Mean Green Machine

Dartmouth super-fan sent Josh Drake '08 sent along an email alerting me to something I had not previously heard about -- an initiative to increase student attendance at Big Green athletic contests this year. As part of the MEAN GREEN MACHINE Student Fan Club students who pay a $5 membership fee and attend a certain number of contests are eligible to win prizes. Here's an excerpt from the fan club site telling what Dartmouth students can win:

• Attend all 4 football games: Dartmouth "D" Cap & Ski Pass
• Attend a mix of 6 games: Dartmouth Winter Hat
• Attend a mix of 10 games: Dartmouth Nalgene Bottle
• Attend a mix of 16 games: Dartmouth Hoody & entered to win a FREE trip to a Red Sox game in the spring
• The Top 10 Students will be guaranteed two tickets to the Red Sox game in the spring

Um, attend all 4 football games? OK, I get it. Colgate was before classes began so it didn't count. ...

There's also a list of the top-16 students in the points race. Not surprisingly, Drake its at the top. Nice to see is that freshman defensive back Lucas Hussey is in ninth place. Wonder if he gets credit for being on the sidelines at football?

Thanks to Josh for passing along a link to the site as well as a reminder that student attendance at football games roughly doubled from last year to this. Kudos to Dartmouth for trying to drum up support for the student-athletes.

James DeAngelis, the last of college football's 60-minute ironmen at Yale has died at age 97. A New York Times story includes this ...

DeAngelis, a 165-pound center and linebacker, was one of the 11 players on an ordinary team that upset Princeton on Nov. 17, 1934, ending the Tigers’ two-year winning streak of 15 games. There were no substitutes for Yale that afternoon, the starters enduring for the full 60 minutes, a feat never matched in college football thereafter. They also became known as Yale’s Ironmen, a tag that followed each to the end of his life.

And finally, the second high school track meet of the season was scheduled for today at Leverone Field House but forecast of a morning snow/wintry mix storm led to it being moved to tomorrow. A certain Hanover High sophomore is scheduled to run the 1,500 meters along with a teammate ranked seventh in the nation in cross country (and headed for Stanford on running scholarship). The soph is a little intimidated, and it's hard to blame her. I know I would be.

And finally (part II) I'm at cross purposes tonight. I covered the Dartmouth women's holiday basketball tournament for many years and as is usually the case there's a strong field with Arkansas, Marquette and Delaware in town. I'm friends with Coach Chris Wielgus and really would like to see the games. But, Penn State is playing tonight in the Alamo Bowl. Oh, and for reasons I don't really understand (I'm kidding) there's also a buzz about the New York Giants game tonight. I think they are playing the Patriots. (I'm kidding again.)

I could solve the dilemma by going to a movie. Or by suggesting my wife take the kids to the Dartmouth women's basketball game game (that certain soph is a former longtime ballgirl for the team and wants to go) and put the Nittany Lions on the tube. If that game gets out of hand (the wrong way) I'll switch to the Pats. Or if the Giants look as if they are going to make their game interesting, maybe I'll go back and forth. Truth be told, the remote control will probably get quite a workout tonight.