Friday Quick Hits

A few quick notes before heading out today for lunch with Mrs. BGA's parents south of Boston and then joining the throngs at the New England Indoor Track & Field Championships in Beantown.

That certain Hanover High senior has made it this far for the third year in a row (to qualify you have to be one of the top six in your state in an event) and though she isn't one of the top-seeded runners in the six-state championship, that's a pretty neat accomplishment. She's now made it in three different events. She's the only girl from Hanover who will be competing this year.

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An e-mailer shared a link to a 1991 New York Times story about Dartmouth football players studying ballet. Find that NYT story here. In yesterday's blog post about Big Green gridders studying yoga I mentioned a story I wrote about that ballet experiment. Unfortunately, mine isn't on the web ;-)

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A mailing from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Inc., yesterday shared some mind-boggling information. From the mailing:

The state of Florida lacks a single NCAA Division II or III football program, and only two schools, Weber International University and Edward Waters College, play NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) football.

The reason for the mailing: Ave Maria University outside of Naples is going to start an NAIA football program. The key line in the story, which Ivy League presidents might want to take note of, is:

“We are adding football because it’s a great character builder, and it’s the most visible of all the sports,” said Ave Maria Chancellor Thomas Monaghan.

If Monaghan's name is familiar, it may be because he was the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain and is a former owner of the Detroit Tigers.

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I got my Penn State alumni magazine this week and it mentioned how the Google Street View folks drove a camera-laden tricycle down some campus walkways to be able to put pictures from campus venues inaccessible by car on the web. The story also mentioned that ...

"Using Street View in Google Maps, now online visitors from around the world can 'walk' through the south end zone tunnel onto the field of Beaver Stadium."

How could I not try that? You can too, by the way, if you click on this link.

Now a little background. For privacy reasons Google Street View blurs the faces of people captured by cameras when the Google car (or in this case trike) goes by.

Well, after virtually visiting Beaver Stadium I decided to "stroll" down the street and check out a special outdoor exhibit on one side of the facility. Lo and behold, there was the familiar sculpture of Joe Paterno I've seen many times in person ... with its face blurred! The faces of several of the players behind him are blurred as well.

You'll have to go there on Google Street View yourself to see that, but an actual picture of the sculpture of Joe can be found here.

The irony of the photo above is it accompanied a story about JoePa's glasses being stolen from the sculpture last spring. Perhaps the vandals knew something the rest of us didn't, or perhaps Joe liked the way he looked in the statue sans specs, because he recently had surgery now doesn't need them. Link

Now off to Boston.