New Roles For Familiar Names

Greetings from the outskirts of Happy Valley! It took us 8 1/2 hours to get here with a quick stop for Burger King breakfast-to-go and a fillup of $3.19 a gallon regular! The tent is set up, the rain has held off (and looks as if that will continue) and the forecast is great. A far cry from last year when we got drenched.

Not much in the news today but a couple or three personnel updates on Dartmouth. ...

Senior Joe Scola, who added toughness -- as well as a key interception and runback at UNH two years ago -- has run out of eligibility but found a way to say close to the program as a student-assistant.

"I like what he's doing and how he's doing it," Coach Buddy Teevens said. "I talked with him about continuing in the spring. He is thinking about being a coach and will be back as an undergraduate assistant while he's finishing up his courses in the fall."

Don Jennings, who coordinates video and pulls together the recruiting clips that will be on the school's official site in the spring, has a well-earned new title: director of football operations.

"Don has done a nice job for us," said Teevens. "He came in and learned the film editing process very effectively. He's good with the computer and whatnot. He's very meticulous, very organized and detailed. He's quiet and unassuming but he's very thorough. So we put the tag director of football operations on him and we are glad to have him."

Also wearing a new hat this spring is Matthew Smiley, the hard-to-miss special teams coach. He's working with the running backs while also handling the special units.

One more note. Please, please, please, if you see something on the blog or the regular site that I got wrong, let me know. I try hard, believe me, but I don't always get it right. When I don't it's very important to help me make it right. So rather than worry that you are being a bother, if you drop me a note and point out something I messed up, I'll consider it a favor from a friend. (Also send an email this way if there's something you'd like to see here. No promises, but I'm all ears and want this to be your site in addition to mine.)

Off the field and away from Dartmouth, the Daily Princetonian is reporting that Princeton has offered its head basketball coaching position to Sydney Johnson, an assistant on John Thompson's staff the past three years. Johnson, who had a severely unorthodox but highly effective 3-point shot while playing for the Tigers, won out over a field of candidates that included former Dartmouth assistant Mike Maker. No word yet on whether Johnson has accepted the position.