All-America

Yale tailback Mike McLeod and Harvard defensive back Steven Williams have been named to the American Football Coaches Association Football Championship Subdivision All-America Team. For the Ivy League release, click here. ...

That got me thinking about Dartmouth players being named All-America since Reggie Williams was the last Big Green player in so-called "major college" football to earn the honor in 1975. The list of Dartmouth players on the I-AA/FCS All-America team since then (Italics indicate first team picks):

1988 - Craig Morton, wide receiver, AP second team
1990 - Denis Durkin, kicking specialist, AP third team
1991 - Al Rosier, tailback, AP first team
1992 - Dennis Durkin, kicking specialist, AP first team
1992 - Jay Fiedler, quarterback, AP third team
1996 - Lloyd Lee, defensive back, AP second team
1996 - Brian Larson, offensive tackle, AP third team
1997 - Dominic Lanza, center, AP third team
1997 - Zack Walz, linebacker, AP third team
2000 - Caleb Moore, offensive guard, AP third team
2002 - Casey Cramer, tight end, AFCA first team, Sporting News first team, Walter Camp first team, AP second team

This year's full AP All-America team:
OFFENSE
WR—Ryan Maher (Holy Cross), Ramses Barden (Cal Poly)
OL—Jesse Padilla (Lafayette), David Hale (Weber State), Chad Rinehart (Northern Iowa), Mitch Erickson (South Dakota State), Kerry Brown (Appalachian State)
QB—Ricky Santos (New Hampshire)
RB—Chad Simpson (Morgan State), Omar Cuff (Delaware), Mike McLeod (Yale)

DEFENSE
DL—Bryan Smith (McNeese State), Kroy Biermann (Montana), Brian Johnston (Gardner-Webb), Kendall Langford (Hampton)
LB—Jason Williams (Western Illinois), Brian Bradford (Towson), Zach East (Prairie View A&M)
DB—Tony LeZotte (James Madison), Steven Williams (Harvard), Derrick Huff (Eastern Kentucky), Al Donaldson (Alabama A&M)

SPECIALISTS
P—Chris MacDonald (Texas State)
PK—Piotr Czech (Wagner)
AP—Jayson Foster (Georgia Southern)

Thanks to former Dartmouth Sports Information Director Jack DeGange and his extensive personal archives for this nugget: Poker legend Chip Reese was listed as 5-11, 215 defensive tackle on 1969 Dartmouth freshman team that was 7-0. He did not appear on the varsity roster the next fall.

This one floored me. The lead from a Tulsa World story:

Not many players can claim they played college football for six seasons. Fewer still can say they've played in the Ivy League, Big 12 and Big Ten.

No, they can't. As it turns out, Dan Dixon went to Cornell to play football but returned to his Tulsa hometown for surgery after being injured early in his freshman season. He then transferred to Oklahoma, made the All-Big 12 academic team and won an award as the Sooners' most inspirational walk-on. He graduated and then thought he had used a final year of eligibility as a special teams player as a graduate student at Northwestern, only to be awarded a medical hardship year because of his injury at Cornell. He ended up playing 11 games for the Wildcats last fall.

And finally, we had a wonderful trip to Foxboro yesterday to watch the New England Patriots topple the Pittsburgh Steelers. We discovered all the stories about difficulties getting out of the stadium parking lot and access roads are true, and that freezing rain doesn't help matters. Fortunately, the farther north we got, the better the weather became. White knuckles and lack of sleep aside, it was a fabulous experience.