Time To Hit The Field

Here we go. Spring practice kicks off today at 4:45 p.m.

Two pieces of good news:

• The forecast is for 48 degrees and mostly cloudy this afternoon and 55 and sunny tomorrow. Pretty good football weather.
• And the much-delayed FieldTurf installation at lacrosse's Scully-Fahey Field has finally been completed. Both lax teams had been practicing and playing on Memorial Field and it was starting to look as if there would require quite a confusing matrix to get football and two lacrosse teams (plus men's and women's track) all scheduled in the stadium.

I'll be out at Memorial Field today and tomorrow and will have reports posted on the main Green Alert site sometime tonight. The goal during the season is always 9 p.m., but given that practice is starting a little later, I'm thinking 10 p.m. Eastern.

The local daily has a story about the start of spring ball.

Today's Daily Dartmouth has a story about the 15th seeded Dartmouth rugby team playing second-seed Brigham Young University this Friday in the first round of the National College Club Division I playoffs in Albuquerque. What makes this story interesting for Dartmouth football followers is that the team features four former football players and one current Big Green player.

Senior safety Ian Wilson (returning next fall as a fifth-year senior) is joined on the team by tight end Bret Lowe, offensive lineman Jared Dowdakin, free safety John Pircon and fullback Ryan Mahoney.

Lowe told the Daily Dartmouth how he and his former football teammates got involved:

“I’ve been competitive all my life, and I think that’s the case with most of the football players,” Lowe said. “We’ve been playing (football) since third grade through college. Ian Wilson had kind of talked it up to us, and it sounded like a fun thing to do. Really, I just like competing. And I wanted a chance to not only play a new sport, but meet a whole bunch of new people.”

It's not unusual for former football players to wrap up their careers playing rugby. Anthony Gargiulo '06 played rugby as a senior before returning to football last year in the Canadian Football League. Offensive lineman John Turner '04, also played in nationals with the Big Green rugby team.

For a story I wrote about Turner's rugby career, click here. That story, by the way, also talks about Turner's music/composing career. Check out the story and if you are curious, when you bring up his MySpace page, you will hear his composition, Antithetical.

The Red Rolfe Division-leading Dartmouth baseball team improved to 10-2 in Ivy League player (and 17-10) overall with a sweep at Brown yesterday and another former football player had a key role. Senior outfielder Jason Blydell, a defensive back last fall, was 4-for-5 with three runs batted in and three RBI's in the nightcap. He was 5-for-8 on the day and is now batting .329 with 15 runs batted in for the Big Green.

Blydell was Dartmouth's third-leading tackler last fall with 54 stops and four pass breakups. It's neat to see a kid who battled injuries for much of his two-sport career in Hanover finishing on a high note.