Hope the Weather Holds

Welcome to our little Shangri-La, graduation families! For those of you back home, know that Hanover is buzzing, tents have sprung up like enormous white mushrooms all over campus, the proscenium is in place and chairs on the green are neatly lined up like so many good soldiers waiting at attention. This morning is windy, gray and wet but the forecast for tomorrow's commencement looks OK depending on which site you check. Keep your fingers crossed.

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The BGA poll this week read this way: Sporting News has picked Dartmouth fifth in the 2011 Ivy League football race and then asked how you felt about that.

77 percent felt that was too low
17 percent felt that was about right
5 percent felt that was too high

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Dartmouth freshman Abbey D'Agostino placed third last night in the 5000 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Her time of 15:40.69 slashed more than 19 seconds off her own school record and is an Ivy League record. link

The Dartmouth record coming into this year was 16:12.33 by Jenna Rodgers '98, so she's cut more than a half minute off the old record. As a freshman!

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Former Dartmouth ice hockey standout Tanner Glass had a chance to be a hero for the Vancouver Canucks in last night's Stanley Cup victory over the Boston Bruins. He's just glad he didn't end up being the goat. The Vancouver Sun has the story.

For fun, check out this Tanner Glass video. There was another great video interview with him from last winter about his trip to South Africa for the World Cup. His wife is former Dartmouth soccer player Emily Tracy '07.

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Incoming freshman defensive end Evan Chrustic was chosen for the New Jersey’s annual Paul Robeson East-West All-Star Football Classic which is slated to be played today.

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You've got to watch carefully but on this TV news report about 15 or so NFL players working out in Boca Raton, Fla., you can see incoming offensive lineman Sean Ronan in the background. He's in the black shirt and green shorts at about 18 seconds and again at about 31 seconds.

THERE'S ALSO a vido of him working with the NFL guys here. Again, green shorts, black shirt.

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And finally, our unbeaten Green Machine Cal Ripken baseball team got a bye in the first round of the playoffs and won last night, 8-2. I'm still trying to figure out how a tournament can be set up so that our No. 1 seeded team has to play the No. 2 seed Monday night in a North division semifinal. Wouldn't you think if the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds both keep winning they would play in the finals? There's nothing we can do about it but throw our top pitcher out there Monday and hope if we advance we've got enough left for the North championship game Wednesday and, if we do, for the overall championship next Saturday. Given that pitchers can throw just six innings a week, it's going to be interesting.