Add Another OL To The Mix

The snow is falling like they write books about ... but more about that later ;-)

Thanks to a subscriber for a link to another Houston-area Texan headed this way. Will Montgomery is a 6-foot-6, 265-pound offensive lineman from The Woodlands College Park High School. Montgomery was a District 15-5A first-team pick as a member of the first graduating class at College Park High. Quoted in this story, his coach said:

"Harvard also recruited him. I think he could go play at a lot of places. Dartmouth is a great fit. It's the right balance of academics and athletics."

The Woodlands College Park played its first season of varsity football last year. Prior to establishment of the two-year-old school Montgomery would have attended The Woodlands High School, which sent current sophomore wide receiver Eric Paul and freshman tailback Chris Burns to Hanover.

There's another quick story about Montgomery "signing" with Dartmouth on the Chronicle.com site with this quote from coach Richard Carlson:

"He turned out to be a real good football player. He was all-district, academic all-district and Academic All-State. He's your ideal student-athlete."

Coaches can be excused for lauding their players. It's what they do. Internet pundits who hype players they've never seen? Take what they (we?) say with a grain of salt. Or a truckload of NaCl according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story headlined "Ranking recruits is fraudulent exercise." After suggesting it would be extremely difficult to rank the top five quarterbacks in the NFL, the writer says:

How is it then that there are people able to sift through the approximately 15,000 high schools that play football in the United States and come up with Internet rankings for, say, offensive linemen?

The answer is they can't.

Which is why the first Wednesday in February one of the biggest frauds on the American sporting calendar.

He's right, of course. Which is why Green Alert philosophy is to note the awards/honors won by recruits and then let those who have actually seen the recruit in action do the talking. At least that's the goal ;-)

I meant to post a link to yesterday's New York Times story about what's happening at the Division III level. Talk of either a Division III-A and III-AA or a Division IV (or more) may elicit a feeling of déjà vu for anyone who remembers the I-A and I-AA split. The NESCAC schools (Amherst, Williams, Middlebury etc.) are playing the role of the Ivies in this reenactment.

Oh, and the fellow holding the trophy in the picture is one of the 700 or so of us living in Etna, N.H.

Every so often a writer from one of the Ivy papers decides the time has come to show why his or her college location is a better venue for a school than any other in the league. Today it's Columbia's turn. Gotta admit, this one is pretty funny although I would warn you that there's a little language that might make your mother blush.

Now, as for that snow ... the forecast is calling for as much as 30 inches of the white stuff before it tails off tomorrow morning. Even Dartmouth has closed down for the day, which doesn't often happen. We've had about six inches up here on the mountain already and it is really piling up quickly. The kids have the snow day they dreamed of and I'd love to join them when they head outside to sled on the hill behind the house but a freelance deadline is staring me down, so I better get to it because the Blog isn't going to be putting food on the table anytime soon ;-)