Director of Player Personnel?

A potpourri of links and thoughts this chilly (13 below zero) morning in the Upper Valley ... Did you see that Nick Saban has a new director of player personnel? That wouldn't be newsworthy if the Nickmeister were still coaching the Miami Dolphins. But he's now the head coach at Alabama. The University of Alabama. A director of player personnel in college? I know it's just a title, but puhlease ...

Dave Coulson over at The Sports Network has a column spun out of the just-concluded NFL Combine. While the piece eventually settles into a discussion of FCS (nee I-AA) players who made an impact in Indianapolis, what I found most interesting was the top of the column about the way the NFL goes about timing players in the 40. Suffice it to say those 4.38's and 4.49's aren't quite as trustworthy as the Internet sites -- and the NFL Combine for that matter -- report. But of course we already knew that. I've had this discussion with Dartmouth track coach Barry Harwick in the past and he always shakes his head and laughs at the times being recorded for football players – not using starting blocks or track spikes or being pushed by competitors – while being clocked on FieldTurf.

Chicago Cubs second baseman Mark DeRosa underwent a procedure yesterday to successfully correct an irregular heartbeat. DeRosa, many of you remember, was a fine Penn quarterback who gave up his senior year on the gridiron after being taken in baseball's free agent draft after his junior season on the diamond.

The Brown Daily Herald has another look at Ivy admissions and athletics with more explanation of the Academic Index. Not much new here, but it's a primer for latecomers to the discussion.

Penn football can recruit piles of kids from its own backyard in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. When Dartmouth looks out its back door at Vermont, it sees ... gorgeous countryside but not much in the way of football high schools. A Rutland Herald story on the hiring of a coach to start up a program at Division III Castleton State College notes the new coach from The College of New Jersey ... "will be doing it in a state that features 34 football-playing schools, compared to 353 in New Jersey." Thirty-four! No wonder I can't remember the last Dartmouth football player from the Green Mountain State.

For all the woe-is-us sentiment out of Ithaca (not that it isn't warranted) regarding financial aid reforms, it's a winter of potentially historic proportions high above Cayuga's waters. A USA Today story picked up from the Ithaca Journal notes that the Big Red men's and women's basketball teams can both clinch Ivy League championships this weekend in games against Dartmouth and Harvard. The Cornell men are home and in total control of their race, so barring a total meltdown, it's only a matter of time until they dethrone the P's. As for the women, not so fast. They are at Dartmouth tonight and at Harvard tomorrow. If the Joanna-come-latelies are going to win the title, they are going to have to earn it against the two schools that have traditionally dominated the women's game and are right on their heels this winter.

And finally this ... we zip off to Boston today to watch that certain Hanover High sophomore compete against the best in New England in the two-mile at the Reggie Lewis Center. Her goal is a top-half finish, but those sniffles this morning aren't a good sign. Regardless of what happens, it's been a great season.