Sticking With It

This morning's local daily offered an overview of Dartmouth recruiting classes for football, men's soccer, baseball, men's basketball, lacrosse and hockey, and men's and women's track. The piece was built around the idea that at non-scholarship Ivy League schools, attrition is a way of life. It made the point that football has done better on that score than a number of other Dartmouth sports. From the story:

"Football is notorious for thinning the herd, but the Big Green has had relative success in retention. Of the 36 freshmen in the first recruiting class of Buddy Teevens' return as head coach, 23 are still on the active roster."

Best name of an incoming recruit: Soccer's Luckymore Mkosana, a Kimball Union Academy product from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

With the school year winding down it won't be long before football all-star games begin between graduated high school seniors. One of the oldest is the Vermont-New Hampshire Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl played annually at Dartmouth's Memorial Field.

While Dartmouth doesn't have any players in that game, several Big Green recruits have been chosen for postseason competition in their local regions. Playing in those games can pose a risk, of course. Dartmouth freshman defensive lineman Lane Shipley lost his first year of college football to an injury suffered last summer in the waning minutes of a Colorado all-star game.

Big Green coach Buddy Teevens leaves the decision whether to accept an offer to play in an all-star game to the individual. He told Green Alert: "My attitude is they've earned the right. If they want to, they can. If they prefer not to they can use Dartmouth as an excuse."