Thursday Thoughts

The old friend in town as part of his 48-state sprint around the country is Paul Souders, the best photographer you never heard of and one of the best writers I've ever known. If you have any wanderlust at all (or just want to read some quick and humorous state-by-state "takes" on things he's seen around the country so far), check out his blog. To see some of his astonishingly beautiful wildlife photography, click here. (In fact, you are under orders to check out his wildlife stuff. It is jaw-dropping.)

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Former Dartmouth defensive back/outfielder Jason Blydell gets a mention in the latest column by former Harvard wide receiver Corey Mazza, who wrote a series of humorous stories for ESPN.com last year about playing professional football in Italy. Mazza is now in the Marine Corps and reports that one of his "sparring partners" for "learning various knife techniques," is Blydell, a lieutenant in the Corps. Mazza writes:

"... Blydell, was a cornerback for Dartmouth, which meant I had lined up against him for four years in college, talking smack and going one-on-one all game. (For the record, Harvard never lost to Dartmouth when I was there.)"

Tuss McLaughry was the Dartmouth football coach from 1941-55 and a prominent member of the American Football Coaches Association. McLaughry gets the following mention in a blog posting about annual football awards :

The Tuss McLaughry Award, established in 1964, is given to a distinguished American (or Americans) for the highest distinction in service to others. It is named in honor of DeOrmond “Tuss” McLaughry, the first full-time secretary-treasurer of the AFCA and one of the most dedicated and influential members in the history of the Association.

A regular reader sends along a link to a Columbus Dispatch story headlined, "College athletic departments use vague law to keep public records from being seen," that is an eye-opening look at the big time. The Dispatch made public-records requests for athletic-related documents to all 119 FBS schools and how the schools responded was almost as interesting as what they sent back. Or didn't. From the story – and this is shocking:

In some cases, documents were unobtainable because of substantial fees charged by schools. For example, Maryland wanted $35,330 to produce the same documents that more than half the schools provided free.

If you follow the links on the main page you can find interesting sidebars as well as an interactive piece where you can type in the name of your favorite (or least-favorite) FBS school and see what they shared with the paper. Or didn't share.