Signs of the Times

Sanders Davis, the 6-foot-5, 275-pound offensive tackle from Catholic HIgh School in Baton Rouge who is headed for Hanover, "signs" with the Big Green last month. Find mentions of the big lineman in earlier BGA posts here.

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Dartblog and recently retired professor David Ehrlich reprise a letter he wrote in December of 2004 about how much he enjoyed teaching athletes/football players at Dartmouth. Ehrlich taught film in Hanover before retiring from Dartmouth to teach at a school off the coach of South China. (link)

Several excerpts from Ehrlich's letter:

One young man, Zach Lehman ‘95, who was a fine defensive linesman, in his final year managed to complete an extremely ambitious animated film that went on to win a Student Academy Award after which he went on to Harvard Law School.

And ...

...(A)thletes have set patterns of behavior that are extremely disciplined. Even before coming to Dartmouth, of necessity most have learned how to organize their time around their practice so that they can get all their academic work done at the same time that they can more than meet the expectations of coach, teammates and themselves.

And ...

I’ll happily take a big burly defensive tackle in my classes anytime, because I know he’s going to persevere on class projects long into the evenings, because he’s probably going to serve as his toughest critic, and because he’s enough of a team player to want to help his classmates with their projects as well.

Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens and Harvard's Tim Murphy – his assistant when Teevens was the head coach at Maine – get a brief mention in reflections of the former Maine athletic director in the Bangor Daily News.

Holy Cross is the second Dartmouth opponent to start spring ball. (link) Penn began earlier this week.

Yale has scheduled a pro day for next Thursday. Set to participate are tight end AJ Haase, defensive end Travis Henry and punter/placekicker Tom Mante.

The Colgate football team has been out front in a number of volunteer efforts over the past few years and that's the case again as the Raiders will hold their third annual Lift for Life next Friday. The hope is to raise money and awareness for the fight against Neuroblastoma.

Former Harvard standout Carl Ehrlich may be playing with a Spanish team called the Firebats but he had to eat a little bit of crow after a matchup with former Crimson teammate Sean Hayes and his Barcelona Pioneers. Check out Ehrlich's always entertaining ESPN blog.

Kudos to the Cornell men's basketball team for a 78-65 win over Temple in the opening around of the NCAA Tournament. This was not one of those games in which an underdog takes a lead and hopes to hold on. Cornell was in absolute charge throughout. ... ESPN's Seth Davis thinks the Big Red will make it through another round with a win over Wisconsin. ...

Longtime Dartmouth assistant Mike Maker is one game away from the national championship in Division III after his Williams Ephs put on a Cornell-like shooting clinic in a 97-88 win over Guilford in the Final Four in Salem, Va. From the iBerkshires game story:

The Williams men's basketball team (30-1) had to erase an eight-point halftime deficit for the first time this year — they did it with red-hot shooting in the second half in downing Guilford (30-3) 97-88. The win puts Williams one win from the NCAA title and extends their win streak to 21.

Check out these excerpts from a story in the Greensboro News & Record, which covers Guilford:

Williams was unconscious, hitting a record 16 shots from beyond the 3-point arc and scoring at will against a Guilford team built on defense. The shooting display left the Quakers bewildered.

And ...

It was amazing to watch. The shots came quickly, fired over outstretched arms and leaping defenders. They came from almost every player Williams sent onto the floor, arching shots from the corners, laser shots from the top of the circle, archery shots seemingly from the heavens.

Rhett Bonner, one of the Guilford guards who had to watch it from up close, said it bordered on miraculous. ...

Williams scored 62 points in the second half, more than 11 of Guilford's opponents scored in entire games this season. ...

No team is made to withstand what the Quakers saw Friday. It was an amazing display of basketball.

In the national championship game this afternoon, Makes and his Ephs will face Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a 72-60 winner over Randolph-Macon in the other half of the Final Four. Randolph-Macon was the only team to defeat Williams this year (79-74 at Randolph-Macon on Dec. 30).

The Division III national championship game will be televised live on the CBS College Sports Network at 1 p.m. Check it out on DirecTV (613) and the Dish Network (152).

About a half-hour before Williams tips off, former Dartmouth standout and assistant coach Courtney Banghart will be on the sidelines as her Princeton (26-2) women's team takes on St. John's (24-6) in the NCAA Tournament in Tallahassee. Find a preview here. Look for coverage of the game on ESPN2.