Lindy's Poll Out

I haven't seen it yet, but it's been reported elsewhere on the web that the Lindy's preseason annual is out and has the 2009 Ivy League race projected this way:

1. Harvard
2. Penn
3. Brown
4. Princeton
5. Columbia
6. Yale
7. Cornell
8. Dartmouth

Given last year's record, I understand where the pollsters are coming from. And yes, this is a preseason poll that doesn't really mean anything. It's the end of the season that matters.

All that said, maybe it's time for the team to take its cue from Howard Beale in Network and say it: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

As for the rest of the poll I've got no complaints. Columbia being pegged for fifth ahead of Yale is a bit of a surprise, but you can make that case without too much trouble.

Baseball Hangs Tough

A solid effort by the Big Green against North Carolina in the NCAA baseball tournament, but hitting into four double plays contributes to a 5-2 loss. Dartmouth plays Kansas at 1 today in an elimination game. Story. ... Now off to my Little League game.

Of Baseball And Playoffs

If you are interested in following the Dartmouth-North Carolina NCAA baseball regional game tonight, there will be a free internet audio broadcast on the Dartmouth website starting at 5:45. Calling the action will be Drew Galbraith along with Sports Information Director Rick Bender (a former Davidson College baseball standout) and Wayne Young '72, the color commentator for Dartmouth football who once played in the College World Series in Omaha. In addition to the audio being carried at the Dartmouth website, North Carolina is providing a free video feed if your connection is fast enough.

Speaking of Dartmouth baseball, the Boston Globe had a nice piece about the Pagliarulo family of Massachusetts. It begins this way:

Mike Pagliarulo celebrated winning the Ivy League championship with his exuberant teammates on the Dartmouth College baseball team and shed his uniform shirt before hopping the fence at Red Rolfe Field in Hanover, N.H.

His three hits had helped fuel the Big Green's 11-hit attack in a 10-0 clubbing of Cornell in the clincher earlier this month. Now, the senior first baseman from Winchester was focused on his family and sharing the poignant moment of the program's first Ivy title. He hugged his grandmother, Margaret, and then his father, Mike, who played third base and hit 134 home runs in the majors over 11 seasons, most notably with the Yankees and the Twins.

The son was wearing his father's T-shirt from 18 seasons ago, from the Twins' World Series championship club in 1991 - with the team's logo "work hard, play hard" - as a tribute to his family.

Today's Daily Dartmouth has a preview of the Dartmouth-UNC matchup.

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The Wall Street Journal has a detailed looked at athletics in the Ivy League that includes this:

With the league becoming weaker in sports like basketball, football and hockey, some argue it needs to make major changes, like creating a basketball tournament, ending the postseason football ban, or even adjusting admissions standards.

The story includes this (italics are mine):

The ban on postseason football, which exists because the Ivies don’t want to take up players’ time, prevents players from competing for titles and gaining exposure.

So that's the reason, huh? Outgoing Ivy League Executive Director Jeff Orleans could never quite zero in on the reason, but thanks to the Wall Street Journal the mystery has finally been solved. It's all about players' time.

Makes sense if you follow Columbia AD M. Dianne Murphy's reasoning for why she's against a postseason tournament in basketball:

“It’s another week of being out of class,” she says. “In our league that matters.”

Depends on the sport.

Curiously, the Wall Street Journal's explanation and Murphy's reasoning apparently don't carry over to all sports. Take men's ice hockey for example. Let's compare and contrast:

• Days between first Ivy League football game and last: 63
• Days between first Dartmouth hockey game and last "regularly scheduled" game: 121

• NCAA football playoffs: one automatic berth proposed for Ivies
• ECAC hockey playoffs: five teams made 2009 field

• NCAA football playoffs: one and done
• ECAC hockey playoffs: best-of-three series in first two rounds, then one-and-done (but with a consolation game).

• Number of NCAA football playoff games for 2008 Patriot League champion Colgate: 1
• Number of 2009 ECAC postseason games for Ivy League hockey teams: 22 – Dartmouth 2, Harvard 2, Brown 4, Yale 4, Princeton 5, Cornell 5.
• Total number of 2009 postseason games for Ivy League hockey teams, counting NCAA Tournament: 26.

• Days between first game and last game if an Ivy team were to go to the NCAA football championship: 90
• Days between games if an Ivy League team goes to the NCAA hockey championship: 162

This is not to suggest a change in the Ivy League's hockey policy. It is simply to show how absurd it is to say the reason behind a ban on football playoffs (or a basketball tournament) is the players' time.

Do I sound angry about the policy regarding football? I am. I've talked with way too many football players (who have gone on to successful careers as doctors, lawyers, teachers etc.) who desperately wanted to have the chance to test themselves against the best – like every other Ivy League athlete is allowed to – and never got the chance because the Ivy League mucky-mucks kept hiding behind flimsy explanations like "players' time."

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The always interesting TigerBlog has a caution for those who make assumptions about recruiting classes based on what they read. TB writes:

If you ask a football coach whether so-and-so should help the team, the typical answer is an optimistic one; if you ask that same coach what so-and-so will do as a freshman, there is typically a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.

They have no idea.

The TigerBlogster goes on to write:

It's more than just the accelerated physicality and speed of the college game. It's more than the wider range of plays and schemes that must be learned and remembered. It's about an 18-year-old kid moving away (and often times far away) from the safety of home. It's about a kid often being academically challenged for the first time in their lives. It's about a kid going from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in an ocean of big fish.

Well said.

NCAA Baseball Schedule

In case you were wondering, here's the schedule for the double-elimination NCAA Regional at North Carolina's new Boshamer Stadium:

Friday
Game 1 — Coastal Carolina (46-14) vs. Kansas (37-22), 2 p.m.
Game 2 — North Carolina (42-16) vs. Dartmouth (27-16), 6 p.m.

Saturday
Game 3 — Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 1 p.m.
Game 4 — Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 5 p.m.

Sunday
Game 5 — Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, 1 p.m.
Game 6 — Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 5 p.m.

Monday
Game 7 — Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m., if necessary.

Find a couple more images of the UNC stadium here and here.

A Dartmouth "Offer"

Tulsa, Okla., wideout Joe Dowdell of Bishop Kelley High School is reported to have received a Dartmouth "offer" from receivers coach Jarrail Jackson. The Tulsa World has a story about the 6-foot-3, 182-pound Dowdell, whose 52 catches broke the old school record of 48 set by – wait for it – his father, Joe. Find a video of Dowdell's highlights here. The video reports he had 662 receiving yards with five touchdowns and runs a 4.58 40.

Princeton's recruiting class with bios can be found here. The name that jumped out at me was that of running back Akil Sharp, who was said to have been "sitting" on an offer from Dartmouth during the winter. He was covered in an earlier BGA post.

Another Day, Another Poll

With the preseason magazines starting to hit the stands the much-anticipated Athlon FCS Top 25 has been released with three Dartmouth opponents being named. Not surprisingly, New Hampshire comes in at No. 9. Holy Cross is at 18 with Harvard pegged at 23rd. Thanks to Roger Brown of nhfootballreport.com for sharing the full poll:

1. Appalachian State
2. Richmond
3. Northern Iowa
4. Villanova
5. James Madison
6. Montana
7. Weber State
8. Southern Illinois
9. New Hampshire
10. Wofford
11. William & Mary
12. South Carolina State
13. Jacksonville State
14. Elon
15. Massachusetts
16. Central Arkansas
17. Maine
18. Holy Cross
19. Cal Poly
20. Tennessee-Martin
21. Grambling State
22. Texas State
23. Harvard
24. Georgia Southern
25. Eastern Washington

Speaking of UNH, the Colonial Athletic Association (which has a whopping seven teams in the top 25) has 2009 team previews online. Find the New Hampshire preview here.

And thanks to a regular reader for a link to a YouTube video of a catch that former UNH standout David Ball made during a preseason stint with the Chicago Bears. Upon further review, the receiver who regularly tormented Dartmouth (and everyone else in the FCS) was ruled out of bounds on the grab, but that takes little away from a tremendously athletic catch that is well worth viewing.

More strange news out of Harvard where a Bostonchannel.com news report reveals that Joe Villapiano, a "... Harvard football coach has been charged with trying to run down his pregnant ex-girlfriend in his car." If you scroll down this Rivals site there's also a mention of the alleged incident that begins this snide way:

If it's bloodthirsty coaches you want, the place to be this week isn't Destin, it seems, but the Ivy League.

Dartmouth baseball will open NCAA Tournament play tomorrow at North Carolina. Find game notes here and the school's full NCAA Tournament Guide here.

In case you are wondering, it's raining again today in the Upper Valley and there's more of the wet stuff expected tomorrow. I knew I should have bolted for Chapel Hill ;-)

Dartmouth Bond Rating

Both the Chronicle of Higher Education and Dow Jones have brief stories about Dartmouth "being stripped of its long-term triple-A bond rating." There's also a story in the Daily Dartmouth.

Q&A With An Incoming Recruit

Incoming safety Cole Pembroke of Desert Vista High School in Phoenix is the subject of this Scholar-Athlete Q&A from the ahwatukee.com newsgroup.

The Bangor Daily News has a story about coach Bob Whalen's work leading the Ivy League champion Dartmouth baseball team to the NCAA Tournament. Dartmouth plays at North Carolina Friday and as the story notes, Whalen doesn't want his players to be content with simply making it to the regionals:

“I’ve made it clear to them that we aren’t going down there to just try to be the little train that could. Baseball isn’t like football. If we play well and get a well-pitched game (we can win). ...

“We have to go down there with the understanding that our goal is to become the first Ivy League team to ever reach a Super Regional ... . ”

Whalen, by the way, was an assistant at Maine under legendary coach John Winkin when Buddy Teevens had a successful two-year stint as the Black Bears' head football coach in the mid-1980's.

Something has been bugging me since watching the Cornell-Syracuse lacrosse championship Monday afternoon. Each time Cornell scored a goal, the Big Red band would strike up Give My Regard to Davy, the school fight song, which was stirring. Even with the NCAA semis and finals sandwiched around graduation, the Cornell band mustered enough of a presence to be able to spur on the Big Red players and crowd. Kudos to them.

Syracuse's goals in the championship game, meanwhile, were accompanied by the ubiquitous sound of the Kernfraft 400, the hockey goal-scoring song being piped over the Gillette Stadium PA system. While I'm sure the folks controlling the music would have done the same thing for Cornell if the Big Red band hadn't been there, there's a piece of me that wonders if it was the organizers' responsibility to get the Syracuse crowd and players charged up. Sure made it seem like a Syracuse home game to me.

Today's Daily Dartmouth covers a speech by Dartmouth president-elect Jim Young Kim here. The story includes this quote, which is pretty funny:

Once I started showing a real interest in the nitty-gritty of Dartmouth College, people started coming out of the closet, as Dartmouth people, to me, people who I thought were otherwise perfectly normal.

Occasionally the real world intrudes even on a sports blog. At Harvard a murder in a dormitory entry has led to a woman in the senior class being barred from graduation. There's a story in the Harvard Crimson that follows yesterday's story in the Boston Globe.

And finally, that certain Hanover High junior softball player's bus left the high school for a weekday doubleheader at Laconia yesterday at 1:30. She got home at 11 p.m. I'm a huge supporter of high school athletics, but that's absolutely ridiculous. And Laconia (1:40 away by Yahoo Maps) isn't even the farthest the team has had to travel this spring. It also had games in North Conway (2:20 away), Wolfeboro, NH (2:08 away) and Durham (2:01 away).

There are at least five Vermont high schools that are less than a 30-minute drive for Hanover but the stubborn New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) – headquartered in Concord in the middle of the state and clearly out of touch with schools that aren't centrally located – has historically made it almost impossible for schools that play out-of-state games to make the state tournament. Perhaps the most ironic thing about the NHIAA's stance is that Hanover's home field is actually across the river – in Vermont.

Gas prices and travel costs aside, if the folks at the NHIAA could have seen the sleepy Hanover kids last night it might have finally woken them up.

That certain junior had two of Hanover's five hits on the day and once again caught a runner stealing. But she seemed to have no joy in talking about it after straggling in, and I think it had little to do with the fact that the team lost both games. The kid was beat.

Yale Transfer?

Despite blog postings elsewhere that purport to have identified him, I've found nothing published by a regular media outlet yet confirming a second FBS transfer heading to Yale. That said, the 6-foot, 273-pound offensive lineman that some have described as being bound for New Haven has now disappeared from the roster at the school where he played last year. Stay tuned.

The confirmed transfer to Yale, of course, is former Nebraska quarterback Patrick Witt. The New Haven Register had a story on April 29.

Everybody Into The Poll

Just a few quick notes this morning before heading off to the dentist. ...

The Any Given Saturday preseason poll is out and five of Dartmouth's 10 opponents received votes:

• 8. New Hampshire
• 28. Colgate
• 29. Harvard
• 32. Holy Cross
• 42. Pennsylvania

Defending champion Richmond is No. 1 in the poll with Applachian State second. The top five is rounded out by No. 3 Montana, No. 4 Villanova and No. 5 Northern Iowa.

Green Alert Take: Nice to see Holy Cross finally getting a little well-deserved recognition. And it should be no surprise that Penn is receiving notice. Given that preseason polls often look back as much as they look ahead, defending Ivy League co-champion Brown's absence is notable. Granted, the Bears lost their starting quarterback, but so did Harvard. Of course, Brown doesn't have Harvard's cache.

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the Big Green baseball team's visit to Army Sunday along with a quick mention of the NCAA Regional date with North Carolina.

And finally, the Cornell-Syracuse lacrosse national championship game yesterday was about as dramatic – and heartbreaking for the Ivy Leaguers – as they come. Syracuse scored three goals in the final 3:37 to force overtime and then denied Cornell the championship on a score 80 seconds into the extra period. The goal that sent the game into overtime came with just 4.5 seconds left and only happened, as ESPN replays showed, because everything went wrong for Cornell and right for Syracuse. Find a story in the Ithaca Journal.

Bring On The Heels

The 27-16 Ivy League championship Dartmouth baseball learned its travel plans today and will play at 42-16 North Carolina Friday in the NCAA Regionals. Also in the grouping are Coastal Carolina (46-14) and Kansas (37-22). The format is double-elimination, with the surviving team advancing to the super regionals. Find a Dartmouth release here.

Dartmouth last appeared in the NCAA's in 1987 when Mike Remlinger spun a four-hitter and fanned 13 while dealing 51-11 Michigan a 4-0 loss in the opening game at Georgia Tech. (Michigan had gone 61 games since its last shutout.)

In addition to Remlinger, future big leaguers in Atlanta that year included Pete Harnisch, Jim Abbott and Derek Lilliquist.

With a certain future blogger looking on, Tom DeMerit slammed a three-run homer to give Rem all the run support he would need.

Picture This

Several years ago a football parent had these miniature helmets made up. This one has a cork inside so it can be used as a bottle stopper. I thought about pulling the cork and fitting it on the antenna of my trusty '93 Mitsubishi Expo, but I had a similar helmet in a Penn State design (such as it is ;-) on the car before and it was um, removed at the movies in Lebanon. I think this one would be even more coveted.
On a quiet day in the blog world I thought to share a couple of photos I took of the marvelous Harris Cabin, built by Dartmouth students and recent alumni here on Moose Mountain. I can head out my back door and in 10 minutes be at the cabin, which can sleep 30 and hold gatherings of 50-60 people.
Here's the view from the porch. (Click photos to enlarge)

And finally, that certain Hanover High junior's team won the girls 17-and-under relay at the Vermont City Marathon yesterday by 10 minutes.

Have a safe Memorial Day.

Mini-Me From Dartmouth

Matt Burke '98, the former Dartmouth defensive back who had been on the Tennessee Titans staff, gets the following mention in a story about the new coaching staff of the Detroit Lions:

Don't expect to see the same with (Jim) Schwartz and the linebackers—he trusts and respects (Gunther) Cunningham and linebackers coach, Matt Burke. Burke, a graduate of Dartmouth, is considered the mini-me to Schwartz' Dr. Evil—a brilliant stats junkie.

Dartmouth grad Mike Slive, the commissioner of the SEC since 2002, is the subject of a story in the Utica Observer-Dispatch.

Dartmouth gets a mention in a story about a high school wide receiver in Oklahoma. Junior Roman Wilson of Lincoln Christian School in Tulsa led the state with 93 catches for 1,531 yards and two touchdowns. Asked about how recruiting is going, he told the Tulsa World:

Great — TU, SMU, Arkansas State, Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown are showing interest.

The 2009 Sporting News College Football Annual is out with a top-25 that features two Dartmouth opponents. New Hampshire comes in at No. 8 while Colgate is at No. 22. (Elon, in a fast rebuilding project under former Dartmouth assistant Pete Lembo, is at No. 9.)

Green Alert Take: Preseason polls are fun to look at and discuss, but to give them much weight is silly. To a great extent they are based on reputation. Given that both UNH and Colgate have to almost completely rebuild their offensive lines, it's surprising they are ranked as high as they are. It's equally interesting that Holy Cross, which returns four of five starters on the O-line, record-setting quarterback Dominic Randolph and nine defensive starters, is absent from the poll.

Dartmouth graduate Chad Gaudet's run as a graduate student with the Virginia lacrosse team came to a close Saturday as the top-ranked Cavaliers were ousted by upstart Cornell in the NCAA semifinals, 15-6. Gaudet was the subject of this Q&A on the Virginia website. He finishes his lone year at Virginia holding the school record for most faceoffs taken in one season.

And finally, that certain Hanover High School junior is in Burlington, Vt., this morning running a 6-mile leg in the Vermont City Marathon and Relay. She was pretty excited when yesterday's mail brought a letter from the head track coach of a Division I college she likes inviting her for an overnight visit next fall.