Tale Of A Former Quarterback

The Wichita Eagle has a story about Eddie Lucas '04, who is expected to play third base this season for the Wichita Wranglers, the Kansas City Royals' AA team in the Texas League. From the story:

When he was in high school in Port Orange, Fla., the last thing he expected was to have a professional athletic career of any kind. When he signed with Dartmouth, it was because it was the best school that allowed him to play both football and baseball.

And his preferred sport? Football. He was recruited as a quarterback and walked on to the baseball team.

Lucas is a case of bad timing that worked out great. Caught in an apparent logjam at quarterback heading into the 2001 season, Lucas opted to give up football in hopes of a career as a pro baseball player. When a spate of injuries decimated the quarterbacks that fall, Lucas would in all likelihood have become the starter. But if he had any disappointment about that, it disappeared when he was drafted by the Royals in the eighth round of the 2004 draft. The former Dartmouth shortstop batted .281 at High-A High Desert last year with 66 RBI's and 19 stolen bases.

Add another heavyweight rower to the Dartmouth receiving corps. One year after 6-foot-5 Zack Cable decided to give football and wide receiver a shot, fellow oarsman Zach Wenner is following the same route. Wenner, who will be a sophomore in the fall, is 6-4, 210 from Chevy Chase, Md., and St. Alban's School. Like Cable, he's listed as a wide receiver. Cable, by the way, missed the entire season a year ago with a foot injury before undergoing offseason foot surgery.

PR Leap has an announcement about For Love & Honor, the upcoming documentary on Ivy League football. The film, according to the announcement:

"... shows how irreplaceable lessons in discipline, perseverance, and teamwork continue to be taught on the Ivy League gridirons. No other American sport has a richer history or has helped train a greater number of national leaders."

In a few weeks NFL coaches, scouts and administrators will hunker down in their "war rooms" to plot and carry out their draft strategies. I have new respect for that process after a 2 1/2-hour thrash last night helping to set up Hanover's three Little League major and four Little League minor baseball teams. The goal is to make them as even as possible, and that is hard enough. But the ongoing debate about whether a talented 10-year-old who takes the game seriously should be on the majors while a less-talented 12-year-old who will be overmatched and doesn't seem all the excited about playing belongs in the minors went on for quite some time. In the light of day I'm more convinced than ever that the 10-year-old belongs in the majors.