Thursday Notes

Dartmouth senior Carroll Papajohn is featured in a Gulf Breeze News story about college football players from his Florida high school now gearing up for the college season. The talented tight end tells the paper that his coaches can relax because he's finally healthy.

Brandon Leppke, a high school quarterback from Basehor, Kan., went to a camp at Cornell and also spoke with Dartmouth according to a story in the Basehor Sentinel.

A couple of other prospects got away. Ohio safety Matt Shannon will head off to Brown in another year after considering Dartmouth according to Cleveland.com.

And while safety/linebacker Brent Seals could have gone to Dartmouth and Harvard, he chose instead to walk on at Stanford. The Bootleg has a story that details why he, " 'just said no' to the cream of the Ivy League and instead said 'yes' to the 'best of the west.' "

From the story:

The two Ivy League schools extended Seals offers in the fall and as national signing day approached, Seals was forced to make the difficult decision of choosing among those three elite universities.

Like Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth require recruits first to gain admission to the school. In the fall, Seals sent off completed applications to all three schools, and gained admission to each.

“Oh, I was so excited,” says Seals, who scored 1990 on his SAT to go along with a 4.5 GPA, said. “My mom was even more excited. She was crying when she saw I got in.”

If the pollsters are right, Dartmouth's traditionally difficult non-league schedule is tougher than ever.

One week after New Hampshire was chosen to win the Colonial Athletic Association North title (link), Holy Cross and Colgate were picked a very strong 1-2 in the Patriot League poll. (link) How strong was the feeling that the Crusaders and Raiders were the top contenders for the crown? Between them they collected 13 of 14 first-place votes. The poll (with first-place votes in parentheses):

1. Holy Cross (7) 67
2. Colgate (6) 64
3. Lafayette 46
Lehigh (1) 46
5. Fordham 35
6. Bucknell 24
7. Georgetown 12

Much of the focus at the Patriot League's media day was on Fordham's decision to offer football scholarships and what that might mean for the future of the conference. A Morning Call columnist wrote:

Fordham's decision has forced PL's Council of Presidents to act.

They have given themselves time, maybe too much time, to decide whether scholarships are coming or not. They have promised a decision by December of 2010.

Scholarships would be attractive to those looking to join the league and the league definitely needs to add, not lose, members.

Lehigh Football Nation blogger Chuck Burton wrote:

" ... (N)ot a single coach, player, or person in that room that I met yesterday voiced a single opinion against scholarships. The consensus from everyone I talked to there was that scholarships were a good idea - and for good measure, many also said 'why don't they just go ahead and do it?' "

Burton offers more thoughts about scholarships, the Patriot League poll and other aspects of media day in his College Sporting News column.

In a story about the imminent opening of New Hampshire's preseason, the Concord Monitor has a note about the suspension of the UNH-Dartmouth series. It says:

The games against Dartmouth that were slated for 2010 and 2011 have been rescheduled for 2014 and 2015. There have been rumblings out of Hanover that the Big Green may want to end this in-state rivalry, which has been very lopsided in UNH's favor in recent years, and this could be a step toward that end.

Um, do you think?

Former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer is quoted in a Titansonline story about Tennessee teammate Tuff Harris:

“Tuff has used his football career as a great platform to spread the gospel,” said Casey Cramer, Harris’ close friend and teammate. “He’s the fastest Native American around. He’s goofy, but he is one of the kindest, most gentle people you’ll ever meet. He has an innate ability to know what is going on with me before I’ve even told him anything.”

Speaking of the NFL, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story about Art Rooney II, now at the the "top of the executive depth chart," for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The story notes that, "He is a former prep school quarterback, the son of a North Catholic quarterback, and the father of a Dartmouth quarterback. That Dartmouth quarterback, of course, is 6-foot-4, 195-pound sophomore Dan Rooney.

Off the field, Dartmouth will welcome a 45-year-old freshman with a very interesting life story. Find a news release with video here.