It's not a book I normally would have bought or read, but I received it as a gift at Christmas. Here it is mid-May and finding myself out of reading material I picked it up and started reading. It's interesting because I know some of the players involved (Dartmouth track coach Barry Harwick's son is the goalie) as well as a number of the parents who the author writes about.
But it is a maddening book. Beyond the overly sappy descriptions of how soccer is such a beautiful and imaginative game, the cheap shots at football are just that. Cheap shots. Writing of the cheating scandal at Hanover High that year, the author quotes himself asking his son, "Any soccer players?" The son answers, "Football players." The father again: "Why am I not surprised? Cynical of me, but that's sometimes my role."
Later in the book:
"The chance to play beautifully finally came against Hollis-Brookline at home. It was a cool, crisp Saturday – "football weather" they call it, those benighted souls who persist in the delusion that football is America's game. Dartmouth was playing Princeton in their refurbished stadium three hundred yards away, and roars from the crowd, shorn of passion, were breezelike whispers by the time they reached our stands.""... (T)hose benighted souls who persist in the delusion that football is America's game?" ... Discuss among yourselves.
Brown is the latest Ivy League school to release it's football recruits here.
Forner All-Ivy defensive back John Carney '78, whose bid for the governor's mansion in Delaware was derailed last year, is running for congress. Find his website here. His bio on the site starts this way:
The second of nine children, John was born in Wilmington and raised in Claymont by his parents Jack and Ann. He attended St. Mark’s High School where he was quarterback of the 1973 state championship team. John continued his football career at Dartmouth College and earned All-Ivy League and Most Valuable Player awards before graduating in 1978. After several years of coaching football and lacrosse, John became a freshmen football coach at the University of Delaware, while earning his master’s degree in public administration.Dartmouth football will be honoring four Ivy League championship teams on Saturday's this fall. The teams and dates:
- Oct. 3 vs. Penn – 1969 Ivy League Co-Champions
- Oct. 24 vs. Columbia – 1963 Ivy League Co-Champions
- Nov. 7 vs. Cornell – 1971 Ivy League Co-Champions
- Nov. 21 vs. Princeton – 1981 Ivy League Co-Champions
If you were a member of one of these teams, you will be receiving an invitation to the weekend's festivities during the summer, so please mark your calendar and plan to return to Hanover with the rest of your teammates to celebrate your championship season.And finally, the Hanover High junior varsity baseball team came from behind for a dramatic, 6-5, win yesterday in its final at-bat. That certain freshman catcher was solid behind the plate the whole game, laughing afterward at the pressure he felt to not give up a passed ball when the bases were loaded with none out and his pitcher was striking out the side. (He didn't give up a passed ball and has the black-and-blue marks to prove it.) He batted just twice, popping out to third and walking when a 6-foot-3, 250-pound fireballing relief pitcher threw two pills that went at his head and forced him to hit the dirt. I explained to him that when a kid that big throws that fast and he's on the junior varsity, control is probably issue. Fortunately he didn't say what he probably should have: Duh.
If you were not a member of one of these teams, you too, are invited to return to Memorial Stadium (sic) this fall to witness the introduction of the members of these great Dartmouth teams at halftime.
That certain Hanover junior's softball team wasn't as lucky, traveling more than two hours to be on the wrong end of a 27-0 no-hitter. That's two days, six-plus hours on buses and two losses by a combined, 41-0.
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