This and That

Josh Drake, Dartmouth's green-and-white dressed superfan – if you've been to games you know who he is – has an op-ed piece in today's Daily Dartmouth regarding the state of the Big Green football program. He's as loyal a Dartmouth supporter as you'll ever find, but he's losing patience.

The latest Ivy League football coaches teleconference has been posted on the web. Here's a transcript of what Columbia coach Norries Wilson had to say about Dartmouth:

Dartmouth's 0-5. I think that can be a little bit deceptive. They've played three ranked teams and the other two teams they've played are picked at the top of our league and have winning records. I've watched all their tape and they move the ball up and down the field against Holy Cross this past week, just they didn't have any trouble getting it in the box. They had to switch quarterbacks. The tailback is a good player. They do some things with him in the backfield in the Wildcat. On defense they moved some people in at linebacker. They don't do a bunch of pressuring but they play stout up front. I think the Bay kid is a good player along with Eddie Smith.

They play ball. I think the last four years their special teams have been as good as anybody's in the league. ... They are always sound on special teams and they always try to give you something different so we are going to have to have ourselves prepared to go up there and play someplace that we haven't won since I've been here. They come out and compete each week and they've beaten us before so I don't think they are going to have any worries about playing us this week.

The Columbia Spectator has a roundup of last weekend's Ivy League football games.

The New York Times has a piece about football players making the switch to bobsled pusher. Thanks to a regular reader who sent along a link to the story that includes this:

At Cornell, Jamie Moriarty played safety. If other athletes could make the switch, he figured he could as well. He finished fifth at the 2009 United States National Bobsled Push Championship.

Speaking of "Olympic" sports, former Dartmouth hammer thrower Emily Daly '09 is trying to raise enough money to allow her to chase her dream of making the U.S. Olympic Team for 2012. Daly, who didn't take up the event until coming to Dartmouth, made it to the NCAA Championship finals representing the Big Green last year. She believes if she can dedicate enough time to training she can make it to the Games in London. To read more about her quest or make a donation to help her, click here.

Daly has prepared a thorough, six-page report for anyone interested in learning more about the challenges she faces in trying to make it to London or how they can help. For that report or her email address, drop me a note at that contact button over there to the left and I'll put you in touch with her.

Extra Point
I had to shake my head several years ago when I heard about a town in New Jersey that had swingsets removed from school playgrounds because of insurance concerns. I found myself thinking about that this morning at the blinking red traffic light by the entrance to Dartmouth's Thompson Arena parking lot. Standing square in the middle of the intersection, as has been the case on school mornings for many years: a Hanover High School student directing traffic. This young man was clearly well trained and was doing a good job waving on this line of cars, stopping that line of cars and allowing fellow students to cross the busy intersection safely. But as the SUVs and pickup trucks and Subarus whizzed by just a few feet on either side of him I couldn't help but wonder what the swingset folks in the Garden State would think.