Echoes Of Dartmouth's Past

There is a terrific story out of the San Francisco Chronicle taking a look at athletic successes and failures at Stanford. The story is headlined:

HIGHER STANDARDS
Stanford teams finding it's hard to win if athletes can't get in

There's all kinds of interesting stuff in this story, starting with a lede that does a good job of setting the stage for what's to come:

Stanford will soon wrap up its 13th straight Directors' Cup, which recognizes overall success in intercollegiate sports. Many Stanford alumni, however, consider the cup a booby prize, won mainly because the school excels in non-revenue producing sports.

Does that have a familiar ring, Ivy League fans?

Speaking of a familiar ring, a severe downturn in a number of Stanford sports -- including football -- just happened to coincide with the tenure of an admissions dean:

The common denominator is the rosters of those teams were largely determined during the 2000-05 tenure of Robin Mamlet as dean of admissions. She came from Swarthmore, a small liberal arts college near Philadelphia that competes in sports on the Division III level. She had not worked at a Division I school previously and apparently had little experience dealing with applications from elite athletes.

Those of you with institutional memory regarding Dartmouth might find the mention of Swarthmore, admissions and a downturn in football all in the same story eerily familiar.

The San Francisco Chronicle writer tried to contact Buddy Teevens for a few thoughts but he was either still on his bicycle and out of contact at the time, or thought better of reopening old wounds. Bobby Clark, the legendary Dartmouth soccer coach who later coached at Stanford and now at Notre Dame, spoke to the Chronicle about the admissions difficulties he faced at the end of his successful stint with the Cardinal:

"Two kids, one in each of our last two years, were turned down, and both got into Harvard. One was our top (recruited) player.''

Matt Dougherty, the former Dartmouth sports information intern who has meant so much to FCS/Division I-AA football as the editor of the sport at The Sports Network, is leaving that post to become director of media relations with the Patriot League. He's a good guy who will be soreless missed by a lot of readers.

Thanks to a regular reader who sent along a link to a very interesting discussion about this fall's Princeton-Hampton game on a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference MEAC message board. In addition to some interesting back-and-forth that offers a look at how people perceive the level of football in the Ivies, the board included this:

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Dartmouth and Norfolk State play a series in a few years. The head coaches are old friends from their days in Florida as asst. coaches.

The Norfolk State coach's bio doesn't list anything about him being at Florida, so I'm not really sure if there's a connection between the two, but it's worth watching ...