Name That Quarterback

Can you name that quarterback?

If you said Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the incoming Dartmouth president, give yourself a pat on the back.

This shot is from Dr. Kim's high school yearbook in Iowa, where he was the starting quarterback for the Muscatine Muskies as a senior. He also played basketball. For the Vox of Dartmouth bio page on Kim that includes this picture, click here.

Has spring sprung?




Nah, but an unusually warm day (53 degrees), the new FieldTurf and some solid work clearing the infield allowed the Dartmouth baseball team to get outside yesterday in advance of its trip to California. The Big Green opens its West Coast tour tomorrow at Pacific. The schedule if you are in the area (or even if you are not :-) –

• March 18 at Pacific, 8:35 p.m. Now 4 p.m.
  
• March 19 at San Jose State, 9 p.m.
• March 20 at San Jose State, 9 p.m.
• March 21 at Santa Clara, 4 p.m.
• March 22 at Santa Clara, 4 p.m.
• March 24 vs. San Jose State (at SLO) 3 p.m.
• March 25 at Cal Poly, 9 p.m.

Back to football, Chuck Burton over at College Sporting News tries to unravel the truth about Fordham's rumored push for scholarships. While he can't quite crack the story, he does reiterate this very interesting (and in my opinion accurate) thought from a coach:

“With scholarships, the Patriot League could be even more selective,” another coach told me. “There’s a whole pool of prospects that are academically and athletically eligible that neither the Ivy nor Patriot League (can) get due to finances alone. And that pool of athletes is fairly large.”

That's a hard argument to defeat.

Switching sports again, the 18-10 Dartmouth women's basketball team gathered at Jesse's Restaurant last evening for the NCAA Tournament drawing. By most accounts the draw was going to be just a formality. UConn was going to be the No. 1 seed and Dartmouth was going to be the 33-0 Huskies' first victim.

The bad news was that when the first matchup was announced, Dartmouth was indeed one of the two teams in the game. The good news: The other team wasn't UConn. It was a No. 1 seed, but at least it wasn't the Huskies.

In a surprise, the Big Green will be playing at 28-4 Maryland on Sunday. The committee did Dartmouth a favor by tossing Vermont (and former Big Green assistant Sharon Dawley) to the No. 1 Dogs, although it wasn't that huge a favor. Dartmouth is still a 16 seed, and will be a big underdog against the Terrapins.

For a Washington Post story about the Maryland draw written by former Dartmouth soccer player Camille Powell, click here. While the odds are stacked against the Big Green, Dartmouth has had a history of near misses in the tournament under coach Chris Wielgus.

• 1995: 14-seed Dartmouth pushes Virginia to the edge before dropping a 71-68 decision.
• 2000: 13-seed Dartmouth is tied with defending national champion Purdue in the final two minutes before falling, 70-66.
• 2006: 14-seed Dartmouth falls behind Rutgers, 13-0, but is down just three points with the ball in the hands of red-hot, 3-pointer shooter Angie Soriaga before a debatable offensive foul with 14 seconds left ends the drama in what goes in the books as a 63-58 loss.

This year's team showed it can bang with the big 'uns when it took a 20-win Michigan State team to overtime, outrebounding the Spartans and their 6-foot-9 center, 41-37. Dartmouth, by the way, has won 15 of its last 16 games.

And finally, unofficial softball practice begins today for that certain Hanover High junior who started in center field as a freshman, played every inning behind the plate last year, and is a team captain this spring. Baseball doesn't begin for a few more days for her freshman brother, also a catcher who might also see time at second base this year.

For what it's worth, Hanover is one of the few high schools in New Hampshire to charge a participation fee for athletics. At $85 per season, it's not outrageous, but when you have two kids playing three sports a year, it adds up. In fact, it will cost us $2,040 for the two of them to play four years of high school sports. Yikes.