Free Agent Signings

As part of the Penn State Blue-White game festivities in State College, Pa., over the weekend there was a charity dunking booth that featured, among others, star Nittany Lion tailback Evan Royster. Here that certain Hanover High School junior takes a shot at soaking the PSU standout.

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While no Ivy Leaguers were taken in the NFL draft, at least four have signed with teams as free agents. Harvard quarterback Chris Pizzotti has signed with the New York Jets and teammate Desmond Bryant, a defensive end, signed with the Oakland Raiders. The Indianapolis Colts signed Brown tight end Colin Cloherty while the Kansas City Chiefs signed Yale linebacker Bobby Abare.

Patriot Leaguers Dartmouth faced who inked contracts included Colgate offensive linemen Nick Hennessey with the Buffalo Bills and Steve Jonas with the Detroit Lions, and Holy Cross wide receiver Brett McDermott with the Colts.

Former Dartmouth football players Andrew Dete, Phil Galligan, Erik Estabrook, Anthony Arch and Charlie Grant helped the Dartmouth Rugby "A" side take the Ivy League title in a walkover. On the first day of the competition, the Big Green outscored its two opponent 213-0. (112-0 vs. Cornell, 101-0 vs. Princeton). From an eRugby news release:

As one eRugbyNews wag noted, the competition could have been re-titled: “Big Green and the seven doormats.”

Over the two days Dartmouth outscored its opposition, 275-13. The Big Green now has won the Ivy League title in nine of the past 12 years, often with help from former football players. Coach Alex Magleby:

"There’s a long tradition of rugby attracting crossover athletes from other sports and we get a lot of those guys. They come to rugby because it presents an opportunity for them to remain competitive at the collegiate level."

Earlier this month Dartmouth went 1-1 at the Collegiate National Championships Round of 16 in Atlanta, falling to top-seeded BYU, 26-5, before beating Navy, 53-26.

Pop quiz: What two schools in the same city are tied for fielding the most NCAA sports in the country, and how many sports do they field? If you answered Harvard and MIT with 41, you were right.

And now you are wrong.

The New York Times reports that financial concerns have led MIT to drop eight sports: alpine skiing, competitive pistol, golf, wrestling, and men and women’s ice hockey and men's and women's gymnastics. A Letter to the MIT Community on Sport Reduction can be found here. It reports the cut from 41 to 33 varsity sports will save $485,000. (MIT athletic director Julie Soriero is the former women's basketball coach at Penn.)

And finally, for those of you who pay attention to these things, the debate over the Fighting Sioux nickname at the University of North Dakota has taken an interesting turn with the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe voting in favor of allowing the school to keep the name.