Notes For A Thursday

Oh, the things you find out about too late as a writer. The Salem News has a story about Gary Dancewicz, whose son Matt was a safety at Dartmouth and had more than 50 tackles as a junior in '95 and again as a senior in '96. Turns out the dad is a big-time college football official. The story tells about him flying from his Massachusetts home to Palo Alto, Calif., to officiate at Notre Dame-Stanford this fall, and about him being chosen to do his third Rose Bowl next month. Looking back at an old Dartmouth press guide, it did mention that the dad played for Boston College and the grandad at Notre Dame, but nothing about officiating. A good story missed.

Talk about good stories. There's a neat one down at Westlake High in Texas, the school that sent defensive back Matt Dornak to Dartmouth and will be sending younger brother Brad (a future Big Green wide receiver) this way as well. Brad's teammate Cameron Nichols might have a hard time considering himself lucky, but in a way he is. The Westlake co-captain suffered a concussion on the football field this fall, and that led to the discovery of a brain tumor. He was operated on back on Nov. 27 and returned to school a week ago. From a story in the Statesman: "The doctors tell him they think they got it all, and now all Nichols waits for is a batch of letters from the colleges he's applied to: Dartmouth, Texas Tech and the Colorado School of Mines."

I have no if Californian Hank Nelson is a track recruit (he runs the 800 in high school) but he's another example of the interesting kind of kid who ends up at Dartmouth. Check out his Hank's History Hour web site here.

More snow this morning in the Upper Valley. We now have 20 inches at the snow stick up here on Moose Mountain. I think it's safe to say we're going to have a white Christmas this year.

And finally, barring a surprise, I'm scheduled to talk with Coach Buddy Teevens this morning at his new office in Floren Varsity House. I hope to have a story up on the regular Green Alert site either tonight or more likely tomorrow.