Don't Look Now ... Or This Fall

Versus is going, going, gone ...

The big news yesterday was that the Versus TV network will broadcast five Ivy League football games this fall. Left unsaid was that they will involve just five Ivy League teams, none of them named Dartmouth. Here's the schedule:

Sept. 24, Cornell at Yale
Oct. 15, Penn at Columbia
Oct. 22, Yale at Penn
Nov. 12, Penn at Harvard
Nov. 19, Harvard at Yale

To save you from doing the math, here's how many times each school will be on Versus this fall:

Penn 3
Yale 3
Harvard 2
Columbia 1
Cornell 1
Brown 0
Dartmouth 0
Princeton 0

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Speaking of TV, the Patriot League and CBS Sports Network announced a deal yesterday "in which the Network will air Patriot League men's and women's basketball, men's lacrosse and football." Find the story here.

For the record, we receive Dish TV here on Moose Mountain. We can watch CBS College Sports network but we can't get Versus without moving up a tier, which is "a dog that don't hunt."

Lehigh Football Nation has a commentary on the Patriot League deal.

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Thanks to an Alert reader for pointing out that a National Football Foundation story headlined Colleges Continue to Add Football Teams features a mention of Kennesaw State adding the sport. The president of the Georgia school is Daniel S. Papp, a 1969 Dartmouth graduate who had this to say:

"The primary driver behind us adding football is a large level of interest from our student body and the community. Football is king in the American South and having a football team tremendously heightens the visibility of an institution and in many cases the attractiveness of an institution as well."

And this ...

"We think that football program adds to the overall student experience at a university. And we believe that it demonstrably helps improve retention and progression rates for students as well. Students get more involved with the institution, so the students are more likely to stay in school and are more likely to concentrate on their academics so they can stay in school."

Eight new college football teams will begin play this fall with 17 more to kick off for the first time by 2014.

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Brown's 2011 football roster has been posted. No sign of running back Spiro Theodosi, the New Hampshire product who seemed headed for a successful career before blowing out his knee.

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From a News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne) story about summer work and career planning for football players at Ball State ...

Ball State football coach Pete Lembo has a firm grasp on the value of an education. Remember, he graduated from Georgetown and coached in the Ivy League (Dartmouth).

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The Wall Street Journal writes about schools that have never "been slapped with a major NCAA rules violation." The WSJ writes ...

There are only four athletic programs from major conferences on the list. They are Boston College, Northwestern, Penn State and Stanford.

And ...

Three of the four innocents from major conferences (Boston College, Northwestern and Stanford) have a built-in advantage: As private schools, they're not required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act—a tool reporters have used to uncover wrongdoing at some public institutions.

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That Certain Alert Reader has pointed out that at the 2011 USA Track & Field Championships that begin today there are 35 runners competing in the 1,500 meters for a shot at the World Championships in Korea this summer. No fewer than three of them were raised here in the Upper Valley. Running in the event are: Norwich, Vt.'s Andrew Wheating, the Olympian who competed at Oregon for former Dartmouth coach Vin Lananna; Russell Brown, the Hanover High graduate who ran at Stanford, and Macklin Chaffee, who ran at Hanover through his junior year of high school and then competed for Williams. All three have broken four minutes in the mile.

Also in the 1,500 field is Will Leer, son of Dartmouth grad Chuck Leer '72.

That Certain Hanover High Graduate reminds me that her freshman teammate, Abbey D'Agostino met the qualifying standard for the meet but will not be competing.

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It's the first day of summer vacation for That Certain Hanover Senior to Be and lo and behold the heat came on this morning. It's windy, gray and looking like rain, but I doubt he's complaining. No homework!