Gargiulo Pledges A Pro Return

According to a Calgary Herald story Anthony Gargiulo '06 is determined to return to pro football after suffering a devastating broken leg while with the CFL's Stampeders last season. The player who broke his leg was initially suspended for an illegal block, but reinstated after a hearing last month that Gargiulo attended. From the story:

Anthony Gargiulo says some day he may forgive -- he hasn't yet -- but he'll never forget the play, or the player, that could have ended his football career.

The story says Gargiulo, "had a second round of surgery two months ago to remove two screws, and faces more down the road to deal with six remaining screws in his leg."

When the next Ivy Football Association Dinner is held on January 22, 2009 at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, the Dartmouth honoree will be Jake Crouthamel '60, the former star running back, Big Green head coach and Syracuse athletic director. Crouthamel, of course, was in Hanover yesterday as honorary coach of the Green team in the Green-White scrimmage. Other nominees at the dinner will be:

• Brown: Steve Jordan '82 (Senior Project Manager Ryan Companies Inc. and former Pro-Bowl tight end for the Minnesota Vikings)
• Columbia: Robert Kraft '63 (Founder, Chairman, CEO, The Kraft Group and owner, New England Patriots)
• Cornell: Ed Marinaro '72 (Actor and former Minnesota Viking, New York Jet and Seattle Seahawk)
• Harvard: John Culver '54 (Former U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from Iowa)
• Penn Robert Fox '52 (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer R.A.F. Industries Inc.)
• Princeton: Donald Rumsfeld '54 (Former United States Secretary of Defense)
• Yale: Stone Phillips '77 (Television Journalist)

Former Princeton quarterback Jeff Terrell got a minicamp invitation from the Dallas Cowboys (a Princeton and hometown connection didn't hurt) while Harvard's Andrew Brecher failed his physical with the team and was not signed according to this note.

Perhaps seeking to avoid any hint of a quarterback controversy come preseason camp, UNH has named RJ Toman as its starting quarterback next fall. Toman was very impressive in relief of Ricky Santos in last September's game against Dartmouth. Fosters Daily Democrat has a story.

Saw a note about this elsewhere and couldn't help but toss in a thought. The Collegiate Licensing Company announced its top-selling institutions for the second quarter of the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Texas was No. 1 while Penn State was No. 7. My thought: Look for PSU to climb that list after our recent trip to State College. By my estimation it could be early August before that certain Hanover High soph and her 8th grade brother wear anything that doesn't have a Penn State logo on it. Some kids spend their money on iTunes or video games. Mine? They left theirs in T-shirt shops from one end of College Avenue to the other.

And finally, it appears the right decision was made to delay the Ivy League baseball championship series to Tuesday. It's rotten out there again this morning. As it turned out, they might have squeezed a game in yesterday afternoon, but they could also have been holed up until Tuesday or Wednesday trying to finish the series. ...

It was fun visiting with a lot of you the past few days and after the Green-White scrimmage yesterday. I'd hoped to meet more of the incoming families, but between chasing down interviews, having to hurry one kid off to practice and finding the other – who was being dropped off for the baseball games that didn't take place – it got pretty hectic. Their mom usually does the heavy lifting on days like this, but she's "out-of-service" for a few weeks. The end of the Lonestar song, Mr. Mom, says it all:

Football, soccer and ballet
Squeeze in Scouts and PTA
And there's that shopping list she left
That's seven pages long
How much smoke can one stove make
The kids won't eat my charcoal cake
It's more than any man can take
Being Mr. Mom