Saturday, January 23, 2010

Getting His Kicks

An Alabama newspaper website writes about Dartmouth commit Daniel Barstein, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound punter/ placekicker. According to the story, he averaged 40.3 yards last fall with "nearly half his punts" downed inside the 20 and "at least nine" inside the 10. Barstein, who took an official visit to Brown and unofficial visits to Alabama, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Alabama-Birmingham, told the Birmingham News:
"Ivy League schools don't redshirt, so I want to try to start as a freshman. The opportunity was there for me."
Barstein's junior year highlight video can be seen here. He averaged 36 yards per punt as a junior according to the video, which begins with aselection of kickoffs deep into the end zone.

Bloomberg
had a report yesterday about new Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris seeking a national television agreement to broadcast football, basketball, lacrosse and soccer games. As the Boston Herald reports today, there's a huge difference between seeking and landing an agreement. The Herald spoke with an unnamed Ivy League coach who said:
“For lots of these contracts, they want the school to pay. That’s not going to happen given the economic constraints of schools these days.”
Colgate wide receiver Pat Simonds, who gave Dartmouth fits the past few years, will be on display this afternoon in the East-West Shrine Game, which will be televised on ESPN2 at 3 p.m. Simonds told the Daily Star after this week's practices:
"I feel much more confident. I can play with these guys and run and jump with them."
Go figure. Dartmouth grad Nick Johnson '08 gets promoted to the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins, scores his first goal and gets sent back down the next day. There's video of the goal here and the postgame interview here. (Thanks for the links.)

An ironic note from InsidePittsburghSports.com: " ...(I)t's up for debate whether Pittsburgh has their best 21- to-22 players on the roster. Johnson and defenseman Ben Lovejoy each showed the ability to contribute at the NHL level and at least for one night, Johnson was a good fit for Evgeni Malkin."

Lovejoy, of course, is yet another former Dartmouth skater.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story about Johnson's night here.

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