Another Lineman

They are coming in fast and furious now. Fast, furious and ... big.

Add offensive lineman Kyle Cook of Southern California powerhouse Mater Dei High School to the list of Dartmouth recruits according to this blog by LA Times high school sportswriters. This blog says he had a visit scheduled to see Brown, but backed off of it because of the school's "city campus" and committed to Dartmouth.

Like a lot of high school seniors, Cook is listed a various sizes and weights but 6-5, 260 seems to show up most often. That's what he's listed at in an OC Varsity bio that features a little head shot. SuperPrep has him at No. 139 nationally at offensive tackle, and gives him two stars.

And earlier LA Times sportswriters blog wrote:

If there are any college recruiters in need of an offensive lineman, Kyle Cook of Santa Ana Mater Dei should be on the list of prospects. ... Cook has a 3.6 grade-point average and has been overshadowed because Mater Dei's No. 1 lineman is (USC-bound) Khaled Holmes. But make no mistake about Cook's talent.

Don't look for former Columbia standout Marcellus Wiley and former Dartmouth standout Casey Cramer in the same car showroom anytime soon. One reason, of course, is their relative financial situations. Wiley played for Buffalo before winning a big-money contract with the San Diego Chargers. Cramer was cut a number of times, made it onto a practice squad and then clawed his way into the NFL as a special teams player. He's been with the Tennessee Titans for two years.

As his bio points out, Cramer has a 1999 Toyota with well over 100,000 miles on it. Would Wiley be seen in such a car? To quote that movie chracter, Not so much. Check out this story on Wiley's automotive leanings. From the story:

"I bought a Ford Expedition when they first hit the streets. I put two Buffalo Bills flags in the windows and hit the streets. After rolling with that for a while, I got the Lexus GS400, and then I got the new Ford Excursion when that came out. All of my cars were very modest. Sure, I liked Ferraris and Rolls-Royces, but I wasn't at that stage yet."

Yet.

Armed with a big contract from San Diego, he began to purchase high-ticket automobiles, like the Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Ferrari 360 Modena.

Gotta admit it, I'm jealous ...

Of Casey. As the owner of a 1993 Mitsubishi hatchback with a hatch that doesn't work and considerably more miles than Cramer's car, his ride sounds pretty good to me ;-)

The NCAA rules definitely have a bizarre loophole in them when a player can graduate from one school and use up his final season of eligibility as a grad student at another. A three-year player at Notre Dame is going to do just that at Delaware according to this story. Good for the kid, and good for the Columbia quarterback and Penn linebacker who took advantage of the rule to play at others schools after graduation in the past several years. But it's still a rule that needs to be looked at.

That's it for today as I've got to put the old Expo (we've nicknamed it Vlad after our favorite player from the lost and much-lamented Montreal Expos) on the road and steer north. Today I'm the Baltimore Sun covering the UMBC-Vermont men's basketball game in Burlington.

One more thing: The New Hampshire high school state indoor track championships are on tap tomorrow at Leverone Field House, starting at 10:30. That certain Hanover High sophomore qualified in four events and will run in three: the 3000, the 1500 and a leg of the 4x400 relay. Keep your fingers crossed. She's seeded third in one, fifth in another and the relay is seeded second. Top six advance from two classes combined advance to New Englands.