Diamond Dust

The Dartmouth baseball team's trip to the NCAA Tournament ended with a thud Saturday as the Big Green dropped a 16-0 decision to Kansas. The Daily Dartmouth has a story and there's another on the Dartmouth sports information website. It's probably precious little consolation to the Big Green that North Carolina, which had to play well to take a hard-fought, 5-2 win over Dartmouth in the opening game, pounded Coastal Carolina yesterday, 15-5.

Green Alert Take: Baseball is a funny game. Things happen that simply don't happen in other sports. A very good Penn State football team is never going to lose a 49-0 game to an average Temple team, but a 100-win New York Yankees Juggernaut can drop a 16-0 game to a last-place team. It happens. Sure, Dartmouth's lopsided loss to the Jayhawks is going to sting for some time, but don't read too much into one game. Dartmouth was a very good team this spring. That's baseball.

Green Alert Take II: If there's something I've come to believe after being around sports for a long time it is that the first time you make it to a championship tournament you really don't know what to expect, which can take a toll. And that if you can make it back again the next year, there's a very good chance things will be different. The Dartmouth baseball team graduates some talented players, but it returns the bulk of its squad next year along with its entire pitching staff. With some solid recruits headed to Hanover, the Big Green will have a good opportunity to make it back to the NCAA's in 2010 and to experience a different result. Nothing's guaranteed because, well, because it's baseball. But it will be fun to watch.

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Hard as it might be to believe, I don't spend much time surfing the net for enjoyment. Nah, most of the time I spend cultivating my severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome is to deliver you the goods on this blog.

So please excuse me for being late to discover the hilarious Club Trillion blog written by Ohio State basketball end-of-bencher, Mark Titus. The counter on his site lists 1,421,464 visitors, which is, oh, slightly more than the number who stop by this electronic neighborhood in an average ... decade. Then again, nothing you'll find here is as funny as Titus' Jan. 14 posting on his unrequited relationship with the ESPN personality he refers to as, "My main squeeze, Erin Andrews-Titus."

For the record, the Club Trillion title is spun out of a basketball line score. In his very first entry, Titus wrote, "...(W)e devised the plan of trying to get the 'trillion' which occurs when we play 1 minute and do absolutely nothing that would appear in the box score, thus making our stat line say 1 minute played followed by a bunch of zeroes."

Root around through Mark's archives. The guy is good.

And finally, that certain Hanover High freshman catcher's final jayvee baseball game was cancelled because of rain this week and the junior catcher's final softball game is today at 5. That pretty much means you'll be stuck reading about my Green Machine Little League team until our season ends in another couple of weeks or so. Did I mention we are 5-2? ;-)

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.

Informed On Uniforms

My laptop beeped yesterday and coughed up a link to a September, 2006 blog item posted on the Daily Pennsylvanian site. From that posting:

Penn starts the Ivy League season this weekend with Dartmouth — the team with arguably the most interesting uniforms in the league and the most recent changes.

Not sure why it showed up now, but believe it or not it's timely. The item discusses changes in Dartmouth's football uniform dating back to 2001. Some of the links are dead, but it's still interesting to get someone else's perspective. The reason the item is timely is because there's current news on the uniforms to share:

The green pants have gone the way of the black pants. They are gonzo.

Regular visitors to this electronic neighborhood know I was no fan of the black or green pants. If you ask me (or even if you don't, because it's my blog ;-) the green pants were barely passable – with white shirts. But the green-on-green thing just didn't work. I kept waiting to hear a voice over the loudspeaker intone, "Ho, ho, ho Green Giant."

Don't forget, I've got Penn State blood in my veins. A stripe down the middle of the helmet and numbers – readable numbers – on the shirts and I'm good to go. (But JoePa, the Nike swish? C'mon.)

Former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer and his Tennessee Titan teammates from non-BCS schools are getting a little love from a Tennessee teammate named Cortland Finnegan. From a story in the Tennesseean:

But the Titans cornerback is willing to spread his love for all the underdogs of college football, and his teammates who represent those schools.
Finnegan recently ordered T-shirts from nearly a dozen small schools, from Washburn and Fort Valley State to Montana State and Eastern Washington.

The story goes on to say another of the T-shirts was from Dartmouth.

Occasionally I'm asked if I would start a message board to go with Green Alert. I haven't and I won't because unless they require registration, prohibit anonymous posting and are heavily moderated given time they often degenerate into a mess like the Ivy League Football forum. Yes, the Green Alert blog allows anonymous "comments," but they all show up first on my computer and if they even hint of a personal attack they don't get through.

I bring this up because a column on CBSsports.com is a reminder that what people post on the Internet can hurt and do damage. In this instance, a young basketball player decommitted from Wisconsin because of the things he read about himself on a message board.

Given the amount of press he's received heading into the NCAA lacrosse Final Four, you know former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet is a pretty good story. And you had to know with Gaudet's Virginia team taking on Cornell that the Ithaca Journal would sniff this one out, and it has. Find a story about the Dartmouth grad who played against the Big Red in another color uniform a year ago here.

And finally, that certain Hanover High junior got a couple of hits in yesterday's softball loss to archrival Lebanon, but a generous scorekeeper listed her with three. I don't think she'll give the last one back ;-). The freshman was supposed to have a jayvee doubleheader today against Lebanon but with the holiday weekend depleting the other team's roster, the games were cancelled and he's headed out on the golf links instead. Given the end-of-season blues, I don't think he's disappointed.

Have a fun and safe holiday weekend everybody.

More From The Recruiting Front

Penn's recruit list can be found here.

Keeping in mind that what is on recruiting sites is unofficial, Scout.com reports that Dartmouth "became the first school to offer Park City (Utah) cornerback Erik Walker, the 100m champion in Utah."

According to his Scout.com bio page, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Walker rushed for 1,051 yards on 131 carries as an option quarterback (8.0 yards per carry) and had 36 tackles along with two interceptions at corner. His 40 time has been listed at 4.36 and he won the Utah 100 meters in 10.95. Keep in mind it's early and there are a lot of big schools on his list.

Incoming recruit Garrett Waggoner, a 6-2, 210 safety from Sarasota, Fla., received a $2,000 "Bud Carson Scholarship." Waggoner couldn't know it for sure when he said it, but this quote from a story on the award is torn 100 percent from Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens playbook:

"From football I learned a lot of team concepts, because in football you have to rely on your teammates to do their job and you to do your job. Because if you start trying to do other people's jobs, everything gets messed up. So you have to depend on other people and have confidence in them."

Former tailback Chad Gaudet's return to New England as a grad student/lacrosse standout with the Final Four Virginia squad brought the Boston Herald to write:

FOXBORO - It has been a strange journey that has taken Chad Gaudet from Ivy covered Memorial Stadium (sic) in Hanover, N.H., to jam-packed Klockner Stadium on the lacrosse-mad campus of the University of Virginia.

While a devastating injury wiped out one athletic career, the Winchester-born, Burlington-raised Gaudet has risen to the highest ranks in another. He will start at defensive midfielder for the Cavaliers, who face Cornell in the NCAA Division 1 national semifinals tomorrow (2 p.m.) at Gillette Stadium.

Of his decision to switch sports after the kind of rare knee injury that often leaves those who suffer it with a pronounced limp for the rest of their life, Gaudet – who has something of a Ringo Starr thing going in the photo accompanying the story – said:

“With the hardware in my knee, it was going to be too much of a risk to continue playing with so much impact. So at that point, I really had to make a decision whether I wanted to continue competing athletically or just hang it up.

“I really love competing and I played lacrosse in high school. I walked into the coaches office at Dartmouth and asked if I could have a shot. They gave it to me and I really fell in love with the game again."

And Lacrosse Magazine's blog posted a story about Gaudet that included this:

"It was my plan when I decided to pursue this fifth year. I was well aware the final four was going to be held at Gillette Stadium," he said.

He better enjoy it, because he'll soon be going from host to tourist. In a week, Gaudet and others in his master's program depart for the business school in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a month to complete the requirements for his graduate degree.

And finally, a tough week on the softball field for that certain Hanover High junior catcher was offset with the release of SAT scores yesterday. Suffice it to say she was smiling pretty broadly after hitting her target score exactly on the point. Hopefully she's be smiling just as much after today's game at archrival Lebanon.

Still Another Recruiting List

Columbia's recruiting list for next fall is out. Find it here. Interesting that the Ivy League's most urban school and it's most rural school probably have the most overlap in terms of high schools where they recruited the Class of 2013:

Brophy College Preparatory (Arizona)
Dartmouth: Mike Tree, defensive line
Columbia: Seyi Adebayo, defensive Line

Bergen Catholic High School (New Jersey)
Dartmouth: John Golio, offensive line
Columbia: Nick Gerst, running back

Loyola Academy (Illinois)
Dartmouth: tight end Jackson Floyd
Columbia: Alec Kosminskas, offensive line

Cascia Hall (Oklahoma)
Dartmouth: Danny Husband, defensive end
Columbia: Paul Pinkerton, wide receiver

I've been reading a book called Soccer Dad by W.D. Wetherell. The author lives locally in the town of Lyme and has written about yet another state championship season by the traditional powerhouse Hanover High School boys soccer team.

It's not a book I normally would have bought or read, but I received it as a gift at Christmas. Here it is mid-May and finding myself out of reading material I picked it up and started reading. It's interesting because I know some of the players involved (Dartmouth track coach Barry Harwick's son is the goalie) as well as a number of the parents who the author writes about.

But it is a maddening book. Beyond the overly sappy descriptions of how soccer is such a beautiful and imaginative game, the cheap shots at football are just that. Cheap shots. Writing of the cheating scandal at Hanover High that year, the author quotes himself asking his son, "Any soccer players?" The son answers, "Football players." The father again: "Why am I not surprised? Cynical of me, but that's sometimes my role."

Later in the book:

"The chance to play beautifully finally came against Hollis-Brookline at home. It was a cool, crisp Saturday – "football weather" they call it, those benighted souls who persist in the delusion that football is America's game. Dartmouth was playing Princeton in their refurbished stadium three hundred yards away, and roars from the crowd, shorn of passion, were breezelike whispers by the time they reached our stands."

"... (T)hose benighted souls who persist in the delusion that football is America's game?" ... Discuss among yourselves.

Brown is the latest Ivy League school to release it's football recruits here.

Forner All-Ivy defensive back John Carney '78, whose bid for the governor's mansion in Delaware was derailed last year, is running for congress. Find his website here. His bio on the site starts this way:

The second of nine children, John was born in Wilmington and raised in Claymont by his parents Jack and Ann. He attended St. Mark’s High School where he was quarterback of the 1973 state championship team. John continued his football career at Dartmouth College and earned All-Ivy League and Most Valuable Player awards before graduating in 1978. After several years of coaching football and lacrosse, John became a freshmen football coach at the University of Delaware, while earning his master’s degree in public administration.

Dartmouth football will be honoring four Ivy League championship teams on Saturday's this fall. The teams and dates:

• Oct. 3 vs. Penn – 1969 Ivy League Co-Champions
• Oct. 24 vs. Columbia – 1963 Ivy League Co-Champions
• Nov. 7 vs. Cornell – 1971 Ivy League Co-Champions
• Nov. 21 vs. Princeton – 1981 Ivy League Co-Champions

From an email that went out announcing the schedule of teams to be feted:

If you were a member of one of these teams, you will be receiving an invitation to the weekend's festivities during the summer, so please mark your calendar and plan to return to Hanover with the rest of your teammates to celebrate your championship season.

If you were not a member of one of these teams, you too, are invited to return to Memorial Stadium (sic) this fall to witness the introduction of the members of these great Dartmouth teams at halftime.

And finally, the Hanover High junior varsity baseball team came from behind for a dramatic, 6-5, win yesterday in its final at-bat. That certain freshman catcher was solid behind the plate the whole game, laughing afterward at the pressure he felt to not give up a passed ball when the bases were loaded with none out and his pitcher was striking out the side. (He didn't give up a passed ball and has the black-and-blue marks to prove it.) He batted just twice, popping out to third and walking when a 6-foot-3, 250-pound fireballing relief pitcher threw two pills that went at his head and forced him to hit the dirt. I explained to him that when a kid that big throws that fast and he's on the junior varsity, control is probably issue. Fortunately he didn't say what he probably should have: Duh.

That certain Hanover junior's softball team wasn't as lucky, traveling more than two hours to be on the wrong end of a 27-0 no-hitter. That's two days, six-plus hours on buses and two losses by a combined, 41-0.

Records Made To Be Broken

As promised/threatened (pick one), Dartmouth records that are overdue to be broken:

Career rushing yards – 2,252, Al Rosier '91
It doesn't have to be Clifton Dawson (4,841 yards), Mike McLeod (4,512 yards), Nick Hartigan (4,492 yards) or Jordan Scott (5,621 yards), but the record will fall if Dartmouth can simply develop a workhorse back who will do the job for three solid years. Not since Jeff Dufresne from 1978-80 has the Big Green had a player lead the team in rushing for three consecutive seasons. Astonishingly, Rosier's yardage is just 27th on the all-time Ivy League list. Every other Ivy League team has at least one player who has rushed for 3,000 career yards. Yale has had six runners top Rosier's record, Penn five, Princeton and Cornell four each, Harvard and Brown three each and Columbia one.

200-yard rushing game drought
Dartmouth's last 200-yard game by an individual was on Nov. 16, 1991 when Al Rosier ran for 229 yards against Brown. Every Ivy team has had at least two 200-yard games since then. Brown has had 12, Princeton 10, Harvard and Yale six each, Penn and Cornell five each, and Columbia two.

Passing yards in a game – 419, Jay Fiedler, 1992
Hard to believe, but Fiedler's total against Yale is tied for 30th on the all-time Ivy League list. Every Ivy League team has had someone throw for more yards. Brown quarterbacks have surpassed Fiedler's mark 11 times while Princeton's QBs have topped it on seven occasions.

Career interceptions – 13, Scott Sims '89 and Lloyd Lee '98
The Ivy League record book lists the top 16 players for career interceptions and every school is represented with the exception of Dartmouth. The top three players for career interceptions are all from Princeton – Superman Dean Cain with 22, Damani Leech with 20 and Jay McCareins with 18. Cain came within one of Dartmouth's career record in 1987 alone, when he picked off 12 passes.

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Incoming offensive lineman Rob Bathe has been chosen to play in the 36th annual Minnesota High School All-Star Football Game at St. Cloud State's Husky State on June 27.

Our local paper has a story today noting that safety Kyle Cavanaugh, projected to be the only fifth-year senior on next year's team, did in fact tear his ACL in the spring game. Barring a miraculous recovery from surgery, it will be the fourth time in five years that the hard-luck Cavanaugh has had a season ended by injury. He was a starter in the first two games of his collegiate career.

Today's Daily Dartmouth has a story about the retirement of longtime field events coach Carl Wallin.

Tragic news in Cambridge, Mass., where a 21-year-old man was shot and killed Monday afternoon in the entrance to a Harvard dorm. He was not a Harvard student. Find a Boston Globe story here.

And finally, a regular reader sent along a link to a New York Times blog post by a Dartmouth sophomore headlined, "Sober in the Animal House."

Closer Than We Remember

Given how last season ended, it's easy to forget how promising a start Dartmouth had at Colgate last fall. Although this video is from the Colgate perspective, it's a reminder of just how close the Big Green came to an upset over the eventual Patriot League champion.

Junior quarterback Alex Jenny completed 29-of-48 passes for a career-best 343 yards and Phil Galligan caught 10 balls for 146 yards in a game that was tied at 20-20 midway through the fourth quarter.

Dartmouth had a chance to take the lead when it drove from its own 35 to the Raiders' 4 early in the fourth quarter only to have a 21-yard field goal attempt blocked. Even after Colgate responded with a touchdown that gave the Raiders a 27-20 lead with 7:27 remaining, Dartmouth wasn't finished. The Big Green marched from its own 15 to the Colgate 17 before the drive bogged down with just over four minutes remaining. A late Raider touchdown made the final a deceptive 34-20.

Allen Lessels' blog in the Manchester Union Leader has an update on the two UNH players who tormented their cross-state rivals for what seemed like, oh, six or seven years. Former New Hampshire quarterback Ricky Santos is back with the Montreal Alouettes, battling for a roster spot. David Ball, his record-setting wide receiver, has signed with the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats after a stint in Montreal last year. Ball has also spent time on the practice squads of the Chicago Bears and New York Jets.

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the latest Wearers of the Green celebration in Boston. From the story:

The distinction was not limited to athletes from traditional varsity sports, as teams as diverse as rugby, figure skating, Ultimate Frisbee and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu were represented.

Jake Novak over at the Roar Lions Roar blog has a post about his "Top 5 Least Favorite Lion Records." If there's one thing I learned in the newspaper business, it's the merits of stealing a good idea and then making it your own. With a nod to Jake, I'll have my own list of Dartmouth football records that need to be broken tomorrow. ;-)

And finally, it dropped to 31 degrees last night here on the mountain. Thursday's high could be 85 degrees. Ah, spring in Northern New England.

A Sneak Peek At Next Year

Today's Power Rankings column in The Daily Dartmouth takes a peek ahead at next year's fall sports. Football is ranked No. 2 after men's soccer. The writer of the piece says:

I’m excited because Dartmouth football has absolutely nowhere to go but up. Let’s face it — the team hit rock bottom last year, and we all felt it, even those of us who couldn’t care less about Dartmouth sports. It was embarrassing to everyone.

One of the schools frequently mentioned as a future opponent for the Dartmouth football team once the current non-Ivy contracts run out is Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The News-Leader in Springfield, Mo., has a primer on the non-scholarship Drake football program here.

From the story:

Missouri State assistant coach Sean Coughlin, a former Drake player (1999-2000) and assistant (2001-03), said a minimum 3.00 GPA and ACT score of 21 are starting points.

"It definitely cuts your pool," Coughlin said. "Yet you'd be surprised how many kids you'd find ..."

The Wearers of the Green celebration was held Saturday evening at the Westin Copley Place in Boston. I've been told that there were two standing ovations during honorary inductions and both were completely deserving: College President Jim Wright and the late Sports Information Director Kathy Slattery Phillips. The event drew a gathering of about 650 for the induction of 200 new members of the Wearers of the Green.

A 6-4 win over Princeton has sent the Cornell men's lacrosse team into the Final Four where it will meet up with top-ranked Virginia and former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet. The Cavaliers blew past Johns Hopkins yesterday, 19-8, with Gaudet handling the faceoffs and even earning an assist. Find a story about the second matchup of the year between Cornell and Virginia here. UVa won the first one.

Anyone who has spent time around Dartmouth over the past 40 years or so would recognize the name of Ed Lathem '51, the college librarian and dean of the libraries emeritus. Lathem collapsed in his Webster Hall office and died Friday at age 82. The Daily Dartmouth has a story.

And finally, an aside. I am glad I'm not in high school these days. At least not in honors classes at our local high school. The amount of homework kids in those classes get is mind-boggling. If they are involved in a lot of extracurricular activities they seem to always be staying up too late and getting up too early to get their work done. I regularly tell that certain sleep-deprived Hanover High junior to hang in there because college will be easier, and I honestly believe that. It hasn't hit the freshman quite as hard yet, but there have been a lot of times when he's at his desk when I turn in, and he's back at it when I wake in the morning.

Yale's The One

The idea of last week's poll was to find out what one team, other than Harvard, you would most like to see Dartmouth defeat next fall. Several emailers suggested Colgate was the logical choice, both because it is the first game of the year and because it would set the tone for the season. I've got no quarrel with that thinking. The guess here is that any and all coaches would have voted for Colgate on those grounds alone.

But the hope was to find out what opponent, again other than Harvard, you'd most like to see Dartmouth beat in the event it won just one game. Assuming that's how most people voted, the top five spots went pretty much as I expected. I suppose you can sum it up this way:

It's always going to be HYP until you take out the H. Then it's going to be YP ;-).

As a trophy win, it's no surprise to me that New Hampshire came in third after YP. The tradition of the Penn series being what it is, the Quakers being one of the presumptive Ivy League favorites next fall, and Penn being the Ivy League opener probably all contributed to the Quakers finishing fourth. And Colgate was a logical pick to finish high both because it is the opener and because it, too, would represent something of a trophy win.

The surprises? What looks to be a very good Holy Cross team was mired in seventh place (one vote lower than Columbia). And not one of the 123 ballots mentioned Cornell. You'd think someone would hold a grudge against the Big Red.

Here's how the balloting broke down:

1. Yale 29 percent
2. Princeton 18 percent
3. UNH 17 percent
4. Penn 11 percent
5. Colgate 8 percent
6. Brown 5 percent
7. Columbia 4+ percent
8. Holy Cross 4 percent
9. Cornell 0 percent

Several folks asked which team I voted for and given that I was operating on the presumption of just one win, I went with New Hampshire. The thinking was that if the Ivy League title was out of reach, I'd want to beat the best team on schedule. Or the team that Dartmouth has gone longest without winning against. Both of those point to UNH.

The Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings measuring overall success of the intercollegiate athletic programs at the nation's Division I colleges and universities hasn't yet been updated with spring results. When the update comes, Dartmouth's baseball championship should help the Big Green's cause.

Unsurprisingly, Stanford is No. 1 through the winter results with Minnesota second, North Carolina third, Michigan fourth and Penn State rounding out the top five. Here's how the Ivy League sits:

38. Princeton
53. Cornell
61. Harvard
65. Yale
72. Dartmouth
99. Penn
132. Columbia
194. Brown

The June 20th Dartmouth Friend of Football Golf Classic is hoping to fill out a field of 100 golfers and identify a few more sponsors. Donations for the raffle and auction are also being sought. From a recent email:

The Reunion Classes of 1979, 1984, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 2004 will all be in town so come join them for great food, excellent beverages, BAD golf, and lots of laughs! Family and friends are welcome and there is lots of time to have a post golf beverage and still make your Saturday night reunion dinner.

To help out, or for more information, contact curt(dot)oberg(at)dartmouth(dot)edu.

The Portal 31 blog covering Yale football for the New Haven Register is reporting that linebacker/tight end Jordan Jefferson of Palo Alto, Calif., has decommitted from Lehigh in favor of attending Yale. While Buddy Teevens' stint as head coach at Stanford didn't necessarily give him the pick of Ivy-bound recruits in the Bay Area (Ivy League passing leader Nathan Ford of Cornell also came from Palo Alto) it certainly helped. But Jefferson going to Yale is a reminder that with former Stanford standout and assistant coach Tom Williams at Yale, there's another sheriff in town. (Or at least a deputy ;-)

And finally, that certain Hanover High School freshman caught the first game of yesterday's jayvee doubleheader and did a terrific job of blocking just about every ball that bounced in the dirt in front of or to the side of him. Last night he somewhat proudly showed me his black-and-blue marks. I think there's more black-and-blue than skin color showing and I was duly impressed. As someone who avoided catching at all costs when I played baseball, it's astonishing to me that we're two-for-two with catchers in the family.

Recruit Videos

Highlight videos of most of the recruits in the Dartmouth Class of 2013 have now been posted. Find the videos here. The catchphrase attached to the videos is, "The Time Is Now."

The list, by the way, includes yet another name I hadn't seen before. Shawn Bode is a 6-foot-2, 185-pound wide receiver from Kamehameha Kapalama in Kaneohe, Hawaii. In addition to football, he plays basketball and is on the track team.

Bode is one of two Hawaiians who will suit up for the Big Green next fall, joining defensive lineman Elliot Kastner of Hawaii Prep.

There are always players on Ivy League football teams who could play for so-called big-time programs. They might not be stars – although some might – but they could contribute. Likewise, a great many of those big-time schools have players who could have gone Ivy and contributed on and off the field. The guess here is that Paul Cianciolo is one of them.

A backup quarterback at Penn State, Cianciolo turned to baseball this spring and compiled a 4-1 record as a reliever. That's impressive athleticism, but he's also a pretty good student. In five years Cianciolo earned a BA in finance with a 3.94 grade point average, completed his MBA, made Academic All-District and was rewarded with a job in New York City with a venture capital firm. The Centre Daily Times has a story.

And finally, a regular reader tipped me off to a humorous (and fictional) note about Manny Ramirez in The Onion. Keeping in mind that Dartmouth grad Brad Ausmus is now one of the suspended outfielder's teammates, check out what the Onion wrote:

"If something is really messed up, I didn't do it, okay? It wasn't me. It was probably Brad," said Ramirez, attempting to deflect blame onto Dodgers catcher Brad Ausmus. "He's no good. I do not like him. He should be in trouble, not me."

So Close ...

Call him the big one that got away.

The young Dartmouth offensive line gained some experience last fall. It gained some size and strength since last winter. And it gained a new coach this spring.

It had a chance to gain something else heading into the summer. An "alpha hog."

Darris Sawtelle, a 6-foot-6, 320-pound offensive lineman who didn't fit into new coach Lane Kiffin's plans at Tennessee, apparently thought about transferring to Dartmouth before landing at Division II Grand Valley State according to this story. Now, before you say Grand Valley Who, consider that out of high school the graduate of Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield, Mich., was offered by Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska and Arizona State as well as Tennessee. And that when he decided to transfer schools like Alabama, Michigan State and Wisconsin were on his radar.

On the other hand, so was Harvard. How serious that dalliance was may never be known. Harvard is supposed to have a moratorium on transfers, although there may be an exception or two for quarterbacks and such.

For a little more background on Sawtelle, find his scout.com profile here.

Yale has released its Class of 2013 recruits and, like Cornell, it has a player coming in from Belen Jesuit in Miami. The Yale and Cornell freshmen will join with Dartmouth co-captain Peter Pidermann and sophomores Athony Diblasi and Diego Fernandez-Soto to swell the number of Belen Jesuit products in the Ivy League to a whopping nine. In addition to the Big Green trio there will be two at Yale, two at Princeton and one each at Columbia and Cornell. For a list of Belen Jesuit players in the college ranks, click here.

Perhaps trailing only Belen Jesuit for most Ivy League players next fall might be Brophy Prep in Phoenix. Dartmouth alone will have three Brophy products in Shane Peterlin, Brock Middleton and incoming freshman Mike Tree. Brown has one and while Columbia is graduating one it is bringing one in.

Former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet is the subject of yet another story for his exploits with the Virginia lacrosse team. A piece that deals a little more with his football background and injury appears in the Washington Times.

Congratulations to the Ivy League champion Dartmouth baseball team for having essentially a full lineup – nine players – recognized by the conference with postseason honors. From a Dartmouth release:

Dartmouth junior outfielder Nick Santomauro (North Caldwell, N.J.) was selected as the Ivy League Player of the Year, headlining a group of nine Big Green student-athletes to earn All-Ivy honors, more than any other school in the league. Also taking home one of the top awards was freshman shortstop Joe Sclafani (Palm City, Fla.), who was tabbed as the conference Rookie of the Year.

Speaking of Dartmouth baseball, Big Green alum Brad Ausmus' work as a Yoda for Los Angeles Dodgers' starting catcher Russell Martin is chronicled in the Los Angeles Times. From the story:

"It's just like doing homework with a buddy," Martin said. "It's brutal when you do it by yourself. But if you have somebody to do it with, it makes it a lot better."

... Especially when that somebody is an honor student who has taken the class before -- which, in baseball terms at least, is a description that fits Ausmus, an Ivy League graduate who has played more than 16 seasons in the major leagues.

The 2009 season is coming and while it's not Dartmouth and not the Ivy League, if you want to feel your blood start to pulse, check out this evocative 1:19 video promo for the upcoming home Penn State football schedule. They played this on the scoreboard at the Blue-White Game last month and the kicker at the end regarding one final opponent was well-received. It's powerful stuff.

And finally, our Little League baseball team, the Green Machine, played last night in the local Three-Pitch Tournament. I mention it only because it's such a great concept and the kids love it. Here are some of the key rules:

• Batters come to the plate with a two-ball, one-strike count and face a maximum of three pitches.
  
• A foul with two strikes is a strikeout. (That one is rough, but it is true to the three-pitch concept.)
• Pitchers can throw two innings per game only.
• Games are five innings or one hour maximum.
• An inning is over when a team scores three runs – except for the bottom of the final inning when a team can score as many runs as it needs to tie or win the game.

Our team is scheduled for four games and if we make it out of pool play we could play as many as eight games.

Teams from up and down the Upper Valley are in the tournament and the games go by in a hurry. Innings are short, games tend to be close and everyone has a blast with non-stop action.

Another Gaudet Story

Lacrosse Magazine has another nice story about former Dartmouth running back Chad Gaudet experiencing success as a long pole faceoff specialist for Virginia.

More Names

Yesterday's post mentioned Indiana high school quarterback Connor Kelley, identified by Scout.com as a potential Dartmouth recruiting target next year. Also on the early list from Scout.com as high school juniors who have received interest from (or expressed interest in) Dartmouth are:

• Wide receiver John Alexander, Arroyo Grande, Calif.
• Wide receiver Dylon Chafin, Lakewood, Colo.
• Offensive tackle Fred Eggert, Santa Ana, Calif.
• Wide receiver John Ferreira, Olympia, Wash.
• Middle linebacker Billy Harmon, Akron, Ohio
• Offensive tackle Shane Moniz, Canyon Country, Calif.
• Running back Mike Read, Barrington, RI
• Safety Wayne Swinson, Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Keep in mind that most of those names have other Ivy League schools attached to them at this point, and if the past is any indication of the future, the list will look very different by next November.

Opening-game opponent Colgate has put out its spring football prospectus and a quick look is all that is needed to remind us that the Raiders will have firepower galore next fall. True, all-everything tailback Jordan Scott has graduated, but consider what freshman Nate Eachus accomplished last year. Although he didn't switch from linebacker to tailback until the seventh game, he still ran for 932 yards, including two 200-yard games. Eachus rushing total would be fourth on the all-time Dartmouth list for a single season. And did I mention he didn't start playing tailback until the seventh game?

In addition to Eachus, Colgate brings back quarterback Greg Sullivan, whose 898 yards rushing would be fifth on the all-time Dartmouth list. Also returning is 6-foot-6 receiver Pat Simonds, and all he did is outpoll Scott, Eachus and Sullivan to be the Raiders' offensive MVP last year after catching 65 passes for 1,136 yards. And – you knew this was coming, didn't you? – Simonds' yardage total would be a Dartmouth single-season record.

The real challenge for Colgate will be up front, where the offensive line lost four of five starters, including two who signed NFL contracts.

Dartmouth's other Patriot League foe is also in the news as incoming Holy Cross defensive lineman David Herman has been named to the 2009 United States Football Junior National Team. The 6-3, 230 Herman joins Yale recruit Kurt Stottlemeyer on the squad that will play in the Junior World Championship in Canton, Ohio, from June 27-July 5.

Switching to the diamond, when Dartmouth grad and future big leaguer Mike Remlinger was early in his pro career, he lived with several teammates for a bit in a model home. Each day, they had to get up, make their beds, neaten up and get out of the house for the model to be shown. Good story but former Dartmouth pitcher Josh Faiola's story is better. The independent league pitcher with the Lake Erie Crushers is living in an assisted care facility. No lie. Check out this CNN story.

And finally, a second win in as many days for the previous winless Hanover High softball team, this time over archrival Lebanon. That certain junior catcher had three hits including a double, scored three runs and drove in one, tossed out two runners attempting to steal in the same inning, and made a full-fledged dive to tag a runner out from behind in a rundown between home and third in the last inning of a one-run game.

Better News For Reggie Williams

It's probably an overstatement to say it's good news for Reggie Williams. But the news about the former Dartmouth and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker is clearly better than it was when there was a very real fear that he would lose his leg. This Cincinnati Enquirer story says:

The knee has now stabilized. The crutches are gone. The imminent danger has passed.

Cornell has released its football recruiting for the Class of 2013. Find the list and player bios here.

With this class in the fold, Dartmouth is already looking ahead to next year and has its eye – along with a lot of other schools – on an Indiana quarterback named Connor Kelley. From an Indiana.scout.com story: (T)he list of schools that have shown interest certainly is formidable: Penn, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown. ... "

Another story about the Batesville High School QB that notes he's already been "offered" by Colgate, includes this quote from the young man:

"If I get to play football in the Ivy League and graduate, I am set for life with a great education. There is life after football and if I have a degree from the Ivy League or the Patriot League, it will be a dream come true for me.”

The scout.com profile of the 6-foot-1, 197-pound Kelley can be found here. And when this story was written he's already taken unofficial visits to Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale and was headed to Princeton, Penn and Colgate. Well-traveled kid.

You would think that if any school in the country could afford to still field junior varsity teams it would be Harvard. And yet, as the Harvard Crimson reports, the school is dropping jayvee baseball, men's basketball and men's ice hockey to the club level as part of a $77 million belt tightening at Harvard.

And finally, I made the long trek over to the seacoast yesterday to watch that certain Hanover High School junior's softball team win its first game of the year, albeit against a woeful opponent. I got home before the bus and dutifully reported to that certain mother of hers that she had a double, a single, an RBI, scored three runs, took extra bases in that daring way of hers, and played terrific defense behind the plate.

When I picked up the paper this morning it said she had three hits, which got me thinking.

When I coached that certain Hanover High freshman in his final year of Little League, I always kept the book in the dugout. I'm probably a little tougher on hit-error than most scorekeepers, but when it was my kid it absolutely had to be legitimate to go in the books as a hit. I was compiling season stats during what would be a championship season and there couldn't be any hint of favoritism, so I leaned the other way. He still ended up leading the team with something like a .585 batting average that spring, and every last hit was clean.

There's no way the junior had three hits yesterday, but if that's the way they are keeping the book, so be it. When the all-state voting takes place, an extra hit here and there certainly won't hurt. And others are probably getting similar gifts. But it's another reminder about how tricky the dynamic can be when you are coaching a team with one of your own on it. Which is why when I head out to practice this afternoon with the freshman's old Little League team, it will be a lot easier than it was a few years ago.

One last note: I'm not sure if I've ever seen uglier uniforms than those worn by the opposing softball team yesterday. It started with the Columbia blue-and-white tie-dyed socks and got worse as you went up. No lie, the jerseys looked as if they had smocks pulled over them.

I know what you are thinking. This is the guy who didn't like Dartmouth's green-on-green pants and shirts football uniforms. You are right. I didn't. But trust me, this was ridiculous. I mean, tie-dyed socks?

T-Mac Tribute

Would you rate Dartmouth sophomore Tim McManus among the top five receivers in the Ivy League? Jake Novak down at the Roar Lions Roar blog does, writing:

Tim McManus wasn't just the most valuable players for the Big Green last year, he was one of the most valuable players in the whole league.

Quick, what is the Dartmouth record for most Ivy League championships in one year? And what school holds the record for Ivy titles in one year? Courtesy of the always entertaining TigerBlog, here's a list of the Ivy schools and their record for most Ivy crowns in one school year:

Dartmouth - 5 (five times, last 1992-93)
Columbia - 5 (2006-07)
Brown - 7 (1999-2000)
Yale - 7 (two times, last 1989-90)
Penn - 8 (1983-84)
Cornell - 9 (2005-06)
Harvard - 14 (2004-05)
Princeton - 14 (two times)

TigerBlog writes that only Harvard and Princeton ever won double-digit titles in one year with the Crimson doing it three times. Princeton has turned the trick 17 times including this year, when it won 11.

Dartmouth won Ivy championships this year in men's soccer, women's basketball and baseball.

The New Hampshire Football Report has a bylined story about the Blue-White scrimmage last weekend that includes a scary thought from junior running back Sean Jellison:

"We're going to look to pick up the pace and even play a little faster this year. We're a high-powered offense and we thrive on playing fast and wearing down the defense."

And finally, I was reading a blog written by an old friend from my newspaper days in Pennsylvania and she wrote about a friend who, "did one of those Pick-Your-Five things on Facebook: Five Famous People You've Met."

That got me thinking on my drive up the mountain.

I don't do Facebook but thought I'd have some fun here and recall a few interesting (in my opinion, at least) tidbits from some of the people I've had a chance to meet as a writer.

Being a New Hampshire newspaper, every four years we'd always have politicians coming through the newsroom shaking hands. I distinctly remember Teddy Kennedy and Alexander Haig stopping by the sports desk to say hi. Lots and lots of others came though, so many, in fact, that they've blended together.

Over the years I've interviewed Hale Irwin, Dwight Stones, Mosi Tatupu, Jim Thorpe Jr., Marvin Miller, Vin Baker and on and on, but I don't have stories about them.

I do have stories about a few others that I'll bore you with. ...

In an interview on the day he was to sing locally with his musical group, The Knockouts, I asked heavyweight champion Joe Frazier if he would consider Muhammed Ali a friend. I already knew the answer but was curious how Smokin' Joe would respond. His answer sticks with me to this day: "He's a friend, but he's not the kind of friend you eat with and sleep with. He's the kind of friend you have to watch." Well, OK.

(Frazier's representative, by the way, showed up at the newspaper office the next day to see if he could get a copy of the photo that appeared in the paper. Apparently Joe liked it. We gave it to him.)

I interviewed former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton for a story about his efforts along with a Dartmouth alum to bring a minor league team to Waconah Park in Pittsfield, Mass. One day not long after we were sitting at the dinner table and the phone rang. We usually don't answer it if we are eating, but this time one of the kids did. "It's someone named Jim Burton," whispered whichever kid had answered the phone. I guessed correctly who it was and took the call. I ended up with a cold dinner but two young Yankee fans had a good story to tell at school the next day.

U.S. Olympic coach Herb Brooks was at Thompson Arena scouting a Dartmouth-Sweden exhibition in anticipation of the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. I was in my first year at the newspaper and had been sent over to interview Brooks. He was standing behind the railing at the top of the stands near the press box and willing to talk. During our conversation he several times put his hands on my shoulders and gently shifted my position. He said he didn't want the Swedes to know he was there and was using me to screen himself from the Swedish bench. Tongue in cheek I've told people ever since that I did my part to help the U.S. Miracle On Ice team win the gold.

I was in Florida with the Dartmouth men's basketball team one winter and Pete Maravich was the color commentator for the TV broadcast. I was asked to bring him up to speed on the Dartmouth team and had a chance to spend a good 15-20 minutes with him. I came away impressed by The Pistol, but didn't tell him that when I was a kid and he and Calvin Murphy were the two college hotshots, it was Murphy I favored.

I did a long phone interview with Billy Jean King when she was coming to Dartmouth for graduation a few years back. As some of the more prominent athletes do, she asked a little about me and my family as the conversation wound down. When she learned about a certain daughter being a good athlete, she suggested bringing her by the Hanover Inn to say hi when she arrived in town. We ended up meeting her outside the Inn where Billy Jean held up well-wishers and her hosts for a good five minutes to spend time with Kelly. She asked if she liked science and math, gave us a website for girls who do, and signed an old wooden Billy Jean King tennis racket for Kelly. That's one of only two autographs I ever got from people I've interviewed.

The other autograph was from Richard Petty. He was in Barre, Vt., during his farewell tour and I'd been sent up to do a story. Petty is rightly famous for signing autographs for everyone in sight. And as I found out, that means everyone. I spent a little time asking The King questions, after which he signed a photograph that they were giving away at the track and handed it to me unsolicited. I hadn't asked for it any more than I had asked for him to infect me with is unique pronunciation of the word "car." For a good week to 10 days afterward, I annoyed the heck out of my family by referring to any vehicle as a "coar." It just sounded so dang cool the way The King said it.

It is safe to say former North Carolina coach Dean Smith and I are not on each other's Christmas card lists. I've been in interview rooms with everyone from Tiger Woods to Karl Malone to Joe Paterno, but those aren't the kind of "meetings" I'm talking about. While my interaction with Dean Smith was in one of those mass interviews, it was a little different because he spent time addressing me personally. Loudly, aggressively and unhappily. Turns out he was very, very angry at something I wrote, and in a building named after him was completely at home letting me have it. Long story that I'll tell you sometime.

I didn't get a chance to meet Bob Cousy, but a did a pretty good phone interview with him one time. What was neat about that one is it's pretty unusual when you are doing a "phoner" with someone famous to be given their home number. Gotta admit it was pretty cool to dial him up and have him answer the phone. I've still got that number around somewhere and no, you can't have it.

There's always the chance of making a complete fool of yourself when you interview someone famous but that wasn't the case when I met future president George Herbert Walker Bush. Nope, I didn't make a fool of myself interviewing him for one simple reason: I wasn't interviewing him. I made a fool of myself just bumping into him. Bush was running on the Reagan ticket at the time. Or maybe it was during his '80 presidential campaign. I can't remember which. This was back when Dartmouth used to play basketball at Thompson Arena and for some reason, Bush was in the building. There was going to be a reception at Smoyer Lounge after the game and, typical of a young, single, hungry sportswriter, I made a beeline for the Lounge and the food right after the final horn sounded. Being down on the floor I was the first one into Smoyer. Better make that the second. As I walked up to a table to grab some chips or something, a man turned to me, stuck out his hand and introduced himself. "I'm George Bush." My answer (and I honestly can't remember if I was trying to be funny or was just dumbstruck): "I thought you looked familiar."

UNH-Dartmouth Game

Allen Lessels of the Manchester Union Leader has a blog note today about the UNH-Dartmouth football series, which still has two games remaining on the contract between the schools.

He reports that the 2010 and 2011 games might be shifted to 2012 and 2013. Find the blog note here.

There's a story in the print edition that is "teased" with the following: NH Notebook: ‘Cats might drop Dartmouth on gridiron.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's UNH dropping Dartmouth ...

Monday Mishmash

I've always loved this quote by Willie Nelson about one of the perqs that comes with owning your own golf course:

“Par is whatever I say it is. I've got one hole that's a par 23 and yesterday I damn near birdied the sucker.”

What calls that to mind is a Top-20 preseason poll I stumbled across that looks like this:
1. Montana
2. Appalachian State
3. Richmond
4. James Madison
5. N. Iowa
6. Harvard
7. Weber State
8. Yale
9. Villanova
10. New Hampshire
11. Wofford
12. William & Mary
13. Texas State
14. Eastern Kentucky
15. Maine
16. Colgate
17. Elon
18. Liberty
19. Central Arkansas
20. Wild Card

Not one, but two Ivies in the top-10? Including a Yale team that lost its best players on offense and defense? Hey, he's the owner of the site, so the Top 20 is whatever College by Charlie says it is. If you want to quibble, get a computer and buy your own domain.

The Outdoor Heps concluded yesterday with Dartmouth sophomore Muhammad Abdul-Shakoor closing fast to take third in the 100 meters in 10.96 seconds. (Video of the race and results here.) A defensive back for the past two seasons, Abdul-Shakoor ran track this spring instead of playing football. (More from the Heps at the bottom.)

Speaking of track, incoming Dartmouth recruit Elliot Kastner, listed as a 6-foot-2, 250-pound defensive tackle from Hawaii Prep, finished second in the discus and third in the shot in the Big Island track championship and is now headed to the Hawaii states. Kastner is also an accomplished wrestler.

Dartmouth has had a renewed recruiting presence in the Pacific Northwest in the past couple of years and is on the radar of Thomas Gallagher, a 6-4, 295 offensive guard for Washington's Sequim High School. According to a story in his local paper, the junior has "received information from a number of schools, including the University of Oregon, Washington State University, University of Idaho, Dartmouth College, Florida State University and Princeton."

That's an interesting cross-section of schools, to be sure. More from the story:

Faced with a partial scholarship to a big school or a full ride to a smaller school, Gallagher says he’d take the smaller school. Either way, he said he’d like to pursue a major in business communications or public relations.

“I’d like to go to school for free,” he admits.

Umm ...

Former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet is going on with the 14-2 Virginia lacrosse team, which built an 18-0 lead before calling off the dogs and taking an 18-6 win over Villanova in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. From a story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Chad Gaudet's supremacy on faceoffs meant Villanova rarely had possession in the first half. Gaudet, a graduate student who transferred to UVa from Dartmouth, won 12 of 15 draws before intermission and 14 of 17 for the game.

"That was pivotal," (UVa coach Dom) Starsia said.

Gaudet and UVa will play Johns Hopkins Sunday at Annapolis Md., as the Wahoos chase their fourth national title under Starsia.

Another former Dartmouth football player in the news is Eddie Lucas '04, who might have been the Big Green's starting quarterback in 2001 after injuries depleted the QB corps. Instead, he turned his full attention to baseball, which in hindsight turned out to be a smart decision. Lucas ended up being chosen the Ivy League player of the year as a senior and being drafted by the Kansas City Royals. Now a third baseman, he was promoted to the Triple-A Omaha Royals last week. Find his Omaha bio here. For an earlier Green Alert blog note about Lucas click here.

Today's Daily Dartmouth notes that a 2 percent drop in the "yield" of admitted students will see 50-60 additions off the waitlist for the Class of 2013. A year ago Dartmouth took 38 waitlisted students. None were taken two years ago.

Two thoughts:

• Might there be a football players in that group?
• Could that lower yield open the door for a transfer if there's one still out there?

And finally, back to the Heps. Word has reached these precincts that Carl Wallin (bio) told his athletes he will be stepping down as head field events coach after four decades in Hanover. Carl's credentials stand on their own but consider these: In addition to former World Champion and Olympic silver medal shotputter Adam Nelson, Wallin has coached 29 All-Americans, 38 New England champions and 87 Heps winners. He's coached internationally and has been chosen NCAA District One coach of the year four times in the past 11 years.

Carl's tireless dedication to the athletes he coached over the years has been obvious to everyone who knows him. If you drive by Memorial Field in the spring and Carl isn't out there giving personal instruction to one of his athletes it's always a surprise, regardless of the hour or day of the week. We should all have the dedication to, and love of our jobs that Carl has demonstrated throughout his career.

On a personal note, the smile and warm greeting I always got from Carl whenever we crossed paths in and around Leverone or Memorial Field did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Above and beyond being a successful and accomplished coach, Carl is a true gentleman who will be missed by more than just the athletes who were fortunate enough to learn from him.

Doing The ChaCha With Dartmouth

Not being a cellphone or texting kind of person, I'm not sure I ever heard of ChaCha until reading a typically humorous Rick Reilly ESPN column online. Reilly writes:

ChaCha, as most people under 103 know, is the highly addictive mobile answer service that responds to any query you send (text "ChaCha" or "242242") with a real answer from a real person, usually within three minutes, for free.

Funny, I don't feel 104.

But I digress. After reading Reilly's column I decided to check out ChaCha, which can be accessed online. Turns out you can search through questions people have sent in. I thought it would be fun to type in "Dartmouth football" and see what comes up. Eleven questions have been asked that included the words Dartmouth and football. Here are some of them:

• Where Is the Yale/Dartmouth football game scheduled for next season?
• What are the stats for number 41 on dartmouth?
• Who is Kephart in regards to football?
  
• What are the names of the division 1 football schools that don't have university in their schools name?
• Where did FB Casey Cramer of the Miami Dolphins play college football? What is his jersey number in the Pros?

If you are curious about the answers, find them here.

UNH held its Blue-White scrimmage Saturday and the stars came out to shine – even if they weren't out for long. From the official UNH release:

Incumbent starting quarterback R.J. Toman (Mission Viejo, Calif.) completed 7 of 9 passes for 133 yards and one touchdown – a 61-yard strike to All-America tight end Scott Sicko (Stillwater, N.Y.) – in the University of New Hampshire’s annual spring Blue/White scrimmage Saturday afternoon.

Speaking of star-watching, the Seacoastonline website included this:

All three members of UNH's offensive Holy Trinity were on the sidelines for the game: former quarterback Ricky Santos, former wide receiver David Ball and current Oregon head coach Chip Kelly, the team's offensive coordinator in the Santos-Ball years.

I wonder if Kelly was offering ideas or borrowing them ;-)

Here's a curious one. Check out the Ohio State football roster and you'll find Don Matheney, a 6-foot, 307-pound junior defensive lineman from Lancaster, Ohio. Now check out the Holy Cross roster from a year ago and there's Don Matheney a 6-1, 315-pound defensive lineman from Lancaster, Ohio. They might not be exactly the same size, but they are the same fellow. Matheney, who had two tackles against the Big Green last fall, will be suiting up for the Buckeyes in 2009.

Dartmouth has had a few players transfer "up" over the years. The most prominent was defensive lineman Jared Kesler, who ended up having a nice career with a pretty good TCU team. There was a wide receiver who transferred to USC a while back for family reasons but I can't remember his name. Maybe you can.

Happy Mother's Day!

Gaudet Set For NCAA Debut

Good story in Virginia's Daily Progress about former Dartmouth tailback Chad Gaudet going to the NCAA's as a grad student with the Cavalier lacrosse team. This quote from coach Dom Starsia doesn't surprise me at all:

"I made a joke to the team earlier in the spring. I said, ‘Are we going to let an Ivy Leaguer be the toughest guy on the team?’ He brings that component to us. He’s an animal in the weight room and works his tail off on the field.”

For anyone who saw Gaudet play at Dartmouth before the devastating knee injury that ended his football career, that's not a surprise. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If Gaudet had stayed healthy running behind an improving line he would have broken the Dartmouth career rushing record and would have helped the Big Green program turn the corner.

A couple of interesting notes from a Q&A with Princeton head coach Roger Hughes.

First, Hughes said the wildcard for his team at quarterback might be 6-foot-2, 195-pound Brett Kan. Should Kan win the job he would be the second son of a former Dartmouth player to quarterback the Tigers in four years. Kan's father, Darryl Wong '82, got tryouts with the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers after graduation and today is an orthopedic surgeon in Hawaii. Jeff Terrell, who quarterbacked Princeton to the 2006 Ivy League title and won the Bushnell Cup as IvyLeague Player of the Year, is the son of Steve Terrell '79, whose 61-yard punt is tied for ninth all-time on the Dartmouth career chart.

The other note of interest from Hughes is also in regard to the Princeton quarterback situation. Hughes said:

I fired my quarterback coach, which is me. Basically, with my responsibilities, trust me that the best part of my day is being out on the field with the players. I love coaching quarterbacks; with that said, the demands of a head coach and all the hats I have to wear take away from my time. As I looked at it, I wondered if the time I have to do other things and not be with the quarterbacks may have slowed their growth a bit.

The Portsmouth Herald's web page has a story in anticipation of today's Blue-White scrimmage at the University of New Hampshire that offers good insight into the team Dartmouth will visit in the second game of the season. Write Mike Zhe notes:

The annually explosive UNH offense will head into battle this fall with one of the league's top quarterbacks (R.J. Toman), running backs (Chad Kackert) and tight ends (Scott Sicko). But with four new starters, the line blocking for that trio is anything but proven.

And ...

Last year, UNH entered the season with four senior starters on the line and ended up churning out 406.9 yards a game (best in the CAA) and 35.6 points (second to James Madison). This will be as young and as inexperienced it has been at the position as any time in recent memory.

There's also this about the 2009 UNH schedule that. It is now ancient history, but it sill has to sting the Green faithful:

Looking ahead to the fall, the Wildcats' 11 opponents include two teams that were winless in 2008 (St. Francis, Dartmouth), four others that finished below .500 (Towson, Hofstra, Northeastern, Rhode Island), and five that finished above .500 (Ball State, Villanova, Massachusetts, William and Mary, Maine).

The poll over there on the left has closed with 54 percent of you suggesting that you are more optimistic than a year ago at this time, 25 percent feeling about the same, 10 percent feeling less interested and nine percent less optimistic.

Green Alert Take: That 54 percent of you are more optimistic is a surprise because the sense that I got last spring was that there was significant optimism coming off a 3-4 Ivy League season. I wonder if a good portion of that 54 percent is actually more optimistic than they were after last season. I'd expect that if the question were reframed to ask it that way the number would soar if only because, really, there's just one way to go.

And finally, back when that certain Hanover High junior was still playing baseball with the boys (right through the summer of her freshman year), I asked a Dartmouth softball coach whether that was a good idea, or if it might slow her transition down to softball whenever that might come. The word I got back was that baseball with the boys would only help her and clearly it has.

Yesterday she pulled something off that you don't often see girls do. On third base with two outs, she came off the base a little bit more with each successive pitch until finally breaking for home when the catcher lobbed the ball back to the pitcher. She slid in safely with a delayed steal of the plate that scored another run when the stunned pitcher's hurried return throw went into the dugout area. That certain catcher also threw a runner out bunting, picked a runner off first and threw a runner out stealing second. Alas, her team remained winless.