In the Cards

Thanks to an e-mailer for a link to the sale of this and other cards from the US Army All-American Bowl. What follows is word-for-word from the description of the card:

2010 RAZOR U.S. ARMY ALL AMERICAN FOOTBALL ROOKIE CARD:

COLE MARCOUX - #98

( DARTMOUTH BIG GREEN STAR QUARTERBACK )

This item is officially licensed by the U.S. Army and features the rookie cards of this year's most explosive high school football players. Past Participants of this game are some of the brightest NFL stars and these will be the only cards available of these players until they turn Professional. These will be the only officially licensed cards of these athletes while they are in the NCAA, the next 3-4 years.

Another movement trying to force the Ivy League to allow football to go to the NCAA Tournament is wondering if the prohibition can be interpreted as a possible Title IX violation. Here's the bottom line by the message board writer who started a thread on the issue:

SOLUTION: WE START AN ONLINE PETITION. It can start here on this site and be forwarded out to each Ivy League Football Alumni Organization. From there it can move on to the current student bodies. With so many Football Alumni around the nation and world, a ridiculously long amount of signatures which include the newest and lowliest alumni like myself all the way up to the top donors of each program, can at least get a real honest dialogue between the alumni and presidents. I would love to see the 8 Presidents stand before each football alumni organization and try to defend this ban after realizing all the TITLE IX violations are solidly explained and properly submitted for their own reading pleasure.

The Brown Bear Blogger has added his thoughts here.

Strange that men's basketball can send teams not only to the NCAA Tournament but to the CBI and CBT events. Princeton men's hoops won in Indiana last night in a College Basketball Invitational game and will be back on the road playing in St. Louis tomorrow night.

The Penn football team once again is taking part in a bone marrow screening initiative. (link) From the Penn release:

A bone marrow screening involves only a simple cheek swab, but has the potential to save a life. The University of Pennsylvania football team, along with Philadelphia’s two other Division I football programs—Villanova and Temple—are recruiting students, fans, alumni and city residents to take part in the quick and easy process that can ultimately save lives.

On Friday, March 26, at Penn's annual "Relay for Life," the Penn football program will be aiding in the "Be the Match" program for the third straight year. As part of the program, the local area football teams have set a goal of recruiting 5,000 new members to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) registry.

Yale football is also taking part. (link) From the Yale release:

The drive is part of the “Get in the Game. Save a Life.” campaign for the National Marrow Donor Program. Thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases depend on the NMDP’s Be The Match Registry to find a match. The testing, which consists of a simple cheek swab, has a special meaning for the Yale athletics department because Bulldog women’s ice hockey player Mandi Schwartz (Wilcox, Sask.) is a leukemia survivor and is in need of a marrow donor.

No word yet on whether Dartmouth will join in the effort that has spread steadily in the past several years.

New opponent Sacred Heart is pushing community involvement as well with players taking part in a Read Aloud program and collecting supplies to help Haiti.

The search for a new Dartmouth men's basketball coach has picked up with the job being posted and Acting Director of Athletics Bob Ceplikas sending an e-mail to alumni, parents and Friends of Dartmouth Men's Basketball explaining the search. An excerpt from the letter:

Looking forward, we have launched a national search for a new head coach who will dramatically revitalize our program. President Jim Yong Kim and Acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears have each taken a personal interest in the search and will be directly involved. The search is being coordinated by Executive Associate AD Brian Austin, who has extensive experience hiring outstanding coaches. Brian and I have already spent many hours networking with key people in the basketball world, and we will both be attending the national coaches' convention in Indianapolis in two weeks. I will ultimately make the final decision in close consultation with President Kim and Dean Spears.

A key part of the process, however, will be the involvement of Dartmouth alumni. The legendary Dave Gavitt '59 has agreed to chair an Alumni Advisory Committee consisting primarily of former Dartmouth basketball captains representing various eras, several of whom have extensive experience with college and/or professional basketball. We know there are many other alumni and friends with valuable insights, so we encourage any of you to contact committee members with your input:

Dave Gavitt '59, chair
Barry Elson '63
Bob Sturges '69
Gary Dicovitsky '72
Peter Roby '79
Jim Barton '89
Kenny Mitchell '97
Greg Friel '03

And finally ... longtime readers of this blog know we love having the world headquarters of Big Green Alert on the shoulder of Moose Mountain. Truth be told, we love it for all but about one week of the year. The outlier would be the gooiest week of mud season, which we are in it right now. For those of you who wonder what mud season is all about: One year we had to be towed home from about a half mile away (the car was stuck up to the middle of the wheels) and for the next two days no vehicle could make it up our road. Not our cars, not the school bus (the kids had a couple of days off) and not even a town grader.

Last night, Mrs. BGA hit a deep mud rut and stalled out her car, which has four-wheel drive. She freed it up and nursed it home but was pretty sure something nasty had happened. She was right. It didn't start this morning and some kind of harness was hanging down under the body with loose wires dangling on the floor of the garage. Driving her in this morning we found a bent up piece of the car – about 18 inches long and as large around as a football with severed wires and bolts hanging out of it – in the mud where she had her "issue" last night. We picked the piece up and put it on the floor of the car to go with it when the tow truck arrives to cart what's left of the vehicle off to the garage. Argh!