Center of Attention

Incoming quarterback Andy Gay is listed at 6-foot-4, which made him the "big man," of his Henry Jackson High School basketball team. In the state finals last weekend had his hands full with a real big man, 6-9, 280-pound Josh Smith, who will be a center – the basketball kind, not football kind – at UCLA next year.

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Old friend Dave Rackovan, who spent eight years as an assistant at Dartmouth, is expected to be named the head football coach at Central Bucks South High School in Pennsylvania according to a Philadelphia news report. Rack left Hanover for Princeton when fellow assistant Roger Hughes became the Tigers' head coach. If he takes over the program it won't be his first stint at the high school level. He spent seven years as head coach at Purchase Line High School in Commodore, Pa.

Defensive end/linebacker Michael Tree gets mentioned in this Daily Dartmouth story about the Dartmouth Idol competition.

DartBlog looks at a story in the local paper about the struggling Dartmouth men's basketball program and Interim Athletic Director Bob Ceplikas' response.

A few more details on Princeton's success this winter (and this year) courtesy of TigerBlog:

• All 13 Princeton winter teams in Ivy sports finished either first, second or third.
• There were the seven championships, two second-place finishes and four third-place finishes.
• Princeton has won nine Ivy League titles this year. One more in the spring would give the Tigers 19 years with "double-figure" titles since 1979-80.
• Harvard has had five "double-figure" title years during the same span.
• No school other than Princeton or Harvard has had even one "double-figure" year.

A blogger writes about former Dartmouth halfback "Dynamite” Gus Sonnenberg, who played pro football from 1923-30 and went on to become a hall-of-fame wrestler. The blogger writes that, "While Sonnenberg didn’t last long as champion, his name goes down in history as the man who put bone crushing in the collegian class. In his heyday he drew bigger average houses than any other matman up to that time."

Not much here, but the Yale Daily News laments spring trips have been cut back due to budget constraints.

Now for more on improvements in FCS stadiums. For a look at what's in store at Southern Illinois, click here and then work your way down to the football stadium pictures. The plan includes 12 luxury suites and a 2,500-square foot VIP Club Room.

And finally, I'm still asking around to see what I can learn about a couple of Ivy League football issues being discussed on one of the message board. When I hear something credible I'll toss a note up here.