CAA Football

Checking out a UNH note this morning I was scratching my head at a question about how the Wildcats would do in the CAA this year. My first thought was they left the "N" out. They must mean the NCAA of course. But no, it's the CAA: the Colonial Athletic Association. It took a couple of seconds before I recalled that the Atlantic 10 football conference would be rolled into the CAA starting this year. If I forgot, maybe you did too, so here's a reminder: an old release mentioning the change. I won't forget again (hopefully) but count me as one who misses the old Yankee Conference. ...

Several readers have asked where Buddy Teevens Jr., is headed to school next fall and if he's planning on playing football. I had a chance to ask his old man Friday and the answer is Coastal Carolina, and at this point he's not planning to give football a try. The younger Teevens, who is listed at 6-foot-3, 170, finished off a solid season last fall for Connecticut's undefeated Salisbury School, catching 35 passes for 477 yards and five touchdowns. Find his game-by-game stats here. Interesting that he wore No. 6, one more than his dad. ...

Don't pencil Jay Fiedler in as Eli Manning's backup with the New York Giants quite yet. The former Dartmouth quarterback won't work out for the team until after the NFL draft if the New York Post has it right.

At the Frozen Four NCAA hockey championship, Dartmouth senior Dan Shribman was awarded the first Derek Hines Unsung Hero Award, honoring former Army hockey captain Derek Hines who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Hines' sister Ashley plays field hockey and lacrosse at Dartmouth.

The Dartmouth baseball team opens its home season today at Princeton! As this story in the Ithaca Journal suggests, when the FieldTurf surface is installed at Red Rolfe Field, home-away-from-home games will be a thing of the past. While Red Rolfe turf would have been cleared of snow, I'm not sure how it would feel taking a fastball on the handle today. It was 12 degrees when I got up. ;-)

From a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about the increased selectivity of liberal arts colleges:

"Colgate is now where Dartmouth was. Dartmouth is where Amherst was. Amherst is where Brown was. Brown is where Stanford was. Stanford is where Harvard was, and Harvard is all by itself taking 9 percent."

I could be wrong but I'm not sure how that ordering of admissions will play among certain Dartmouth folks.

On The Fritz

10:30 UPDATE: The Daily D has a blurb today about the law suit filed by former assistant football coach Pat O'Leary. ... Dartmouth has its largest-ever number of applications and accepted its lowest-ever percentage of applicants. Read about it here.


Everyone should be so lucky when their careers are over. This 9-minute video is a wonderful paean to quarterback Mike Fritz' career put together by his dad. The video reveals the first hint that Mike might be a quarterback came when he was as an infant. It continues through youth football, high school and Dartmouth football. It even shows him snowboarding and bungee jumping toward the end and concludes with family photos on campus. Well done.

This latest on Jay Fiedler suggests he might be coming home:

The Giants interest in Jay Fiedler has become an annual thing. Each of the last two offseasons they've had a bit of interest in him but nothing ever materialized. Maybe the third time will be a charm.

One place Fiedler likely won't end up is Baltimore according to this note.

Columbia coach Norries Wilson was recruited by Grambling's Eddie Robinson as this story says.

The Yale Daily has an inspirational story about the return to campus of a former football player who has turned tragedy into triumph. From the story:

In 1985, the former football and lacrosse star lost his left leg when a 40,000-pound bus collided with his motorcycle. Eight years later in 1993, after he had become the world’s fastest one-legged athlete, a van crashed into MacLaren when he was competing in a triathlon.

If you are in town and want to see some football on Memorial Field (the rugby version), check out Dartmouth women's game vs. Army Saturday morning at 11.

It was 18.9 degrees when I went out to get the paper at the end of the driveway today. Our final total from the snow that drifted down off-and-on into yesterday afternoon was nine inches. Dartmouth baseball was supposed to open at home this weekend.

The Easter Bunny better be a Snow Hare this Sunday. Good thing Dartmouth didn't move those spring football drills up ;-)

Support For Fiedler Lukewarm In Atlanta

9:30 a.m. update: I had intended to post a link to the story in this morning's local paper about the ongoing legal proceedings regarding the former Dartmouth assistant football coach Pat O'Leary, who claims age discrimination cost him his job during the head coach turnover two years ago. Unfortunately, the lone sports story on the paper's web site today is about the Mascoma whitewater race, a story that was buried inside the section. Go figure. The lengthy football story says jury selection is set to begin June 19 in Concord, the state capital. According to the story, a mid-March trial date was postponed because the judge was "called away on another matter." O'Leary's lawyer told the newspaper: "I would say the chances (of a settlement) are fair."

By the way, the weather forecasters got it right. We awoke to eight inches of snow, a two-hour school delay in Hanover and a $30 bite out of the wallet for driveway plowing :-(

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a poll on its site where visitors can vote their feelings on signing former Dartmouth quarterback Jay Fiedler as Michael Vick's backup. As of this morning they said they liked the idea ...

• A lot. He's an experienced quarterback: 15.98 percent
• Not much. He's too old an (sic) injured: 51.51 percent
• Let's see how his tryout goes: 32.51 percent

For what it's worth, the story now has Jay's name spelled right.

That recent story in the Columbia Spectator magazine critical of athletic concessions to athletes and the place of athletes at Columbia continues to generate an interesting response. Check out these well-reasoned opinions, including a couple from athletes at the school.

Brown spring football will tee it up for the first time tomorrow.

From the Holy Cross web site: "Holy Cross' Dan Adams Selected To Play For Team USA
Linebacker to represent USA at World Championship of American Football." I didn't even know there was a World Championship of American Football. To learn more about it, click here or here. Seems to me that there might be coaching/administrative or even more playing opportunities for recent graduates overseas than I thought.

For a little on UNH's new offensive coordinator -- including a mention of former Dartmouth offensive coordinator John Perry, now the UNH associate head coach -- click here.

Today's Brown Daily Herald has a story about the installation of 16 new security cameras on campus. The lede to the story: "Approximately 185 security cameras now quietly observe locations on Brown's campus, including Faunce House, the Power Street parking garage and - the newest addition - the 24-hour Friedman Study Center in the Sciences Library."

The story goes on to explain that the cameras are not for "spying" but that, "In addition to live monitoring, images captured by the cameras at the Friedman Center and other areas on campus are temporarily stored for future reference. 'There is a DVR that records activity on the cameras for 60 days, then once that 60 days is finished and the DVR is filled up, it begins writing again.' "

It will be interesting to see if the story stirs up any discussion on what is often portrayed as a politically active campus.

Fiedler To The Falcons?

Jay Fiedler to the Atlanta Falcons? It's been rumored the NFL team is interested in the 35-year-old quarterback out of Dartmouth and now those rumors have been confirmed. Fiedler will work out for the team according to this Atlanta Journal Constitution story that spells his name wrong throughout. (The spelling will probably be corrected on the web at some point, but here's the funny part. Early in his career his name was often written Fielder, as in the old baseball slugger Cecil Fielder. The AJC put a new spin on things, spelling it Feidler.)

Feidler -- oops -- Fiedler has low mileage for an NFL quarterback. Coming off a nasty shoulder injury and surgery, he hasn't taken a regular-season snap since the third game of the 2005 season.

College football and the FCS (nee Division I-AA) has lost a legend with the passing of former Grambling coach Eddie Robinson at age 88. Click here for a story.

When a friend told me yesterday about trying to come up with a list of the nation's top-10 college football programs I asked if I could share it here on a slow day. Welcome to a slow day ;-).

The list-maker is a lawyer, which is why it was only natural for him to explain his decision-making this way:

"Applying no criteria other than that which the Supreme Court applies to pornography ('I know it when I see it'), I came up with (in alphabetical order):"

• Alabama
• Florida State
• Miami (Fl.)
• Michigan
• Nebraska
• Notre Dame
• Ohio State
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• USC

Who else deserves mention? Florida? Penn State? Georgia? Tennessee?

Thinking about that ought to waste a little of your day ...

We woke to a covering of snow up here on the mountain this morning and it's a harbinger of things to come. The forecast is calling for 3-to-8 inches of the white stuff. A certain Hanover 7th grader was pretty ornery this morning at the realization that the first day of his baseball practice was probably going to be called off. If you've been following the blog for a while you know he was the starting catcher for the Connecticut Valley Little League championship team last spring. He's moving up to 90-foot bases this year but I'm staying behind to once again help coach his old team. I thought about moving up with him but there's a certain relief in coaching a team without your child on it. ...

A certain Hanover High freshman got her varsity softball uniform earlier this week and I'd have to say the shirt is quite possibly the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It's charcoal-colored and shines when it catches the light like an Italian suit. (As if I have a clue what an Italian suit is like.) On the front of the shirt is a maroon (the dominant school color) H outlined in white. The numbers on the back are maroon outlined in white. They are a font similar to what Kansas has on its basketball uniforms. I have only one question: Whatever happened to a nice pinstripe? Yeesh. ... They were working the certain freshman out at catcher early in practice but have moved her to center field, which was where she was stationed (in addition to shortstop) playing baseball with the boys last year.

Dartmouth On A "Prime Time" Junior Corner's Radar

Thanks to a visitor for the link to this blog with background on a "prime time cornerback" who has been offered by Virginia Tech and has "major" interest from Clemson, Georgia, Florida, LSU and Florida State. The story goes on to say the junior has drawn interest from Colorado, Indiana, Stanford and Dartmouth, "where his brother goes."

That primetime cornerback is 5-foot-11, 195-pound Ahmed Shakoor. His brother is Dartmouth freshman defensive back Muhammed Abdul Shakoor. It may be a longshot that he ends up in Hanover, but then again, you never know. ...

As expected, Dartmouth will be holding two spring football scrimmage/games this year, on April 28 and May 5. Both are slated to start at 11 a.m.. The spring practice schedule (pending weather changes):

• Monday April 16th
• Wednesday 18th
• Friday 20th
• Saturday 21st
• Monday 23rd
• Wednesday 25th
• Friday 27th
• Saturday 28th (scrimmage)
• Monday 30th
• Wednesday May 2nd
• Friday 4th
• Saturday 5th (scrimmage)

Former Dartmouth assistant basketball coach Mike Maker is interviewing at Princeton according to this story. His background running a variation of the Princeton offense as a Dartmouth assistant, coaching a near clone of the offense as an assistant at Samford and running a hybrid Princeton offense as an assistant at West Virginia probably earned him the look. The fact that he's a good guy who is well-liked and well-respected couldn't hurt.

The headline in the Boston Globe is succinct: College trustees clash on key values. If you are like me and you barely give a second glance to those trustee ballots from your college and never fully understood what is going on at Dartmouth with regard to the vote, check out this story. Maybe it simplifies things too much, but for this non-Dartmouth grad, it does a good job of explaining what is going on.

Columbia will have three new assistant coaches next fall. That's a significant turnover after Norries Wilson's first season at the helm. ... UNH football will kick off spring drills tomorrow and conclude with a May 5 scrimmage.

Wikipedia On Buddy Teevens

Wikipedia has been in the news a lot lately, in no small part because Middlebury College has banned the collaborative online encyclopedia as a source. That's a good idea, but shouldn't be be necessary. I mean, students at schools like Midd (and Penn, which also banned it) really should know better than to use Wikipedia for anything more than backgrounding themselves on a topic and digging up reliable sources.

So what am I going to do now? Why, steer you to Wikipedia, of course.

I was on the site one day and thought to see what it had to say about Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens. You can find his page here. There's nothing new there to those of us who have followed his career, but it's actually a pretty concise accounting of the who, what and where. Wikipedia has a page on Dartmouth's Memorial Field, a "stub" on Brian Mann that mentions his movie career, a longer piece on Jay Fiedler, a surprisingly short piece on Reggie Williams and tons more. Ah, but you have work to do and so do I so let's move on. ;-)

The official Ivy League web site has a mention of the two documentaries being prepared on Ivy football with links to their trailers.

A former Dartmouth gridder has made sports headlines, but not for football. This story notes that Jon Nistad '70 and his son enjoyed a strong finish in the open division of the father-son doubles at the USTA National Indoor Championship. Nistad, 59, and son Jay, 29, finished one win short of the fifth-place match in the event held in New Jersey. Nistad lettered in football at Dartmouth in 1967 and 1969.

Some of the challenges Brown will face in spring football are shared in this Providence Journal story that also discusses spring drills at Rhode Island and Bryant.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno briefly noted Brown's futility against Yale during his playing days after learning at a National Football Foundation dinner that one of the honorees had been recruited to play quarterback in New Haven. The story is here.

It's Not AprilFools.com

It is April 1 and what you are about to read is not a joke. A subscriber tipped me off about this and it's pretty wild.

A web site named Redshirted.com, owns and sells fireyourcoach domain names for internet web sites. Among the names this site owns and is offering for sale are firebillcallahan.com (Nebraska coach), firejoegibbs.com (Washington Redskins coach), firejefftedford.com (Cal coach) and 18 more. Bid prices listed range from $250 down to $50. (No Ivy League coaches are on the roster.)

Here's the kicker: Some colleges (and apparently others) are actually buying the names from this site to head off problems.

This blog explains that the University of Iowa Athletic Department did just that, buying the domain FireKirkFerentz.com from Redshirted to keep it out of the hands of anyone else. If you click on firekirkferentz.com you will be automatically forwarded to the regular Iowa athletics web site. If you click on firedanhawkins.com (the Colorado coach) you'll go to a page this has this very honest message:

This site is being held to prevent someone with negative intentions from obtaining it.

In case you are wondering, the average domain name will run from $10 to perhaps $25.

Speaking of the Internet and blogs, the Dartmouth Mirror has a piece about various Dartmouth blogs. Whether you lean left or right the story says there's something out there for you. Um, it also happens to mention there's a Dartmouth football blog ;-).

While returning Dartmouth football players are going through pre-preseason conditioning, a few are already in pretty good running shape as members of the track team. At yesterday's Snowflake Classic track meet at Tufts, freshman defensive back Pete Pidermann was a triple winner, running the 110 hurdles in 15.43, claiming the 400 hurdles in 54.57, shaving almost two seconds off the time he ran during spring break, and running the third leg on the victorious 4x400 relay. Junior wide receiver Brian Evans finished second in the 100 meters in 10.97 and in the 200 meters in 22.25. Also running the 100 and 200 was junior defensive back John Manning.