Saturday, March 01, 2008

Get The Popcorn Ready

eGot a note yesterday from Erik Greenberg Anjou regarding his film, "8: Ivy League Football and America." Erik reports that the 96-minute documentary will make its much-awaited debut at the Yale Club in New York City on April 24. The film's web site says it ...
...tells the story of how the eight Ivy League colleges invented the game of football and pioneered the concept of the scholar-athlete, and how irreplaceable lessons in discipline, perseverance, and teamwork continue to be taught on the Ivy League gridirons.
The web site says the film ...
... capitalizes on the talents of award-winning filmmaker Erik Greenberg Anjou (The Cool Surface (Columbia TriStar), A Cantor’s Tale (Ergo Media) and Mark F. Bernstein, author of Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession. The feature-length film includes interviews with former Ivy League stalwarts Tommy Lee Jones, Calvin Hill, Ed Marinaro, Dick Kazmaier, Chuck Bednarik, Buddy Teevens, George Shultz, and Dan Jiggetts, among many others, as well as contemporary game footage of all the Ivy League schools in action.
Until you see it you don't know what ended up on the cutting room floor, but additional interviews for the film included Murry Bowden '71, Jeffrey Immelt '78, Preston Copley '06 and a fellow named Paterno. Coach Buddy Teevens even let the film crew into his locker room on game day. The film is narrated by former Columbia gridder Brian Dennehy.

To watch a trailer of the film, click here.

A final, very important note. From Erik's email:
"(W)e are dedicating our film to two people. The first is Dr. Joshua Tremaine Billings, Princeton '33. Josh had been the oldest surviving Tiger captain until this past year, when he passed. The second person we're dedicating our film to is Kathy Phillips, who was such a bright light and immense help to our efforts."
Kathy Slattery Phillips, you'll remember, was the Dartmouth sports information director until her death in November. It's tremendously fitting for her to be honored in this way.

***
I don't report recruiting information here until one of three things happens: 1) it appears in so-called mainstream media or on an established recruiting site; 2) a family member contacts me; 3) the commitment deadline is passed and the Dartmouth coaches are allowed to publicly comment on recruits. Because none of those things have happened, I've got to be a bit mysterious about another incoming freshman. All I will say is when you hear his name you'll recognize it.

That Q&A with Chris Lincoln, author of Playing the Game; Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, will be posted next week. Chris emailed me and reported he's hard at work banging out answers to our questions.

And finally, that certain Hanover High sophomore ran last night in the New England championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. Running in a heat of the two-mile that on another night she may have won, she instead finished next-to-last in a time that disappointed her mightily. Suffice it to say courage comes in many forms, and she showed a great deal of it last night.

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