Talking About Savvy Ducks

NOTE: Vote in the first Green Alert poll to share your opinion about what team Dartmouth should pick up when it finally changes the football schedule. The poll is over there, to the right ;-).

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The Denver Post wrote last week about "a novel study by a Colorado State University graduate student to determine the effects of human disturbance on duck movements." Want to guess who that grad student was?

None other than former linebacker Josh Dooley '06, the leading tackler on the 2005 Dartmouth team. That Josh is doing something with ducks should come as no surprise to anyone who read the story I wrote about him last year or saw the pictures that accompanied the story. Click here to see why. ... Josh was also featured in this earlier Denver Post story that noted, " ... Josh Dooley, a Colorado State University graduate student in charge, can tell you a lot about savvy ducks." No doubt.

Recruiting news will be picking up shortly. Here's a blurb about a good one who got away, an all-state offensive lineman in Texas who picked Utah State. ... The Ivy League's "band" system, which plays a role in determining which football recruits can be admitted, is seldom mentioned in stories so this Tulsa World story about a Harvard quarterback admit who chose the school over Kansas, New Mexico, Utah State, Rice and the Air Force Academy is unusual. ...

You'll have to scroll down this link to get to the part where it mentions someone who went to Dartmouth on a football scholarship -- back when there actually were football scholarships. The someone is Charles Starrett '26, who went on to movie fame as "The Durango Kid." He lettered on Dartmouth's 1925 national championship team. According to this Wikipedia entry, his movie career spun out of a role as an extra in the football movie, The Quarterback. Hey Brian Mann, can you ride a horse?

And finally, I'd say the winning Super Bowl ad the took top honors at our kid-dominated party was ... the Rock, Scissors, Paper ad for Bud Light. ... The Blockbuster ad (had to go back and check what it was for) where animals try to figure out how to make a live "mouse" work with a computer, also scored high. ... As usual, USA Today has one of the best overviews of the commercials with links to view them online.