Two More Names To Watch

Two more recruiting targets have surfaced according to news reports.

Pittsburgh Live says Shane Rugg, a 6-foot-2, 270-pound tackle who plays for Bishop McCort High School, " is being recruited by Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn." McCort was all-state as a junior and his blood lines are good. His father was a starter at the University of Maryland.

The Elmira Star-Gazette says Taylor Engstrom, a 6-1, 220 linebacker from the Ithaca Little Red, "will play at either Cornell or Dartmouth next year." The paper describes Engstrom as a "tough middle linebacker with outstanding speed and great instincts," and says he didn't miss a game after suffering separated shoulder early in the season.

The sports editor of our local newspaper has written a two-part column on the budget crisis at Dartmouth, suggesting ways to deal with the $100 million in cuts that President Jim Yong Kim has said are coming over the next two years. Unfortunately, those columns are not online.

In Saturday's first part, he suggested the possibility of the college calling on donors to step forward and erase the first $50 million. He wrote, "Without the generosity of its donors, without the love of its alumni, there would be no Dartmouth. And now, more than ever, that love and that generosity are needed."

In Sunday's second part, he suggested there may be only two alternatives: drop varsity sports or turn a good number of them into self-funded varsities, a la the Dartmouth swimming programs. For an in-depth look at how Dartmouth swimming did that, click here.

And finally, that certain Hanover High senior didn't quite hit the time she'd hoped in her first track race since her cross country season was lost to illness, but she still won the 1,000 meters yesterday at Leverone Field House in a 15-school race featuring teams from as far as two hours away and finished with a smile on her face.