that?"