Do You Know This Guy?

Brian Mann has won plaudits for his efforts as Dartmouth's director of football operations. He's no longer playing in the Arena Football League, of course, but you can get still get his Los Angeles Avengers card on ebay.

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Trying to get a read on Dartmouth's non-league opponents? The Lehigh Football Nation blog offers up one version of a Patriot League preseason team that includes players from 2010 Dartmouth foes Holy Cross and Bucknell. Here are the opponents Dartmouth will see from the LFN preseason All-Patriot League teams:

First team offense
Holy Cross
Senior wide receiver Bill Edger
Senior wide receiver Luke Chmielenski
Senior offensive lineman Mike McCabe
Bucknell
Senior offensive lineman Anthony Carter

First team defense
Holy Cross
Senior defensive lineman Mude Ohimor
Junior linebacker Jimmy Thomas
Senior defensive back Anthony DiMichele
Bucknell
Junior defensive lineman Robert De La Rosa

First team special teams
Holy Cross
Senior kicker Rob Dornfried

Second team offense
Holy Cross
Senior wide receiver Freddie Santana
Junior tight end Alex Schneider

Second team defense
Holy Cross
Senior linebacker Sean Lamkin

Bucknell
Junior defensive lineman John von Paris
Senior linebacker Travis Nissley

Green Alert Take: It will be interesting to see how the three wide receivers and tight end from Holy Cross mentioned by LFN perform without Dominic Randolph throwing to them. How much of the success they had the past couple of years was the result of Randolph and how much of Randolph's success was the result of their talent? Time will tell. ... Not mentioned is Bucknell's Josh Eden, a first-team Patriot League defensive lineman who returns from a Mormon mission. Toss him in the mix and the Bison have a former Patriot League first team defensive lineman, an LFN preseason first-team Patriot League defensive lineman and a second-team defensive lineman. That sounds formidable. ... The Big Green can breathe a sigh of relief that it won't see LFN's (and likely everyone else's) first-team running back and first team quarterback in Colgate's Nate Eachus and Greg Sullivan respectively. Interestingly, those are the only two Colgate names on the LFN first team.

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Jim Fiore was an assistant director of athletics at Dartmouth from 1995-99 and took over as Stony Brook athletic director in 2003. In a story about the rising fortunes of the Seawolves' football program, The Sports Network writes, "...(S)eventh-year athletic director Jim Fiore has helped build a successful athletic program, with upgrades in facilities, branding and improved revenue-generating, a body of student-athletes whose collective grade point average is at least 3.0 grade in each of the past four school years, and recent success in higher-profile sports like men's soccer, men's basketball and men's lacrosse." High praise indeed.

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One of the plusses of living in a college town is the cultural opportunities it offers, even when that college town is well off the beaten path. Sometimes one of those cultural opportunities intersects with sports, and so it is tonight and tomorrow night when three of us will venture off the mountain and be at the Hopkins Center for an advance screening of Ken Burns' latest baseball film. Burns will be at The Hop for a discussion both nights. To learn more about the event and the films, click here.

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And finally, I had the good fortune of covering two Masters golf tournaments and two U.S. Opens, but my favorite major – by far – is the (British) Open Championship. When it's at St. Andrews it's that much better. And when there's wind and rain, well, that's as good as it gets.

It's on ESPN right now so I'm checking out to go sneak a peek or two. Fore!