Ivy Football Association Dinner On Tap

Honoree Jake Crouthamel addresses the last IFA dinner in this still taken from the 2009 dinner video.

---

The Ivy Football Association dinner is slated for Jan. 27 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City with a Friends of Dartmouth Football reception at 5 that evening in the Conrad Suite of the Waldorf-Astoria. If you haven't been to the dinner and wonder what it is about, check out the video from the last dinner. One thing the dinner illustrates is that whether you were a star at Penn or a scout teamer at Dartmouth, whether you were a linebacker at Harvard or a placekicker at Princeton, you have more in common with others who have an Ivy League football pedigree than you think.

The video from the 2009 dinner is surprisingly entertaining, from the beautiful voice of lawyer, tenor and former Harvard standout Ray Hornblower singing God Bless America, to the invocation by the Rev. Jason Pankau (a former Brown player who manages to slip in a mention of the injustice of Bruno sharing the Ivy League title that year with Harvard), to the work of emcee and former Yale player Jack Ford and Brown's Chris Berman, right through remarks of the honored guests including former Dartmouth standout and coach Jake Crouthamel.

But if you don't look at any other part of the video, do not miss Ed Marinaro's routine starting about 1 hour, 30 minutes in. The former Cornell great is drop-dead hilarious and there isn't a target he takes aim at that he doesn't hit.

Sign up for the dinner here.

*

It looks as if former Brown quarterback and coach Mark Whipple is closing in on the Connecticut head coaching position. The Hartford Courant and Boston Globe both have stories.

*

The Daily Dartmouth picks up on a Dartmouth release that a record 21,700 applications have been received for admission, up 15.7 percent from a year ago. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris told The D:

“It is going to be the most competitive admissions cycle that we’ve ever gone though.”

And ...

“We are a couple weeks into the regular decision applicants and, as a staff, we are grappling with what it means to only be admitting one in 10, especially looking at the strength we are seeing. That means for us we are much more nuanced in terms of some of the distinctions we must make.”

*

And finally, we're not getting the amount of snow they are receiving on the coast, but there's enough here that That Certain Hanover High Junior has a much-welcomed snow day. Not so for Mrs. BGA, who headed carefully down the mountain to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center this morning. Schools close. Hospitals don't.