Another All-Ivy Perspective

Slow day in the blog world so here's a different spin on the All-Ivy League football team: a look at the All-Ivy League players returning next fall. The total of All-Ivy returnees is followed by the number of first-team selections coming back in parentheses. (Does not count potential fifth-year seniors.)

8 (2) – Penn
7 (2) – Harvard
5 (3) – Brown
4 (2) – Columbia
3 (0) – Yale
2 (1) – Princeton
2 (0) – Cornell
1 (0) – Dartmouth

The Big Green's lone returning All-Ivy player is sophomore receiver Timmy McManus, an honorable-mention pick. Second-team defensive back Ian Wilson, honorable-mention punter Brian Scullin and HM tailback Milan Williams will all graduate.

If you are following the FCS playoffs, you can find a good bracket and list of upcoming games here.

Does the name Matt Slater ring a bell? He's the Southern California kid who seemed all set to come to Dartmouth a few years ago, but instead ended up UCLA. Former Big Green coach John Lyons once said Slater would have been the fastest wide receiver in Ivy League history. That's tough to say, but clearly the guy has wheels.

Slater switched to defensive back at UCLA where he set school records for kickoff returns for a touchdown in a season and a career on his way to making the SI.com All-America first team as a returner. He's now in his rookie year with the New England Patriots.

I caught a little bit of the Pats' game yesterday and Slater muffed a kickoff against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Today's Boston Globe had a sidebar about Slater being a standup guy after the costly miscue. The Globe story began this way:

The 23-year-old Slater could have dodged the tough questions like some of his other, older teammates elected to.

To his credit, he didn't.

Away from the gridiron, a couple of Dartmouth teams played defending national champions yesterday with somewhat mixed results.

The Dartmouth men's soccer team took it on the chin against Wake Forest, 7-0, in the NCAA Tournament. The Winston-Salem Journal has a story. ...

Last night the Dartmouth men's ice hockey team had a little more success – but still came up short – in a regular-season game against Boston College. The Big Green dropped a controversial 2-1 decision in overtime. While the game attracted a crowd of 4,230 (almost double what football drew against Ivy League co-champion Brown in the Memorial Field finale) not even the Boston Globe's online edition has a story. To read more, check out the Dartmouth sports information story

And finally, it's the first day of indoor (read: winter) track practice at Hanover High School and that certain Hanover junior will be joined on the team this year by her freshman brother. He's always played basketball in the past but because he didn't go the AAU route (and because growing hasn't been a real talent so far), it was going to be a push to make much headway on the hardwood. He's a bit apprehensive about track, but he has a tremendous amount of determination and that can serve him well running distances. Stay tuned. ...