A Perfect Storm In The Desert

In some ways it was the Perfect Storm. A former Dartmouth football player living in Arizona founds a company that helps high school athletes win the attention of college recruiters. Living in the same area, a high school football player with excellent grades looking to find his way onto college radar screens.

The former Dartmouth football player: Zack Walz '98, who started Interactive Sports Profiles after the end of his five-year career as an outside linebacker for the Arizona Cardinals. His work for ISP became part of the foundation for Student Athlete Showcase. (Zack's bio on the SAS site is here.)

The high school player trying to find the right match for a school: offensive lineman/longsnapper Shane Peterlin.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Walz' company not only helped the 6-foot-4, 281-pound Peterlin find a school ... but that school just so happened to be Dartmouth.

SAS is the subject of a story in a recent issue of the Business Journal of Phoenix. An excerpt:

"We want to give these kids as many opportunities as possible," said Walz, who struggled to find a college to continue his own football career.

Playing for football powerhouse St. Francis High School in Mountain View, Calif., Walz was a good linebacker, but wasn't recruited. So he sent out tapes to colleges on the East Coast and found a spot at Dartmouth College. Four years later, he was drafted in the sixth round by the Cardinals.

"I was going to be one of those kids who was going to be a casualty of the recruiting process," he said.

The story ends with a mention of the work SAS did for Peterlin (find his Dartmouth bio here).

The Cincinnati Post takes an interesting look at Mike Brown '57, the Bengals' "president and patriarch," and a former Dartmouth quarterback.

For a little more background on the installation of FieldTurf on Brown's practice fields (but not the game field) check out this story.

New Hampshire has been picked to finish second in its division of the CAA, behind UMass. This story notes that Ricky Santos was the preseason pick as offensive player of the year in the conference, not a surprise given that he's been picked for the same honor nationally. The full CAA preseason team, listed here, has just two UNH players selected to the first team.