30 At 30

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the formation of the I-AA, College Sporting News compiled a Top 30 list at a number of different positions prior to this season. One Dartmouth player and a number of Ivy League and non-conference opponents were recognized. (Given that a lot of importance – probably too much – was put on how the players who went on did in the NFL, I originally thought it crazy that Reggie Williams wasn't on the list, but then realized the players honored were only those who played after the I-A/I-AA split.)

Which brings us to the only Dartmouth player listed among the positions posted so far (wide receiver, linebacker, defensive back, offensive line, defensive line, kicker running back). That would be ... linebacker Zack Walz '98, ranked the No. 26 linebacker in 30 years of I-AA football. Here's what TCN had to say about Walz in its write-up about linebackers:

Three time All-Ivy League performer (1995, 1996, 1997) and was an All-American in 1997. Played in 46 games, starting 16 in 4-year NFL career, all with Arizona.

Interestingly, Walz was one slot ahead of Harvard's Isaiah Kacyvenski (No. 27) and two ahead of Brown's Zak DeOssie (No. 29).

Five running backs Dartmouth played against were listed, with Princeton's Keith Elias surprisingly overlooked. The ranking of running backs included:

7. Jerry Azumah, New Hampshire
11. Kenny Gamble, Colgate
14. Jim Finn, Pennsylvania
19. Jamaal Branch, Colgate
21. Gill Fenerty, Holy Cross

Two Ivies and one non-Ivy opponent landed in the offensive line rankings:

1. Matt Birk, Harvard
17. Bruce Kozerski, Holy Cross
28. Kevin Boothe, Cornell

The defensive line had two Ivies honored:

6. Marcellus Wiley, Columbia
27. Seth Payne, Cornell

Just one wide receiver Dartmouth played against made the list. That he made the list is no surprise, but he's shockingly low:

20. David Ball, New Hampshire

Former Dartmouth quarterback Jay Fiedler – who would probably belong in the CSN listing if pro career is indeed one of the points of emphasis – has retired, but he still has his fans, including a brave 8-year-old boy who lost his hands and feet to a bacteria in October. As this Miami Herald story notes, Jay was one of the athletes who visited the young boy in the hospital.

Jake Novak over at Roar Lions Roar has some thoughts on the longevity of Ivy League football coaches. ...

Speaking of Ivy League football coaches, former Yale defensive back Casey Gerald isn't reading from quite the same "retirement" playbook as everyone else with regard to the end of Bulldogs' coach Jack Siedlecki's tenure in New Haven. In a New Haven Register story that touches on the search for a successor, Gerald says:

Obviously, he and the administration came to an agreement that what was best for the program was for him to move on.

I wonder what Tommy Tuberville's mother would say about that?

The Register's Portal 31 blog, meanwhile, has a little more on the search. Writer Jim Fuller tsk-tsk's the Internet chat that has raised names like Tuberville, Ty Willingham, New York Giants assistant Chris Palmer, UMass coach Donny Brown and former Fordham/Richmond coach Dave Clawson. He does, however, say that highly regarded Yale defensive coordinator Rick Flanders is not interested in the position.

Curious about how rumors like those start? I can recall working at the local newspaper back when Buddy Teevens was being hired the first time.

A reporter from another newspaper – a larger one that shall remain nameless – called us out of the blue one night while we were taking high school basketball calls, to ask if we had any names we could share. A co-worker, who was reading a story about a national coaching search while waiting for high school coaches to call, answered the phone and, annoyed at the laziness of the other reporter, simply reeled off several names from the story in the fellow's own newspaper. The next morning there was a hot scoop with those exact names said to be involved with Dartmouth. Now, I'd never do anything like that (and the writer who did isn't in the business anymore) but it was pretty funny.

That's how the rumor mill can get started. I saw an old friend last weekend who was mentioned in stories in national newspapers as a candidate for a high-profile job that he didn't get. When I asked him how strongly he went for the job, he laughed. He hadn't applied or interviewed for the position. But a major newspaper in New Jersey thought he was a natural candidate and floated his name. That got picked up elsewhere and the story snowballed.

So the next time you see names out there, take 'em with a grain of salt. No, a full shaker.

I saw a brief note about Penn State quarterback Pat Devlin deciding to transfer and, being a Nittany Lion type, went off to learn a little more. Lo and behold, I stumbled across a Philadelphia Inquirer column that mentioned Dartmouth, at least in a fictional way. Written by Frank Fitzpatrick, it was spawned, apparently, by an email from Penn State SID Jeff Nelson about a pre-Rose Bowl media deal planned for Disneyland.

The Disneyland mention led Fitzpatrick to create an imaginary conversation between Paterno and Nelson. The conversation included JoePa, the old Brown grad, saying:

Did I ever tell you we'd have licked Dartmouth if that referee, who was from Brooklyn too, hadn't fouled up that call on the onside kick?

Jeff Nelson, by the way, is a former Dartmouth sports information intern who later was SID at Holy Cross.

It's not football, but it's Ivy League with a Dartmouth mention, so ...

Can you imagine a basketball team having all five starters heading to Division I ball, with three of them going to the Ivy League? Such is the case with the Detroit Country Day women's basketball team as this MLive.com story notes. One starter is going to Illinois and another to Georgia Tech. Harvard and Cornell are each getting one. And Fazieh Steen will be heading to Dartmouth. DCD, by the way, has been very good to the powerhouse Dartmouth women's program over the years.

And finally, there's snow forecast "in them thar hills." It's supposed to start later today and pile up pretty good overnight. The kids are keeping their fingers crossed for a snow day.

Me? I'm just glad for yesterday's warm rain, which melted enough snow for me to finally get almost everything that had been locked in snow and ice since before Thanksgiving put away for the winter.

Now the only hassle is our '84 VW camper, which has a date to be oil-undercoated next Tuesday. I usually have it tucked into the woods and wrapped in green tarps by now, but our VW guru pleaded with us to have the undercoating done before putting it up for the winter. If we get enough snow and the plow does the driveway, there will be hours of shoveling to clear a path to get the camper put away. Ah, life in the north country ;-)