Green Terps

A Baltimore Sun story about boosters raising money to help the Maryland football team fly (instead of bus) to games at Wake Forest and NC State this year includes a quote from Terps assistant Kevin Lempa, a member of the Dartmouth staff from 1991-96. Lempa recalled:

"When I was at Dartmouth, we would take a video bus. You can stretch out and watch a movie," he said.

But Lempa said coaches typically must be in their offices early Sunday morning grading players on game film from the day before.

A night game in North Carolina followed by a lengthy bus ride would get the coaches home hours past midnight. "That would not be good," Lempa said.

Find Lempa's Maryland bio here.

As a defensive assistant at Maryland, Lempa has a new coordinator to work under and he, too, is a former Dartmouth assistant. In his first year with the Terps is Don Brown, who coached under Joe Yukica in Hanover for the 1982 season as a graduate assistant, and again from 1984-86. Find Brown's Maryland bio here. Don Brown went to Maryland after a flirtation with Yale last winter. He had been the successful head coach at Massachusetts and Northeastern.

(One of the games the Terrapins will now fly to is Wake Forest, where head coach Jim Grobe has shown that not all successful coaches jump ship whenever they can. The ACC Insider has a story under the headline, "Old-fashioned values keep Wake winning … and Grobe at Wake.")

Three Ivy League games have been confirmed for the Versus TV Network this fall (link), none including Dartmouth. Slated for broadcast are Cornell at Yale on Sept. 26, Princeton at Brown on Oct. 17, and Harvard at Yale on Nov. 21. With a boost from the YES Network, Yale will have no fewer than eight of its 10 games broadcast this fall (link) with only the Georgetown and Dartmouth games not being available.

Four New Hampshire games will be carried on Comcast SportsNet New England, but again, not including Dartmouth. The Dartmouth-UNH game has been a regular feature on WMUR TV (the New Hampshire ABC affiliate) but neither Dartmouth nor UNH shows the game as being broadcast on the schedule.

Speaking of UNH, The Sports Network taps the Wildcats as the favorite to win the CAA North Division. Dave Coulson starts his prediction off this way:

One of the constants in FCS is that coach Sean McDonnell will have the Wildcats firing on offense. With quarterback R.J. Toman, the CAA preseason offensive player of the year, leading the high-octane attack, UNH will score points at a high rate.

The Colgate digital media guide has future schedules in it up through 2012. The schedule shows Dartmouth playing over in Hamilton in 2010 and back in Hanover in 2011 before the Big Green disappears from the schedule the following fall. Showing up on the 2012 Colgate schedule? A game at Yale.

Switching to baseball, a regular reader sent a link to the Indian Prospect Insider that has a nice piece on former Dartmouth southpaw Russell Young under the headline, Young Goes From Suspect To Prospect. The headline might be a bit of a stretch (the suspect part), but the story, which calls Young, "one of the biggest prospect surprises of the year," says:

In 13 starts since June 1st, Young is 5-2 with a 1.98 ERA. His strong play of late has vaulted him into the Carolina League’s top ten in a few categories, namely 6th in ERA (3.40) and 2nd in WHIP (1.18).

Young's page on the Kinston Indians roster can be found here. For a dated Dartmouth bio, click here.

Tired of all those college ranking websites and books? With that certain Hanover High athlete heading into her senior year, I can relate. For whatever reason, though, the one that seems to generate the most attention is usually the one produced by U.S. News & World Report. The latest rankings are out and Dartmouth has held steady at No. 11. (link) The Daily Dartmouth has a story. The Top 20:

1-T. Harvard, Princeton
3. Yale
4-T. Penn, Caltech, MIT, Stanford
8. Columbia, Chicago
10. Duke
11. Dartmouth
12-T. Northwestern, Washington U (St. Louis)
14. Johns Hopkins
15. Cornell
16. Brown
17-T. Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt
20. Notre Dame

... and 47. Penn State

The story in The Dartmouth notes that:

... (Dartmouth) tops a new category prioritizing a commitment to undergraduate education among national universities.

The top national liberal arts rankings can be found here. That certain Hanover High senior-to-be has visited six of the top 10, and will probably take a look at a seventh. Stay tuned.