An Okie Who Got Away

Dartmouth has had an outsized recruiting presence in Oklahoma over the past several years and was mentioned in a story about a tight end who ultimately decided to go the Tulsa. The Tulsa World reports Tyler Ott, a 6-foot-2, 245-pound junior at powerhouse Jenks High School, "had scholarship offers from Air Force, Houston and Toledo and interest from Dartmouth and Harvard."

What's interesting is the earlier web version of the story reported (italics are mine), "Ott had scholarship offers from Air Force, Houston, Toledo, Dartmouth and Harvard." That version offered the following clarification from the writer after an email comment from a reader:

An editor called me about 8 p.m. tonight and, in the print version, we say that Ott has received "interest" from the Ivy League schools because you are correct, they do not offer athletic scholarships. As for Air Force, it is an opportunity to play football at the Academy.

In explaining that it is not unprecedented for someone to choose Tulsa over Harvard, the writer of the story said, "Paul Smith was a quarterback that could have went to Harvard and played football, but chose to stay close to home."

Somewhere I hear Mrs. Big Green Alert's teeth grinding. She's an incredibly patient person, but it is an anathema to her when she hears announcers on television (frequently former athletes) say, "Could have went," instead of "Could have gone."

Over at Jake Novak's Roar Lions Roar blog his updated Friday post has a couple of photos from the 17-17 tie Dartmouth and Columbia played at the Meadowlands in 1983. If you click on the pix you can supersize them. In case you were wondering, the attendance in the 76,000-seat stadium that day was ... 6,064. As Jake reminds us, the tie was Columbia's last "non-loss," before its 44-game losing streak.

The University of New Hampshire has its 2009 media guide posted online here. I tried for about 20 minutes this morning to download it but couldn't figure out how. UPDATE: UNH has added download links.