Is Football Ready to Turn the Corner?

The local daily recently had a Q&A with Bob Ceplikas, Dartmouth's acting director of athletics. The full Q&A is now posted on the Dartmouth website. A couple of excerpts from the article:

Valley News: And what about football? Are you finally going to turn the corner?
Bob Ceplikas: Absolutely. Rick Taylor had been involved in turning around three Division I football programs when we hired him last spring to do a soup-to-nuts review of our program. He concluded we're already a lot closer than our record suggests, given our facility improvements, admissions support, and our strong freshman and sophomore classes. Rick's top recommendation was to ramp up our annual friends giving to match the other Ivies, and we've accomplished that. And we've brought in two outstanding, very experienced guys as offensive and defensive coordinators.

I truly think we'll turn some heads in the Ivy League this fall.

And ...

Valley News: Do you feel the recent series on Dartmouth athletics (in the Valley News) accurately reflected the attitudes of the college administration toward promoting winning programs and the direction of the athletic department toward providing a winning program?
Bob Ceplikas: Absolutely not. I understand the negative perception out there, because two of our highest-profile programs -- football and men's basketball -- have really struggled. But it's clearly a departmental and institutional priority to turn those programs around, and I think we're much better positioned to do so than we've been in a very long time. The recent articles might also reflect that some of our traditionally strong programs have been rebuilding this year. But if you take a step back and look at how much more success men's hockey, soccer, and baseball have had in the last 5-6 years than they had for many years before that, and you see how we've maintained our tradition of excellence in women's basketball, hockey, lacrosse, and soccer over that stretch, I'm incredibly optimistic that our latest initiatives have laid the groundwork for more successful teams across the board.

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Dartmouth baseball coach Bob Whalen is pictured in a story in the Boston Globe about Whalen and outfielder Sam Bean – both Needham, Mass., natives – helping the Big Green to its second Ivy League championship in a row. A good quote from the Dartmouth skipper:

“One of the things I said to the team on Sunday after winning the championship is that one of the hardest things in life is to do what everyone expects you to be able to do. In sports, that thing is defending a title. And this was one of the toughest and most resilient teams I’ve ever had.’’

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When Rick Sowell was lacrosse coach at Dartmouth he engineered a remarkable turnaround that saw a Big Green team that was 0-6 in the Ivy League in 2002 go 5-1 and tie for its first conference championship in 38 years the next spring. Sowell moved on to St. John's the next year and is now at Stony Brook where he guided the No. 8 Seawolves to a 9-7 win over Denver and former Princeton coach Bill Tierney yesterday in the NCAA Tournament. (link)

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One of the advantages of living in Northern New England: That Certain Hanover High Senior is on a bus with French classmates this morning headed to Montreal and then Quebec City to use the language skills they've been honing since elementary school.

Speaking of Montreal and Quebec City, anyone coming to Hanover for a long football weekend in the fall might want to think about a sidetrip over the border. Old Montreal is wonderful and you can get there in just 3 1/2 hours. If you fly into Burlington you can be in Montreal in two hours. Quebec City is 4 1/2 hours from Hanover but well worth the drive. The walled city is the closest you'll come to feeling you are in Europe in all of North America.