A Name To Watch

The Atlanta Journal Constitution's comprehensive recruiting page puts Dartmouth in the mix for late-developing 6-foot-3, 220-pound defensive end Charles Bay of Joseph Wheeler High School in Marietta, Ga.. Georgia Southern, William & Mary and Elon are courting him and he is visiting Navy. Find an older story about Bay here. ...

While Dartmouth's non-league schedule continues to be set in stone, it's different for a couple of opponents who released their 2007 slates this week. Penn will be replacing Lafayette with Georgetown (that could get ugly) while Holy Cross will open with 2006 national finalist UMass (that could get uglier still). Schedules can change from year to year? Really?

A College Football News expert quoted in the Houston Chronicle offers five players from the East-West Shrine Game's East roster that should be closely watched this week and Dartmouth played against two of them last year: No. 1 is New Hampshire wide receiver David Ball and No. 5 is Brown linebacker Zak DeOssie. Of DeOssie, John Harris' comments included this: "He has good size (6'2" and 240 lbs.), but doesn't run exceptionally well..."

The Daily Dartmouth reports that the search is on to find a replacement for retiring Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg. Peter Hackett '75 of the search committee had this to say of the importance of the hire:

"(The position is) really the gatekeeper at Dartmouth.... It affects everything from athletics to the faculty to the student body."

Hmm. Maybe it's me, but I seem to recall the college trying very hard to put a different spin on Furstenberg's impact several years ago when the dean was in the news.

About the only thing I've been venting about more than the static football schedule has been the weather this winter. Too warm with too little snow. (Things were a little more normal this week with temperatures up here on the mountain hitting almost 10 below and a few inches of snow falling.) ... The D has a story about the impact of the weather on Winter Carnival. While Zamboni-created "snow" can be trucked to the Green from Thompson Arena, event organizers and the like have several other thoughts. Student event manager Elizabeth Teague '09 told the paper:

"If there's really no snow and we have an extremely warm year, there is some talk that we would make Winter Carnival into a type of Global Warming Awareness Day."

Umm, no.

More from The D:

As a potential alternative to the polar bear swim, Amy Newcomb, assistant director of the Collis center and student activities, suggested that students might roll in the snow and then jump in a 25-person hot tub placed in the middle of the Green.

Umm, the cynic would suggest that might not be greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm.