Scenes From A Ballpark (And A Nice One It Is)

Baseball plays for the first time tomorrow on the all-new Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park. At top, the name of the field has been nicely added to the scoreboard. The middle shot shows the bench just installed in the home dugout. The bottom pic shows the batter's eye in center and the yellow, plastic "home run" line atop the outfield fence. Netting has been installed in the outfield to keep line drives from leaving the park and the yellow line will help the umps determine what is and is not a home run. (Click photos to enlarge)

From Orange To Green

Add 6-foot-5, 255-pound Orange County lineman Daniel Jamokha of Western High School in Anaheim, Calif., to the list of confirmed Dartmouth recruits for next fall. Jamokha's commitment to the Big Green was reported in the OC Varsity blog, an arm of the Orange County Register. From the post:

Second-team All-County offensive lineman Daniel Jamokha (6-5, 255) of Western has committed to Dartmouth, Pioneers football coach Toby Howell said in an e-mail Friday. The Big Green could certainly use a talent such as Jamokha. They were 0-10 last season, 0-7 in the Ivy League.

The Big Green also feature former Mater Dei offensive lineman Kyle Cook (6-5, 260), who was a solid player for the Monarchs in 2007. Dartmouth is rebuilding the right way - in the trenches.

OC Varsity notes that Jamokha was the Orange League Lineman of the Year. He was key cog for Western (9-3) as it won the Orange League title and was nominated for the July 10 Brea Lions Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game. Find a head shot and a basketball picture of Jamokha here and a blowup of the hoops photo here.

Opening-game foe Colgate kicked off spring practice Saturday and there's a report on the football website. In his typical, taciturn style, coach Dick Biddle said of the practice: "The team has a long way to go, however we will get there."

Former Dartmouth assistant coach Pete Lembo apparently has a neat way of injecting some excitement into spring practices as head football coach at Elon. If I'm reading Pete's report right, each session (at least the first two) is sort of a "fantasy league" game against an opponent. From his first report:

Today's opponent was Davidson College. We will find out if we "won" after the staff grades the video early tomorrow morning. I am already looking forward to Wednesday's practice as we take on the Blue Hose of Presbyterian.

FootballScoop doesn't often get the jump us when it comes to Dartmouth football, but they did this time. Although the site was a little slow on the front end of this report (a departure), it's out front on a possible hire. From the Scoop:

Dartmouth College: Our sources tell us offensive line coach Cyril Brockmeier has resigned his post to accept a high school coaching position in south Florida. We hear head coach Buddy Teevens could be close to hiring former Yale offensive line coach Keith Clark.

Three Ivy League papers have stories on admissions today with Brown and Harvard reporting record selectivity this year. From the Brown Daily Herald:

Months of nerves and anticipation will finally come to an end today for 22,645 regular decision applicants to the University, who can go online to view their decisions at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Of the total 24,988 applicants - including both early and regular decision - 2,708 will be admitted. According to Miller, the Office of Admissions sent out acceptance letters to 10.8 percent of applicants, while 13.3 percent were admitted last year.

From the Harvard Crimson:

This afternoon, a record-low 7 percent of Harvard College applicants will receive e-mails welcoming them into the incoming freshman class.

The rate at Penn this year was 17.11 percent overall. From the Daily Pennsylvanian:

This afternoon, 3,926 high-school seniors will receive exciting news as they read their Penn acceptance letters online. Penn accepted the nearly 4,000 students out of a pool of 22,939 applicants - an overall admit rate of 17.11 percent for the class of 2013.

Nothing so far in the Daily Dartmouth or other school papers. Remember, while players, their families and their high school coaches have been absolutely free to share news of their intent with their local paper, TV show, favorite blog (hint ;-) or anyone else, Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens can't comment on the class until all the paperwork has been received. Last year that was toward the end of spring practice.

Monday Musings

Another Alert reader shared a link to a page on the Dartmouth athletics website that does a terrific job of promoting the college and its athletic program. While it is directed mostly at another sport, the top section of a Q&A with women's tennis coach Bob Dallis sums up the Dartmouth experience nicely. Click here to check it out.

Like Dartmouth football, Penn men's basketball is a proud program that has fallen on hard times of late. With concerns mounting among the Palestra faithful, the athletic department is taking the unusual step of holding a town hall meeting, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. From the story:

In an e-mail to "Penn Basketball Alumni, Family and Friends," senior associate director of athletics Mary DiStanislao announced that Penn Athletics will host a "town hall" meeting April 26 at 10:30 a.m. at the Inn at Penn in which basketball coach Glen Miller will field questions.

The event "is intended to bring together season ticket holders, former players, alumni and select student supporters as well as long-time friends of the program for an extended answer session about Penn Basketball with coach Miller," the e-mail said.

For those who attend Dartmouth home football games, the Saturday morning Hanover Huddle with Buddy Teevens in the Hopkins Center has been sort of a de facto town hall.

With spring football having kicked off in New York City, Columbia football coach Norries Wilson has his own way of sharing information about his team. He's posting his thoughts about the progress of the team on the Columbia football website. As of this morning, he's banged out a couple of brief practice reports.

Could Cornell be the new summer home of the New York Jets? Cornell and nearby SUNY Cortland are both under consideration according to a Newsday story. From the story:

"Coach (Rex) Ryan is looking to find a more isolated environment for training camp to promote team building and we are researching potential locations," (Jets spokesman Bruce) Speight said.

And finally, the Dartmouth baseball team completed a sweep of weekend doubleheaders with a pair of victories over Columbia Sunday in New York City as freshman Kyle Hendricks pitched a five-hit shutout in the opener and the Big Green drilled five home runs on the day. Dartmouth (4-0 Ivy League) is scheduled to play its initial game on the new Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park Wednesday when Siena is in town. The first pitch is set for 2 p.m. The home Ivy League season is set to kick off this weekend with twinbills against Princeton and Cornell on Saturday and Sunday with both starting at noon.

Former Tackle Making A Difference

Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader who spotted an interesting story in the Washington Post built around the efforts of former offensive tackle Dave Murphy '91, founder of a food advocacy group. From the story:

Murphy, 40, runs Food Democracy Now out of his home in Clear Lake, a town of 10,000 that is a 90-minute drive from the nearest natural food co-op or Whole Foods Market. Though he is a fifth-generation Iowan, Murphy never saw agriculture as his calling. After college he moved to New York, where he got a master's degree in creative writing. When writing novels wouldn't pay the bills, he moved to Washington and found a job as a technology consultant at the Department of Labor.

Murphy was a three-year letterman under Buddy Teevens at Dartmouth. At 6-foot-4, 250 pounds he played on both sides of the line, earning second-team All-Ivy League recognition as a senior for helping the Big Green win the Ivy League title. Murphy was part of a line that helped Dartmouth have two of the three leading rushers in the Ivy League (No. 1 Shon Page and No. 3 Al Rosier) and claim its first Ivy crown in eight years.

With the Dartmouth track team at the Arizona State Invitational yesterday was sophomore placekicker Don Kephart, who competed in the discus, hurling it 143-05.

If you happened to be channel surfing yesterday afternoon, you may have stumbled across former tailback Chad Gaudet and the top-ranked University of Virginia lacrosse team taking a 10-9 seven-overtime victory against Maryland. Watching the game go on and on, I joked that University of New Hampshire ice hockey fans were getting hotter and hotter as the scheduled broadcast of the UNH-North Dakota NCAA game kept getting delayed by lacrosse. That game wasn't joined until midway through the second period, but the joke was on me because viewers who stuck around until the hockey game came on were in for a treat. Trailing by a goal with 5.7 seconds left and the season hanging in the balance, UNH came out of a time-out and, unbelievably, knotted the contest with one-tenth of a second left. The Wildcats then moved on with a goal in the first minute of overtime.

As if that weren't drama enough, I had the laptop updating the Dartmouth-Penn baseball doubleheader while I was watching hockey and there was plenty of drama there as the Big Green rallied from five runs down in its last at-bat of the opener. A three-run homer by James Wren with two out in the seventh tied the game and Dartmouth put it away with six runs in the first extra frame. The Green then took the nightcap, 9-6. Dartmouth visits Columbia for a twinbill today in a rematch of last year's Ivy League Championship Series.

Save The Date

The 12th annual Dartmouth Football Golf Classic is slated for June 20 at Hanover Country Club. Lunch will be available under the tent at 11 that morning with a shotgun start slated for the tournament at 12:30. Cocktails, dinner, a raffle and the always entertaining auction will follow. Donations for the raffle and auction are being sought. From the football website:

"Proceeds from the annual outing are used for a variety of program improvements. These funds also help meet the cost of salaries for part-time assistant coaches and professional development opportunities for the Dartmouth football staff. Anyone interested in playing ... or providing sponsorship support should contact the Dartmouth Football Office at (603) 646-2467.

Could Yale be the next stop for a quarterback who was expected to vie this spring for the starting job at Nebraska? According to the Los Angeles Daily News the answer is yes. The story reports that Patrick Witt, a 4.0 student at Nebraska and last year's No. 2 QB for the Huskers, has already visited Yale and Duke and also is considering Stanford and UCLA. Only at Yale would the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Witt not have to sit out a year. The Portal 31 blog has a short report.

A redshirt freshman last fall, Witt has a brother who attends Harvard. Find Witt's Nebraska bio here and his Rivals three-star scouting report as a high school senior here. For a blogger's interesting look at Witt's situation, click here. There's more on the Lincoln Journal Star blog site.

The Scheier Hire

It's taken some time, but a Bowling Green coaching bio has gone up for Adam Scheier '95, the former Big Green safety who will be co-special teams and tight ends coach for the Falcons. Scheier heads to Ohio after seven years on the Lehigh staff. He started his coaching career at Dartmouth with the undefeated 1996 team as a member of an outstanding staff that spawned future head coaches Tom Gilmore (Holy Cross), Roger Hughes (Princeton) and Pete Lembo (Lehigh and now Elon). Scheier also had stints at Columbia and Princeton.

At BGSU Scheier will work under head coach Dave Clawson. Former Penn Quaker Mike Elko is also on the staff.

Bob Ceplikas, the Dartmouth deputy athletic director who will serve as interim AD for a year upon the retirement of Josie Harper, is relinquishing his duties as head girls ice hockey coach at nearby Lebanon High School. Cep coached the Raiders to the state championship game this winter and leaves after posting a 38-25-1 record in three years.

The Big Green in the Desert is an original idea; a Dartmouth-hosted event held not in the snows of New Hampshire (although the track is now clear) but in Arizona. In this year's Big Green Desert Multis, Dartmouth's Tim Wunderlich took third in the decathlon behind a couple of Oregon athletes. Rocco Pallin was the top Dartmouth finisher in the women's heptathlon, placing sixth. Find the results here. Athlets from Oregon, Northern Arizona, Saginaw Valley, Utah and Montana competed in the multievents.

Brown Gold

Like an old man who pushes a wobbly wheeled shopping cart up the street hunting for aluminum cans to redeem for a few pennies, I visit the same haunts at the same time each day looking for my definition of treasure. One of the places I stop by each morning is the Ivy League's official football page. There's not much going on in football right now, of course, so I usually just take a quick look and move on.

But when I stopped by this morning I realized, and not for the first time, that there is indeed treasure there. Brown gold, if you will.

The top story on the left side of the page, with a head and shoulders picture, is headlined Brown's DeOssie Named to 2009 NFL Pro Bowl. The top story on the right side of the page, with a head and shoulders picture of the Brown football coach, is headlined, The Estes Way. Under that story is Against All Odds, a story about a Brown grad going to the Super Bowl, again with a head and shoulders shot. Still on that first screen, a little lower on the left, is a story (with head shot) headlined, Brown's Morey Named to 2009 NFL Pro Bowl.

Now, I visit the page every day and because it doesn't change much this time of year I barely notice the stories before heading elsewhere. But having three or four stories celebrating Brown's successes displayed prominently on the page for several months – including a very flattering piece about the successes of the head coach – is found money for the Brown program. And it's all perfectly understandable. The Ivy League champions had a big year, and a couple Brown grads accomplished something pretty special this year.

Will all that convince a four-star quarterback recruit to go to school in Providence rather than Gainesville? Not likely. But for the high school junior from the Midwest or parent from California who Googles Ivy League football and comes across that page, it certainly doesn't hurt.

I'm no marketing genius – doing this blog for free is a perfect example of that – but if I'm in sports information at one of the other seven Ivy schools, I'd be tempted to work up an interesting story about someone or something in my football program and email it off to the Ivy League office to post on that page. The splash certainly couldn't hurt.

... And those of us who push our shopping cart past the Ivy football web page each morning would be grateful.

Speaking of someone turning down Gainesville for the Ivy League, it actually has happened, as the Daily Princetonian notes in a story today about football/lacrosse standout Jonathan Meyers of Greenwich, Conn. The piece reminds us that the Princeton freshman was ESPN Scout's No. 11 inside linebacker in the nation as a high school senior and the No. 23 defenseman as rated by Inside Lacrosse Magazine. Meyers broke his foot in the Princeton opener last fall and missed the rest of the season, but he's back on the field now with the lacrosse team.

New Yale football coach Tom Williams has officially "announced" his coaching staff in this release. Like all Ivy schools, Yale will recruit nationally but don't be surprised if the Bulldogs' roster has a decidedly West Coast look in the future. That's because Williams' defensive coordinator has come from Hawaii, his offensive coordinator from San Diego State, his tight ends coach from Stanford, his outside linebackers coach from Idaho and Hawaii, and his wide receivers coach from western Washington. And while his offensive line coach comes from a school in North Carolina, he's a U-Dub grad who has spent most of his career on the West Coast.

Of Foxes And Bulldogs

A special visitor stopped by this morning while I was working on the blog. He spent 10 minutes warily foraging for food at the edge of the woods where the show has receded.

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Yale's spring football prospectus is up and can be found here. How returning "starters" are defined can vary from team to team, but here's what Yale has to say on that account:

Yale Starters Returning-Starters Lost
Offense
Quarterback: 1-1
Receiver: 3-0
Tight End: 2-0
Offensive Line: 1-5
Running Back Fullback: 0-2

Defense
DT/DE: 2-3
LB: 0-2
DB: 2-2

Special Teams
PK/P: 1-0
KOR/PR: 3-2

Green Alert Take: Yale joins UNH and Colgate as an early season Dartmouth foe that needs to largely rebuild its offensive line.

The Penn football team has joined with squads from Temple and Villanova in a bone marrow screening project tomorrow. The goal: 5,000 new enrollees in the National Bone Marrow Donor Program registry.

Kudos to the Dartmouth baseball team for making its first victory of the year a memorable one. The Big Green's 350th win in the career of coach Bob Whalen was over 16-4 San Jose State and came by a 7-4 score. Dartmouth closes its West Coast swing against No. 12 Cal Poly in beautiful San Luis Obispo before returning to the Northeast to open Ivy League play with a key pair of doubleheaders at Columbia and Princeton this weekend.

And finally, if you've been to a Dartmouth basketball game in the past half dozen years or so, you might have seen (or more likely heard) a fellow standing and loudly reading from a book by Dartmouth alum Dr. Seuss during opponent free throws. Love it or leave it, it's hard to ignore him. Who is he? (A regular reader of the blog for one thing ;-) The Washington Post has a story and photograph.

Globe Icon, Former Dartmouth SID Roberts Dies at 88

Ernie Roberts, the Boston Globe sports icon who served as Dartmouth's sports information director from 1960-66, has died at age 88. Except for the stint in Hanover, Roberts was with the Globe from 1947-83, hiring among others Bob Ryan, Leigh Montville, Peter Gammons, Dan Shaughnessy, Will McDonough, Joe Concannon, John Powers, Ray Fitzgerald and Bud Collins. He was the Globe's evening sports editor, sports editor and executive sports editor. Find the obituary of a gentleman and a sports journalism giant, here.

Going Green

Our internet has a scheduled outage on top this morning so I have to be quick ...


The piles of snow surrounding Memorial Field have been moved and the facility is ready for spring practice to kick off in just under three weeks. (Click photos to supersize)

The new ballfield is awaiting the return of the Big Green from the West Coast.

A look at the "batter's eye," in center.

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Dartmouth placekicker Foley Schmidt gets a nod in a Minnesota high school hockey blog that takes a look at where members of the 2007-2008 Minnesota Class A state championship St. Thomas Academy Cadets skaters ended up. Turns out Foley isn't the only one playing college football.

The Daily Pennsylvanian has an update on spring practice in West Philly and it includes this on the Penn quarterback situation:

The Quakers started spring practices last week, and the coaching staff seems to have united behind behind (Keiffer) Garton as No. 1 for now. For the first time in three years, Penn has a clear succession plan.

And ...

Garton was essentially the anti-Irvin: slightly smaller and with a weaker arm, but more agile and more comfortable outside the pocket.

Robert Irvin was the Penn starter last year.

More from Penn: The school paper also reports that men's basketball coach Glen Miller, who has come under heavy scrutiny after the Quakers had another un-Penn like year, will return next season amid speculation that a change could be in the offing.

Still another Penn note: Former Penn quarterback-turned-big leaguer Mark DeRosa was a jack-of-all trades with the U.S. Team in the World Baseball Classic. From a New York Times story:

Because DeRosa preferred football over baseball as a quarterback at New Jersey’s Bergen Catholic High School and at the University of Pennsylvania, it actually aided his transition from shortstop to utility man. Before Atlanta drafted DeRosa in 1996, he relied on his athleticism to play baseball and did not study the sport as intensely as he studied blitz packages. DeRosa called himself “an athlete who was playing baseball.”

From a mind-boggling story shared by a reader:

Teams have lost basketball games at the charity stripe. They've lost because a referee wearing black and white stripes made a bad call.

Losing partly because of a stripe on their uniforms is a little rarer.

But that's what happened before the opening tipoff Friday at the Illinois 3A state semifinal basketball game in Peoria, where referees assessed a technical foul on North Lawndale College Prep because stripes on the sides of its uniform violated a National Federation of State High School Associations rule.

A New York Times basketball story shared by a reader chronicles a sixth-grade basketball phenom from Seattle who ...

... has his own line of clothing emblazoned with his signature and personal motto: “When the lights come on, it’s time to perform.” His basketball socks, which also come gratis, are marked with either his nickname, Zo, or his area code, 206. He’s expecting a shipment of Under Armour gear soon, thanks to Brandon Jennings, last year’s top high-school point guard and now a highly paid pro in Italy. He is flown around the country by A.A.U. teams that want him to play for them in tournaments — and by basketball promoters who use him to add luster to their events. A lawyer in Seattle arranged for Trier’s private-school tuition and academic tutoring to be paid for by the charitable foundation of an N.B.A. player, and the lawyer also procured free dental care for Trier.

21 Days And Counting ...

Dartmouth's spring football practice is slated to begin three weeks from today, April 13. Hopefully it will be a tad warmer than it was this morning. (It was 11.8 degrees when I headed out to get the morning newspaper.)

The top weekend headline for Dartmouth sports would be the women's basketball team dropping an 82-53 decision at Maryland before a crowd of 10,847 in the NCAA tournament. The feeling here is still that the Big Green could have been competitive with a lot of teams in the tournament, but getting stuck with a 16 seed condemned the Ivy Leaguers to one of the superpowers of the women's game on its home court, a bad combination. Find the understandably Marylandcentric Washington Post game story (written by a Dartmouth alum) here.

Big-time college coaches are awfully good at finding a way to get what they want without technically breaking rules and so it is with several SEC football coaches according to the Birmingham News. From the story:

The position of "graduate assistant" was created for young coaches just starting out, kind of like an internship. It's not supposed to be for veteran college coaches with years of experience who find themselves temporarily unemployed.

But that's exactly how it is being used at a few schools. The former Virginia offensive coordinator has been brought on as a graduate assistant at Alabama and the former Minnesota and Syracuse offensive coordinator has the same role at Tennessee. Also from the story:

And there are concerns that the proliferation of non-coaching staff positions with titles like "director of operations" or "director of player development" are little more than ways of getting around the NCAA limit of nine assistant football coaches per staff.

Speaking of big-time college football, you may have been reading in the past couple of weeks that Florida State may have to relinquish a number of football victories because of "major violations." An ESPN.com story points out that forfeiting wins could end the race between FSU coach Bobby Bowden and Penn State's Joe Paterno "for the most victories in the history of major college football ... ."

Now, understand that I'm a Penn Stater so maybe I'm seeing things through JoePa's Coke-bottle glasses. But I went back to Bowden's record at Samford, where he earned 31 of his 382 wins, and found myself scratching my head. While I find it hard to reconcile "major college football" with wins over Maryville, Sewanee, Millsaps and Rhodes, I'll reluctantly concede that those games have to be counted because there weren't NCAA divisions per se at the time. But Bowden's record also includes wins over the Tennessee Tech Freshmen, Gordon Junior College and the Memphis (Millington) Naval Air Station.

For grins, here are the wins posted by the two coaching legends in their first three seasons. Interestingly, they both won 24 games in that span:

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BOWDEN
1959
1. Samford 14 – at Maryville 0
2. Samford 20 – at Sewanee 0
3. Samford 34 – Tennessee Tech Freshman 0
4. Samford 26 – Millsaps 0
5. Samford 14 – at Tennessee-Martin 0
6. Samford 16 – Rhoads 0
7. Samford 24 – West Alabama 0
8. Samford 20 – at Troy 19
9. Samford 52 – at Gordon Junior College 20

1960
10. Samford 14 – Maryville 0
11. Samford 56 – Sewanee 0
12. Samford 41 – at Georgetown (KY) 0
13. Samford 42 – at Millsaps 0
14. Samford 28 – Delta State 14
15. Samford 22 – at West Alabama 6
16. Samford 26 – at Rhodes 0
17. Samford 48 – at Troy 14

1961
18. Samford 60 – at Memphis NAS 0
19. Samford 64 – Georgetown (KY) 6
20. Samford 16 – at Wofford 13
21. Samford 20 – Delta State 14
22. Samford 18 – at Carson-Newman 7
23. Samford 34 – Rhodes 0
24. Samford 80 – at Troy 0

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PATERNO
1966
1. Penn State 15 – Maryland 7
2. Penn State 30 – Boston College 21
3. Penn State 38 – at West Virginia 6
4. Penn State 33 – California 15
5. Penn State 48 – Pitt 24

1967
6. Penn State 17 – at Miami 8
7. Penn State 50 – at Boston College 28
8. Penn State 21 – West Virginia 14
9. Penn State 29 – at Syracuse 20
10. Penn State 38 – at Maryland 3
11. Penn State 13 – NC State 8
12. Penn State 35 – Ohio 14
13. Penn State 42 – Pitt 6

1968
14. Penn State 31 – Navy 6
15. Penn State 25 – Kansas State 9
16. Penn State 31 – at West Virginia 20
17. Penn State 21 – at UCLA 6
18. Penn State 29 – at Boston College 0
19. Penn State 28 – Army 24
20. Penn State 22 – Miami 7
21. Penn State 57 – Maryland 13
22. Penn State 65 – Pitt 9
23. Penn State 30 – Syracuse 12
24. Penn State 15 – Kansas 14 (Orange Bowl)

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Find Paterno's game-by-game record here and Bowden's here.

And In Non-Basketball News ...

As they say in this part of the country, it's "wicked early," for the names of potential recruits for the class of 2014 to start bubbling to the surface. Lots, and lots of high school juniors get mail from colleges at this time of year (and we know that well here on the shoulder of Moose Mountain ;-). That said, they don't all get mentioned on recruiting sites as hearing from Dartmouth, so ... keep the name Moses Richardson in mind. Richardson is a 5-foot-8, 165-pound running back from Pinewood Preparatory School in South Carolina. He told Scout.com:

“Right now I’m getting letters from a couple of Ivy League schools,” Richardson said. “Those schools are Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and Princeton. Rutgers has been sending me some stuff also.”

From the release on a 14-8 Dartmouth men's lacrosse loss to Brown Saturday:

Jimmy Mullen (Mt. Lebanon, Pa.) responded quickly, recording his team-leading ninth goal of the season just 27 seconds later on the man advantage.

Mullen, of course, was the senior wide receiver who opened eyes while playing football for the first time as a collegian last fall.

There's a lot of talk about who Dartmouth might pick up as an opponent when the current football scheduling contracts run out. One of the schools mentioned most prominently is Georgetown and there was even speculation in the fall that the Big Green was close to an arrangement that would result in two games in DC. While almost any schedule change would be good, and finally getting out of the Northeast would be fun, by many accounts games at Georgetown are lacking in college football atmosphere. Consider this from a poster on the HoyaTalk message board:

Student support is decent for a temporary 2,400 seat arrangement with no amenities, but the losses really wears away the student crowds by season's end. Still, the team averages about 2,000 a game (including us out of towners) and between the poor record, the lack of parking, and the lack of any marketing whatsoever, that's about as good as you could expect right now. Tailgating is restricted to one game a year because of parking lot problems.

And finally, a couple of basketball notes in honor of March Madness. From ESPN.com:
2009 NCAA tournament:

By the numbers
63 -- It's been 63 years since Harvard appeared in the NCAA tournament. That's the longest drought for any team that has previously played in the Big Dance. Back in 1946, the Crimson lost to Ohio State, and then lost again to NYU in a regional third-place game. In terms of long tournament droughts, the Ivy League is the place to look. After Harvard, the next two longest droughts belong to Dartmouth (50 years) and Yale (37).

Blame Princeton and Penn for a large part. ...

And a Maryland blogger's pretty fair analysis of the No. 1 seed Terrapins' game today against the Dartmouth women's team in the women's NCAA can be found here. The game can be seen (at least part of it) on ESPN at 2:30 p.m. eastern.

Dartmouth And This Year's NCAA Tournament

This timely note from a regular reader explores connections between Dartmouth and the NCAA Tournament:

George Blaney, filling in for Jim Calhoun as associate head coach for easy (Connecticut) win, gets mentioned by broadcast crew as former head coach at Holy Cross and Seton Hall. No mention that he returned to Holy Cross, his alma mater, after three years as Dartmouth's head coach (1969-72), succeeding Dave Gavitt.

Blaney was 37-40 with the kids recruited by Gavitt plus "our" James Brown, Bill Raynor and Robin Derry.

Gavitt '59, had said he would never leave Dartmouth for any job except Providence...he had been Joe Mullaney's assistant before succeeding Doggie Julian. Blaney, HC '61, said he would never leave Dartmouth for any job except Holy Cross. He succeeded Jack Donahue who had been Lew Alcindor's coach at Power Memorial in NYC and left to coach Canadian Olympic team.

Blaney's assistant (and successor) at Dartmouth was Tom O'Connor, now the AD at George Mason and chair in 07-08 of the men's basketball selection committee (succeeded this year by Mike Slive '62). O'Connor had been freshman coach and became a head coach at 25

Speaking of the NCAA Tournament, the Dartmouth women's game at Maryland tomorrow is scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN starting at 2:30 p.m. I've covered every previous Big Green NCAA Tournament game (including nailbiters at Purdue, Virginia and Rutgers) but will have to settle for watching this one on the tube.

Not much happening football-wise right now. Penn's all-access coverage of spring practice continues with Friday's explanation of a drill the Quaker receivers were to run here.

And in case you missed it, confirmation came in yesterday that Dartmouth spring football will indeed start on April 13 with the spring game set for May 2.

Getting In The Swing Of Spring

How's your bracket looking?

While basketball is in full swing, football – the spring variety at least – is picking up among Dartmouth's opponents. Penn is already on the field (click for all-access video report), Holy Cross got going last night (story), Brown will kick off two weeks from today (story) and Yale will be on the field two weeks from Monday (spring schedule). ... Last I heard, Dartmouth was expected to start April 13, but I'm still awaiting confirmation on that.

Find the Penn spring prospectus here, and the Holy Cross prospectus here.

Former Dartmouth football player Harry Wilson's son Russell, a quarterback and baseball player at North Carolina State, is back in the news as he fights his way back from a knee injury last fall and tries to win back his job. SI.com has a story about Russell that includes this:

The firmness of his handshake, the look in his eye and the tone in his voice suggest he could, after he turns 35 in 2023, decide to run for president. For Wilson, capturing the electorate would appear as effortless as capturing first-team All-ACC last year. After meeting him, it makes perfect sense that young Russell, barely out of sixth grade, took the wheel after his father -- who also suffers from extreme complications from diabetes -- lost consciousness while driving to a baseball tournament. Russell got his father to the hospital and disobeyed dad's orders that he leave and play in the tournament.

Wow.

Harry Wilson '77, has a lot of reasons to be proud. Consider this from the story:

Harrison, an attorney, hasn't been able to work since the stroke. Wilson's mother, Tammy, busts her hump as a manager at a health insurance company, but mom and dad still must care for kid sister Anna, an 11-year-old softball/basketball star who may continue the Wilson two-sport legacy. Though he hasn't played the sport full-time for two years, Wilson could be a hot commodity when he's eligible for the baseball draft in June 2010. Though his parents have told him to only worry about what's best for him, he sure wouldn't mind helping them.

"Having that basis financially definitely helps, especially in my family right now," Wilson says. "That's what I have in the back of my head. My dad is sick. My mom is working hard. And they've got my little sister. I want to help them out the best I can."

Here's something I learned watching the NCAA Tournament that I did not know before. UT-Chattanooga found a novel way to deal with the Moccasin mascot/nickname that some might find offensive. The school shortened the nickname to Mocs and has been pushing a new mascot – a mockingbird, which happens to be the state bird of Tennessee. That's what I call thinking on your feet!

Reminds me of the school whose song said something about "sons of." When it went coed the school reportedly changed the line to, "scions of." At least that's the way I heard it. Sneaky.

The U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2009 are out and for as easy as it is to nit-pick 'em, they are the rankings that people give the most weight. Dartmouth has settled in again at No. 11 among national universities. Here's the top-25:
1. Harvard
2. Princeton
3. Yale
4. MIT
4. Stanford
6. Cal Tech
6. UPenn
8. Columbia
8. Duke
8. Chicago
11. Dartmouth
12. Northwestern
12. Washington (St. Louis)
14. Cornell
15. Johns Hopkins
16. Brown
17. Rice
18. Emory
18. Notre Dame
18. Vanderbilt
21. California Berkeley
22. Carnegie Mellon
23. Georgetown
23. Virginia
25. UCLA

... and 47. Penn State ;-)

Is it possible the U.S. News people have a sense of humor? How else to explain Lehigh being No. 35 among national universities and archrival Lafayette being ranked No. 35 among liberal arts colleges?

Now, I'm sure it was just by happenstance but someone, somewhere, got a kick out of that. Kind of like the NCAA basketball committee pitting Akron against Gonzaga. I mean, the Zips against the Zags? What are the chances? Zero?

A League Of Their Own

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a well-written story headlined, A league of their own that shares some history and thoughts about Ivy League basketball and the NCAA Tourney. It includes the following, spun out of Penn's appearance in the Final Four 30 years ago:

"Maybe 1979 says more about the ending of one era generally than it says something about Ivy basketball," Ivy League Commissioner Jeff Orleans said. "It was a smaller tournament, in a smaller world."

Not that Orleans discounts the possibility the Ivy will add a Final Four to those of Penn, Dartmouth (1942 and 1944) and the 1965 Princeton team.

"I think the meaning of all those (successes) is that our champion is able to play in the big-time in the NCAA, and that's set perhaps a level of aspiration (around the conference) that is … even more of an incentive to dethrone (Penn and Princeton)," he said. "If you can win a first-round game, then you can go as far as they've gone."

Hmm. "... (O)ur champion is able to play in the big-time in the NCAA ..."

But not, sadly, to even participate in the FCS football playoffs.

A Big Day

Happy first day of the NCAA Tournament, one of the best days of the year for a sports fan. ...

Stumbled across an interesting page that has a compilation of links to videos associated in some way with Dartmouth football. If I'm reading it right, the page is called, "The Message Behind Dartmouth Football," although that might instead be the title of the video that begins to play upon opening the page. Either way, find the page here.

OK, now check out these excerpts from a story:

The location of Hanover is both an advantage and a disadvantage in a football way to Dartmouth. The outdoor life, which has been carried to a more advanced and attractive stage than at any other institution, has drawn good material from all parts of the country, and the baseball field in the gymnasium, protected from the elements, made it possible for (the coach) to get in a deal of preliminary work sheltered from the sun, while other coaches had to drill their squad in the blazing heat. On the other hand, the team has to make long journeys for some of its games, and the schedule making is no easy problem.

And this ...

Dartmouth and Brown have buried the hatchet at last and they will play home-and-home games in the future ...

Those excerpts are from a Sept. 28, 1915 New York Times story that can be found here.

Football teams practicing indoors to get out of the weather isn't unusual. To get out of the hot weather, in Hanover mind you, is a new one on me. So is the info about a baseball field "in the gymnasium." Nor did I realize there was a hatchet that needed to be buried between Dartmouth and Brown 90 years ago. If I could find my copy of Green Fields of Autumn I'd try to dig up a little more background on those items.

Today's non-football note is from the lacrosse field where the Dartmouth women's team pushed undefeated and No. 2 Maryland to the edge yesterday before dropping a 13-12 overtime decision on Scully-Fahey Field. To give you an idea, Maryland is sort of the John Wooden UCLA basketball team of the sport with national championships in 1981, '86, '92, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, '2000, '01. Find a recap of Dartmouth's nailbiting loss here.

Remember quarterback Andrew Hatch and the "will he," or "won't he," be allowed to transfer back to Harvard after spending two years playing at LSU? Hatch aside, an opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson suggests the university is making a mistake by closing its doors to transfers. From the column:

The transfer admission program has been an important part of the College’s history, allowing notable graduates like John F. Kennedy ’40, Henry Kissinger ’50, and W.E.B. DuBois, Class of 1890, to attend Harvard after doing time at other institutions.

Kind of hard to argue with that.

Wednesday Follow

Nice pickup out of the Wall Street Journal by a "longtime reader, regular-emailer," on a surprising Ivy League national powerhouse this winter. The "lede:"

Arising from the east may be the most prodigious group of red wrestlers since the fall of the Soviet Union -- and the least likely. Cornell University, coming off its third straight victory in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association tournament held this past weekend in Philadelphia, has the second-ranked wrestling team in the nation. Rarely has an East Coast team been ranked so high; for the Ivy League, it is unprecedented.

A blogger who follows Maryland sports writes about Dartmouth providing the first-round opposition for the Terrapin women in the NCAA Tournament here. The posting includes this:

Too bad for Dahtmath that they can’t play the game in New Hampshah! Where people talk about respectable things. Like the economy! Ah, they economy. Who out theah wants to talk about the economy? Hey, wheah did Edwina put my scatch and sodaaaah!?!?

First Ivy Kicking Off Spring Ball

Penn becomes the first Ivy League team to kick off spring drills when the Quakers hit the field at 7 tonight. The Red and Blue Game will be held April 4. Find a blurb on the Penn football page here. From the story:

The Quakers hit Franklin Field this evening energized following an encouraging 6-4/5-2 showing in 2008. Persevering past injuries to three quarterbacks and counting on the conference's leading defense, the Red and Blue placed third in the Ivy League standings, with their only Ancient Eight defeats coming against eventual co-champions Brown and Harvard.

Speaking of Penn, the city school has released plans for a $40 million, 24-acre project that will including turning 14 acres of parking lots into athletic fields and open space. In addition to three fields, a 12-court tennis center and a softball field, the complex will include a dome to cover a field during the winter at the Ivy League's southern-most school. Find stories and drawings here and here.

Columbia has a new offensive line coach in Ed Argast, whose longest previous stint was 12 years on the staff at Colgate.

Holy Cross has "released" its 2009 schedule and Dartmouth is the Crusaders' Homecoming opponent on Oct. 17. Don't take offense. If Holy Cross is anything like Dartmouth, the decision on a Homecoming opponent is made somewhere other than the football offices and has less to do with the "who" and more to do with the "when." In case you are curious, here are Dartmouth's Homecoming dates for the next three years according to the college's Office of Alumni Relations:

• 2009 - Oct. 24 vs. Columbia
• 2010 - Oct. 30 vs. Harvard
• 2011 - Oct. 22 vs. Columbia

Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, grandfather of Dartmouth quarterback Dan Rooney, is adding a new title to his resume: ambassador to Ireland. Find a USA Today story about the appointment here and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reaction piece here.

Name That Quarterback

Can you name that quarterback?

If you said Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the incoming Dartmouth president, give yourself a pat on the back.

This shot is from Dr. Kim's high school yearbook in Iowa, where he was the starting quarterback for the Muscatine Muskies as a senior. He also played basketball. For the Vox of Dartmouth bio page on Kim that includes this picture, click here.

Has spring sprung?




Nah, but an unusually warm day (53 degrees), the new FieldTurf and some solid work clearing the infield allowed the Dartmouth baseball team to get outside yesterday in advance of its trip to California. The Big Green opens its West Coast tour tomorrow at Pacific. The schedule if you are in the area (or even if you are not :-) –

• March 18 at Pacific, 8:35 p.m. Now 4 p.m.
  
• March 19 at San Jose State, 9 p.m.
• March 20 at San Jose State, 9 p.m.
• March 21 at Santa Clara, 4 p.m.
• March 22 at Santa Clara, 4 p.m.
• March 24 vs. San Jose State (at SLO) 3 p.m.
• March 25 at Cal Poly, 9 p.m.

Back to football, Chuck Burton over at College Sporting News tries to unravel the truth about Fordham's rumored push for scholarships. While he can't quite crack the story, he does reiterate this very interesting (and in my opinion accurate) thought from a coach:

“With scholarships, the Patriot League could be even more selective,” another coach told me. “There’s a whole pool of prospects that are academically and athletically eligible that neither the Ivy nor Patriot League (can) get due to finances alone. And that pool of athletes is fairly large.”

That's a hard argument to defeat.

Switching sports again, the 18-10 Dartmouth women's basketball team gathered at Jesse's Restaurant last evening for the NCAA Tournament drawing. By most accounts the draw was going to be just a formality. UConn was going to be the No. 1 seed and Dartmouth was going to be the 33-0 Huskies' first victim.

The bad news was that when the first matchup was announced, Dartmouth was indeed one of the two teams in the game. The good news: The other team wasn't UConn. It was a No. 1 seed, but at least it wasn't the Huskies.

In a surprise, the Big Green will be playing at 28-4 Maryland on Sunday. The committee did Dartmouth a favor by tossing Vermont (and former Big Green assistant Sharon Dawley) to the No. 1 Dogs, although it wasn't that huge a favor. Dartmouth is still a 16 seed, and will be a big underdog against the Terrapins.

For a Washington Post story about the Maryland draw written by former Dartmouth soccer player Camille Powell, click here. While the odds are stacked against the Big Green, Dartmouth has had a history of near misses in the tournament under coach Chris Wielgus.

• 1995: 14-seed Dartmouth pushes Virginia to the edge before dropping a 71-68 decision.
• 2000: 13-seed Dartmouth is tied with defending national champion Purdue in the final two minutes before falling, 70-66.
• 2006: 14-seed Dartmouth falls behind Rutgers, 13-0, but is down just three points with the ball in the hands of red-hot, 3-pointer shooter Angie Soriaga before a debatable offensive foul with 14 seconds left ends the drama in what goes in the books as a 63-58 loss.

This year's team showed it can bang with the big 'uns when it took a 20-win Michigan State team to overtime, outrebounding the Spartans and their 6-foot-9 center, 41-37. Dartmouth, by the way, has won 15 of its last 16 games.

And finally, unofficial softball practice begins today for that certain Hanover High junior who started in center field as a freshman, played every inning behind the plate last year, and is a team captain this spring. Baseball doesn't begin for a few more days for her freshman brother, also a catcher who might also see time at second base this year.

For what it's worth, Hanover is one of the few high schools in New Hampshire to charge a participation fee for athletics. At $85 per season, it's not outrageous, but when you have two kids playing three sports a year, it adds up. In fact, it will cost us $2,040 for the two of them to play four years of high school sports. Yikes.

Monday Notes

Missed this the first time around but remember a post last week about the Colgate offensive line and how it is graduating four of five starters? That's accurate, but a closer look at the recruiting class reveals an interesting addition that may mean the Raiders aren't all that young up front next fall. Tucked in with five freshmen offensive linemen is a transfer from the University of Cincinnati named Blake McCroskey. The 6-foot-5, 295-pound lineman from Dayton, Ohio redshirted as a freshman at Cincinnati and was a sophomore last fall.

The Cornell men's basketball team earned a 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will face Missouri in Boise. The Dartmouth women will learn their fate tonight and a lot of fingers are pointing toward a matchup with No. 1 Connecticut. The Big Green (18-10 overall, 131 Ivy League) has won 15 of its last 16 games after a tough early schedule that included losses to Michigan State in overtime, to NCAA-bound Vermont in three overtimes and at SMU by two points.

Speaking of basketball, an emailer sent along a note about incoming men's basketball player Matt LaBove, who just helped St. John's team to the Division I state title in Massachusetts. LaBove is variously listed at 6-foot-9 or 6-10. For a December Boston Globe note about his commitment, click here. The ESPN Dartmouth basketball recruiting page can be found here.

For Your Browsing Pleasure

Do you use Firefox for surfing the internet? If you do, DartmouthSports.com has a link that can set you up with a Dartmouth-themed browser. From the website:

Stay in touch with Big Green Sports with the Dartmouth Athletics Firefox browser theme. The latest news, features, and live events are right in your navigation bar along with the best of Dartmouthsports.com.

You'll be the first to know as your browser will alert you the moment news is posted on the official site. See the latest pictures and top stories in the media sidebar while you surf the internet.

In addition, the Dartmouth sports browser theme gives you one-click access to the Big Green Insider for live streaming and on-demand video, ticket sales for all Big Green sporting events, and the latest in Dartmouth supporters apparel.

A close follower of Patriot League football has developed a mathematical model in an attempt to compare recruiting classes in the conference. Here's a look at the Colgate and Holy Cross classes Dartmouth will see in the fall. So far, the Patriot League fan has the classes graded out this way: 1. Lehigh; 2. Lafayette; 3. Colgate; 4. Bucknell; 5. Fordham. Still to be graded: Bucknell and Georgetown.

In "other" Dartmouth sports news yesterday, the ski team finished seventh in the NCAA Championships and women's hockey saw its season end with a 7-0 loss at Wisconsin. A couple of thoughts:
• I don't follow skiing very carefully, but after going undefeated in the east this winter I expected the Big Green to finish higher. Shows what I know. Vermont was the top eastern finished at No. 5 with Middlebury one slot behind Dartmouth and New Hampshire one more spot back.
• The women's hockey loss to Wisconsin, albeit the No. 1-ranked team, is a reminder that once the scholarships schools get involved in a sport the dynamic can begin to change. Winners since the tournament began: 2001 Minnesota-Duluth; 2002 Minnesota-Duluth; 2003 Minnesota-Duluth; 2004 Minnesota; 2005 Minnesota; 2006 Wisconsin; 2007 Wisconsin, 2008 Minnesota-Duluth.

Doing Their Part

A blog item a little while back mentioned that the Colgate football team was holding a Lift For Life event to "raise money and awareness for the fight against Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a disorder that affects the sister of one of the Colgate players."

Two other opponents Dartmouth will face this fall are also trying to do their part off the field. The Harvard squad helped coordinate a blood drive with the American Red Cross, as part of its Crimson in the Community program, on March 6.

Next month it will be Princeton hosting a bone marrow testing drive as part of its "Get in the Game. Save a Life," program.

I can still remember the "nattering nabobs of negativism," who didn't think a lowly FCS assistant coach belonged in the rarified air of FBS football when New Hampshire assistant Chip Kelly took his innovative attack to Oregon in 2007. Kelly didn't take long to win them over. Nor has he taken long to rise to the ranks of an FBS head coach. Oregon has announced the head coach-in-waiting will wait just a little while longer, assuming the reins officially on July 1March 30, the first day of spring practice.

Once again, there are naysayers, but don't count Oregonian columnist John Canzano among them. He wrote:

What kind of head coach will Kelly be? Will he command respect? Will the older players, those recruited to play for Bellotti, fit with Kelly's style.

Said (senior offensive lineman Max) Unger: "When Kelly speaks in meetings, you can hear a pin drop."

I've talked to Kelly at least a dozen times. I took a long elevator ride from the press box to the stadium floor with him the night Dennis Dixon's knee failed in Tucson, Ariz. But more significantly, like you, I've seen his work on the field. And coaches aren't judged by their speeches, or their ability to shake hands, but the bottom line.

I believe Kelly will win bigger than any Ducks football coach before him.

Meet The Freshmen – THEIR Freshmen

Two of Dartmouth's non-league opponents have released bios of their incoming freshman classes. Find Colgate's class here and the Holy Cross class here. Of interest: Colgate has four kickers listed while Holy Cross has six running backs on its list.

Penn football held its Iron Quaker weightlifting competition with offensive lineman Eric Jett the big winner.

UNH will be without a receiver expected to play a big role on the team next year after sophomore Terrance Fox was suspended for failing a random drug test on Feb. 12. From Seacoastonline:

“Terrible, terrible mistake he made,” said (UNH coach Sean) McDonnell, who cited confidentiality issues when asked what Fox tested positive for. “He didn’t confirm what he needed to confirm with our sports medicine people about the substance he was taking.”

Also from Seacoastonline:

The 5-foot-9 Fox was the Wildcats’ third-leading receiver as a sophomore, catching 36 passes for 490 yards and four touchdowns. With the graduation of leading receiver Mike Boyle, he figured to play a bigger role in the offense. The ‘Cats averaged 35.6 points and 404 yards a game last year.

The Will Scott story has been written before and likely will be written again if the Louisville basketball team goes deep into the NCAA Tournament. Scott, you may remember, transferred from Cornell to Louisville where he's played in 77 games and done the kind of work in the classroom that has earned him the opportunity to go to Oxford to work on an advanced degree in Chinese studies. What's surprising is this line in a USA Today story about Scott:

From New York high schooler with two parents for doctors ... then an Ivy League scholarship to Cornell ... then a transfer as a walk-on to the basketball holy land of Louisville ... and soon to a place in England where they don't care what your RPI is.

The story doesn't say basketball scholarship, but it might as well because that's how I suspect most people will read it. If the writer didn't know the Ivy League has no athletic scholarships, he should. If he knew there are no athletic scholarships in the Ivies and structured the sentence the way he did for dramatic effect, that's worse.

A Big Green Hardwood Sweep

Sophomore Brittney Smith made it a Big Green sweep of the Ivy League Player of the Year Awards today. Last year's Ivy Rookie of the Year follows in the footsteps of Dartmouth senior Alex Barnett, named the men's POY yesterday. Senior guard Koren Schram joined Smith on the first team while senior forward Darcy Rose was chosen to the second team.

The 17-time Ivy League champion Big Green will learn its NCAA fate Monday when the seedings for the tournament are announced.

Dartmouth has once before had the men's and women's Ivy League POY. That was in 1980-81 when teammates Gail Koziara and Ann Deacon were the women's POYs and Larry Lawrence was the men'.s

Batting .500

Dartmouth is one-for-two recruiting out of Oakwood High School in Dayton, Ohio, over two recruiting seasons. Last year the Big Green landed big tailback Chris Hardy, the 6-foot-3, 215-plus pound Dayton Area Offensive Player of the Year.

A local paper says Dartmouth went back to the well this year but Oakwood "athlete" Robby Sherk decided to stay home and attend the University of Dayton. The 6-3, 185 Sherk was variously listed at wide receiver, defensive back, kicker, punt returner ... and quarterback. From a Springfield News-Sun story about the Dayton program:

And while they haven't finalized their full class yet, they've gotten a commitment from Oakwood standout Robby Sherk, who picked UD over Dartmouth and Davidson, and expect to have 28 incoming freshmen.

Hmmm. Dartmouth, Davidson, Dayton. Seems he really liked the "Da" entries in the college directory ;-)

Yesterday's blog had a link to a Daily Princetonian story about Princeton football recruiting that included this:

Camp is the most useful recruiting tool Princeton’s coaching staff has in its arsenal, head coach Roger Hughes said.

“If we’re lucky enough to persuade a young man and his parents to come out to our summer camp, we can show them what Princeton’s about, make them understand the very unique opportunity going to school here at Princeton affords them, and then also explain what (Princeton football is) about, what we demand, how hard it is and the benefits of a Princeton education,” Hughes said.

There's also a football camp at Dartmouth during the summer and it seems a good number of recruits get their first look at the college – and the coaches get a good look at them – when they attend. Learn more about the Buddy Teevens Football Camp here.

The first day of the NCAA Skiing Championships in Bethel, Maine, was postponed because of poor weather yesterday. The Big Green, which finished the season undefeated, is bidding for its second national championship in three years.

Cutting Down the Net

Dartmouth co-captain Koren Schram takes her turn on the ladder cutting down the net after the Big Green women's basketball team defeated Harvard Tuesday night to claim the Ivy League's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

(UVa) Senior Spotlight: Chad Gaudet

VirginiaSports.com has a nice story about Dartmouth grad Chad Gaudet, the onetime Big Green tailback who was the ACC lacrosse player of the week last week for No. 1 UVa. There's also an ACC release on Gaudet, who was 16-of-24 on faceoffs in a win against No. 4 Cornell.

Barnett Player of the Year

Dartmouth senior forward Alex Barnett is the Ivy League men's basketball player of the year. He led the Ivies in scoring this year at 20.3 in league games and 19.4 overall.

From the release:

Barnett, the 2008-09 Ivy League Player of the Year, becomes the first Big Green player since Larry Lawrence in 1980-81 to earn the League's highest individual honor, and only the second-ever in Dartmouth basketball history.

And ...

The three-time Ivy League Player of the Week carried Dartmouth to a fourth-place finish, leading the Big Green in virtually every statistical category — points, rebounds (5.6), assists (1.92), blocks (33), steals (36), three-point field goals (54) and minutes (956). He finished his career with 1,374 points, eighth on the Dartmouth all-time list.

Opponents And The O Line

Buried at the end of a seacoastonline.com story about New Hampshire naming former quarterback Tim Cramsey as offensive coordinator, a glimmer of hope for teams looking to slow down the high-powered UNH offense next fall:

The Wildcats, who graduated four starters on the offensive line and productive wide receiver Mike Boyle, begin their month of spring practice on April 8 or 9.

Likewise, a look at the Colgate two-deep from its final regular season game against Holy Cross shows four of five starters graduating on the Raiders' offensive line, including All-America tackle Nick Hennessey.

It's hard to overstate the importance of a solid offensive line to a team's ability to move the football. While you can be sure there are talented players queued up awaiting their chance in both Durham and Hamilton, they won't be as experienced as the linemen the Big Green had to face last fall. (In case you are wondering, Dartmouth's final non-league opponent, Holy Cross, has three of five starters on the O-line back from its final two deep, and eight of 10 overall.)

Worth noting: All three non-league opponents do have their starting quarterbacks returning.

A Daily Princetonian look at how the Tigers go about recruiting for football includes several quotes from freshman Jonathan Meyers, "a highly sought-after recruit who turned down programs like Florida and Michigan in favor of Princeton ... ."

A crowd of 1,710 turned out a highly charged Leede Arena last night as the Ivy League championship Dartmouth women's basketball team led from pillar to post while denying Harvard a share of the title and clinched a berth in the NCAA Tournament with a 64-51 victory. Dartmouth (18-10 overall, 13-1 Ivy) now has won 17 Ivy League titles over the past 30 years. The victory over the Crimson was the 400th in the career of head coach Chris Wielgus.

The Big Green, which has won 15 of its last 16 games, will find out the who, where and when of this year's tournament when the NCAA Tournament field is announced Monday. Gulp, the ESPNU bracketologists have Dartmouth playing 33-0 and top-ranked Connecticut in Storrs on March 22.

Interestingly, Dartmouth has legitimate candidates for Ivy League basketball player of the year honors on both the men's side and the women's side in senior Alex Barnett and sophomore Margaret Brittney Smith. Barnett will have to overcome the fact that his team was just .500 in the league, and Smith will have to overcome the fact that she's just a soph, but a very strong case can be made for both of them. At the very least, they should both be first-team, All-Ivy.

And finally, the halftime shooting contest featured former football teammates Brian Scullin, Eric Paul and Cole Springer. They all missed their half court shots, 3-pointers and free throws, losing the contest to the only female shooter, who won it on a 3-pointer.

Twittering Hoops

As it says off to the left there, I'm going to see if I can offer live Twitter updates tonight on the women's basketball game vs. Harvard. Check back at 7 p.m.

A Vote For The Playoffs

Whether the writer led him there or Bob Ceplikas led the writer there doesn't matter. What matters is it took only four paragraphs for Ceplikas, who will be the interim athletic director at Dartmouth next year, to win the hearts of Ivy League football fans everywhere. In a story with the Daily Dartmouth, Ceplikas said (the italics are mine):

“I certainly intend to be an aggressive advocate for our student-athletes, and I’ve agreed for many years that it would be a good idea to have our Ivy football teams eligible for the NCAA playoffs. But I also know and respect that ultimately the presidents have the final call, so I’ll be very interested to see what Dr. Kim’s feelings are.”

A couple of other football-related take-outs from the story:

(Ceplikas) said that the athletic department is currently investigating possible changes to the Dartmouth football team’s schedule, which could include the removal of the team’s traditional in-state rivalry game versus the University of New Hampshire.

“Brian Austin, who oversees all of our varsity programs, has been working very hard on potential modifications to our football schedule,” Ceplikas said. “We’re hoping to have something to announce within the next few weeks.”

Green Alert Take: Don't be surprised if the "something" is the cancellation of the 2010 Dartmouth-UNH game. The game for the coming fall is set.

Also from the story ...

After the disappointing 2008 campaign, Ceplikas said he still retains faith in the Dartmouth football program and confidence in head coach Buddy Teevens ‘79.

“I honestly believe that the foundation is being very soundly built right now for a winning program,” he said.

According to Ceplikas, a winning season for Dartmouth football will be contingent on the gradual growth of Teevens’ latest recruiting classes, particularly on the offensive and defensive lines.

Showing that he and Teeven are on the same page, Ceplikas went on to stress the importance of making sure players are "bigger and stronger." If there's a mantra around the football offices and Floren Varsity House these days, that would be it. Bigger and Stronger.

Wondering what caused the Dartmouth football team to stumble so badly for the past decade? Perhaps a West Coast blogger had something to do with it. He writes of his recruitment in the late '90s (and excuse the language):

Dartmouth rather impolitely informed me to not bother applying for regular admission after I told the coaches I wanted to keep my options open and not declare early admission. (Bastards have sucked ever since. I'd like to think I cosmically had something to do with it.)

A former Dartmouth foe from Holy Cross got into it with Adam "Pacman" Jones during filming of something called, "Pros vs. Joes." Find a note here.

Former UNH offensive coordinator Chip Kelly could be the head coach at Oregon any day now. Or perhaps not any day now. Either way, he'll be the Ducks' coach at some point. From a story in the Portland Tribune about current head coach Mike Bellotti mulling the timing of his move to athletic director:

When Bellotti steps aside, Kelly is contracted — under very lucrative terms — to take Bellotti’s place.

“This whole idea was mine,” Bellotti says. “Chip Kelly would be the head coach at Syracuse or Mississippi State or several other places if we hadn’t moved on this.

“I recognize some unique attributes in Chip. If there’s a guy I want to take my place, it’s him. He is extremely talented and has the necessary dedication and command and foresight and is thinking football 24/7/365. All of our coaches do, but his is a passion and dedication that surpasses many. I’m excited about that.”

Speaking of UNH, there's a story in the Manchester Union Leader about the ways college athletic departments are handling the economic downturn. Give UNH AD Marty Scarano credit. The story says that while he sends his football team out to play mercenary games that will help the bottom line, he does draw the line somewhere. From the story:

The UNH football and men's basketball teams have been asked in recent years to play "guarantee" games, for which they receive a fee to go in and play an opponent. The team receives a portion of the money; the rest goes toward the department's bottom line.

The football team, for instance, will receive $300,000 to play at Ball State in September and $400,000 to play at Pittsburgh in 2010.

Oklahoma had been pursuing UNH for a game this coming fall, and recently agreed to pay $500,000 to Idaho State for a game.

UNH declined the overtures.

Smart move.

They Are Dartmouth Guys

Is there a chance that Dartmouth grads could be leading two FBS conferences by the time the next football season rolls around? Yup.

And that both will be recognized as, um, Harvard guys? Yup again.

As noted here last week, Sandy Alderson '69,the CEO of the San Diego Padres, is being considered to head up the Pac-10. Fanhouse.com picks up on the story with this about Alderson:

He's a west coast guy, having spent a good deal of time with two mid-market western teams in the Athletics and Padres. He also has an Ivy pedigree with degrees from Dartmouth and Harvard. The SEC's wildly successful commissioner Mike Slive also has a Harvard background.

Slive, like Alderson, did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth.

Former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet won 16 of 24 faceoffs to help the top-ranked Virginia lacrosse team to a 14-10 win over No. 4 Cornell. Another note about the UVa grad student from Lacrosse Magazine:

Chad Gaudet won 11 of 13 faceoffs in the second half, including all seven in the final quarter, to allow Virginia to seize control and build its lead.

Gaudet entered the game ranked eighth nationally for ground balls and 16th in face-off percentage.

Although it's snowing like crazy up on the mountain this morning, the note about Alderson is another reminder that baseball season is coming. Speaking of which, do check out this link to a PDF on the Dartmouth baseball page. It offers really useful information to anyone who might want to play baseball – or any sport, really – in Hanover.

What is it they say in the south? "There are two seasons. Football season and spring football season." ... Around these parts people say there are two seasons as well. "Nine months of winter and three months of poor sledding."

It's hard to believe looking out the window right now but barring a change in schedule the seasons will intersect – spring football and poor sledding that is – in 35 days. That's right. The tentative start of spring ball is April 13.

Names In The News

A couple of Dartmouth alums who would have crossed paths in the late 1970's are in the news, one for his football prowess, the other – a former Big Green hoopster – for baseball prowess. That would be his son's baseball prowess.

The football player is former placekicker Nick Lowery '78, who is headed for the Kansas City Chiefs' Hall of Fame. From a KansasCity.com story:

The 39th member of the Chiefs Hall of Fame stands out among his peers for one reason: his resolve.

"None of the others were cut 11 different times by eight different teams," interim Chiefs president Denny Thum said. "While that may not sound like a badge of honor, it certainly speaks to the perseverance of one Nick Lowery." Lowery, the Chiefs’ kicker from 1980 through 1993 and still their all-time leading scorer, was announced Saturday as the latest member of their Hall of Fame.

The former basketball player is Eugene Heyward '81, whose son gets a nice mention in an espn.com story by esteemed baseball writer Peter Gammons:

I have seen some extraordinary young players in Florida this spring. Jason Heyward of the Braves. Rick Porcello of the Tigers. Lars Anderson of the Red Sox. In that group, the common denominators are skill and clear intelligence, whether it's Heyward's being the son of Dartmouth graduates, Porcello's being so decent he still calls coaches at North Carolina, or any literary discussion.

Lest mom's contribution to gene pool go unrecognized, she's Laura Benjamin Heyward '79. Jason was the subject of this mlb.com story a few weeks back. There was a nice story about the Dartmouth family dynamic in the Atlanta Journal Constitution last year that included this:

Eugene and Laura Heyward are Dartmouth graduates. He is an electrical engineer for ITT Technologies, designing electronic warfare systems for Robins Air Force Base. She was an insurance underwriter for Life of Georgia before taking a job at Georgia Power to work closer to their McDonough home. What's been smart about their parenting is how they've guided Heyward while giving him freedom to make his own choices.

"I wouldn't be anywhere if they didn't let me do what I said," Heyward said. "They said: 'You choose. If we choose it for you, you're not going to be doing what you want to do.' "

Eugene Heyward, who played basketball at Dartmouth, wishes he had chosen baseball. He makes no pretenses about that with Jason.

Congratulations to the Dartmouth women's basketball team on winning at least a share of a 17th Ivy League title last night with a victory over Brown. The Big Green will play host to Harvard Tuesday with a trip to the NCAA Tournament possibly hanging in the balance. With a win, Dartmouth clinches the outright Ivy League title and heads to the Dance. A loss and Harvard will grab a half of the crown and the teams will play off at Brown for the right to go to the NCAA's. Dartmouth defeated Harvard earlier this season at Lavietes Pavilion. ...

The Dartmouth women's ice hockey team will play RPI today for the ECAC championship and the automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. The men's team saw its season end with a loss to RPI last night while the men's basketball team was being downed by Brown in Providence.

Are Scholarships A Response To Ivies?

Dave Coulson over at The Sports Network traces part of the push for scholarships at Fordham – and perhaps elsewhere in the Patriot League before long – to the Ivy League. From the column:

With the Ivy League able to offer full aid to most of its prospective student- athletes, it makes its more difficult for the Patriot League to recruit the cream of the academic-athletic crop, and it has made the scholarship issue even more acute.

I haven't seen this anywhere else, yet, but FootballScoop is reporting that Brown coach Paul (sic) Estes has received a multi-year extension. Smart move on the university's part because Phil Estes has done marvels in Providence.

A handful of readers sent along a link to a New York Times story that I never got to yesterday before zipping off to Boston. The story is about betting on Ivy League men's basketball. From the story:

(Lem) Banker and (Alan) Boston are among a small cadre of savvy gamblers who, because of a quirk in college basketball scheduling, become Ivy League scholars each Friday. As nearly every other Division I conference takes the night off, the Ivy League offers the gamblers an opportunity to capitalize on the dearth of information available on teams that represent institutions better known for patents and professors than for athletic prowess.

I've written about this before but I'll toss it out there again in case you are new. Back when I actually worked for the college, the local writer covering a Dartmouth-Cornell football game for the Associated Press got the score wrong. If I recall correctly, he missed by only one point, but that point made the difference between winning and losing for the bettors.

This was before the Internet had really gotten a foothold so the phones in the sports information office at both schools were ringing off the hook with callers asking for the correct score. I still remember an almost cartoonish voice saying something along the lines of, "Um, I'm a graduate of Dartmouth University. Can you tell me the score last the game against Cornell?" That went on for a full week. Or more.

The Dartmouth men's basketball team fell at Yale last night but even if the Big Green had won, Cornell's victory over Penn eliminated Dartmouth from the Ivy League reace.

And finally, that certain Hanover High School junior had a solid run in the 1,000 meters at the New England Indoor track championships in Boston yesterday. Fractions of a second apart, she matched her PR. Hard to believe that it can work out this way, but the last three times she's run 1,000 meters her time has been identical (apart from the fraction).

This one was fun. After a Dartmouth-bound runner took off and left the rest of the heat behind, you know who ran a very strategic race against the rest of the field, hovering in third or fourth until the next-to-last lap. She passed the last runner in front of her (except the leader) on the final curve and went on to finish second in the heat and 13th overall in New England.