Barcelona Checks In

While some of their teammates have been studying Down Under (photo) another group of Dartmouth football players have spent the winter studying (and working out ;-) in Barcelona. A couple of photos ...

These guys are no strangers to football stadiums. The FC Barcelona stadium, however, is football of a different stripe.
The players pose in front of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.

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Speaking of military, a PhillyBurbs story about Dave Rackovan taking over as head football coach/athletic director at Central Bucks South High School catches us up on his son David, whose high school athletic career began in Hanover. The younger Rackovan went on to play football and lacrosse at Williams College before joining the military.

Each fall I would see Rack and ask ahow David was doing. In his answer I could hear equal parts pride and concern. The PhillyBurbs story catches us up: "Rackovan’s son, also named Dave, recently was awarded the Bronze Star after serving two tours of Iraq as a member of U.S. Army 10th Special Forces Group, the Green Berets."

Anita Rackovan, who used to be one of the young press box attendants at Dartmouth football games before the family moved, went on to play lacrosse at Princeton and now teaches and coaches at a private school in Virginia according to the story.

As for Rack, it sounds as if more than two decades as a college coach prepared him well for the time demands and responsibilities that come with his new position. He told the writer:

“My job as a football coach, everywhere I’ve been, it’s been a 16-18 hour (a day) job anyhow. I think it’s the ability to be organized and efficient and juggle a couple of hats. What we do at the college football level isn’t all coaching football. A lot of it is collateral duties; a lot of it is recruiting. You have to juggle all those hats."

Notre Dame football to the Big 10? It could happen according to the New York Times which has a story headlined, "Irish Rethinking Football Independence." From the story:

(Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack) Swarbrick said that the decision to look at alternatives, the most likely of which would be joining the Big Ten Conference. ...

And ...

Notre Dame has a standing invitation to join the Big East’s eight-team football league, but that is not likely. A more likely move would be for Notre Dame to join the Big Ten, which be financially comparable to the Irish’s current television deal with NBC and also would drastically increase the value of the Big Ten’s network.

There's not much mention of Dartmouth in the various NCAA Ski Championship stories and postings but the Burlington Free Press notes that the Big Green is in fifth place after the first of four days of competition out in Steamboat. Ace Tarberry was second in the men's giant slalom.

Dartmouth went through the EISA Carnival season undefeated. Ski Racing Magazine had Dartmouth ranked third in the nation behind Colorado and New Mexico heading into the championships. Denver was fourth and Vermont fifth.

And finally, it's not Steamboat Springs, but Killington was jumping off the horizon yesterday on a clear blue day up here on Moose Mountain. Click on the photo to supersize our view. (Actually, it's the view from the 1700s-era farmhouse across the road.)