Upper Valley vs. (former) Happy Valley?

Some years back a basketball forward was debating between Dartmouth and Penn State before finally deciding to become a Nittany Lion, where he earned a starting role on the hardwood. Could the Big Green get even on the football field?

According to a website following the Nittany Lions they have their eyes on a 6-foot-4, 270-pound offensive lineman with a 3.75 GPA and "scholarship" offers from Dartmouth and several others. From Lions Pride:

(Miles) Bartholomew, a three-star offensive tackle from Athol Springs (N.Y.) Saint Francis, has recently been more prominent on Penn State's recruiting radar. Circumstances have opened the door for Bartholomew. The Nittany Lions don't have a true offensive tackle committed and last fall's highly-publicized scandal and subsequent coaching change has limited Penn State's options for the 2012 class.

Bartholomew already has scholarship offers from Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Maine, Albany and Akron, but he's willing to wait on the Nittany Lions.

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Penn State isn't the only college team with plain navy blue-and-white uniforms and a new coach that is scrambling in recruiting. The New Haven Register's Portal 31 Yale football blog writes about the challenges facing new Bulldog coach Tony Reno. Assistant coach Rick Flanders told the paper it's not as bad in New Haven as some might think:

"It’s trying but it probably more trying for the recruits, their parents. But 90 percent of the kids who were on the board are still on the board. They are looking at Yale for the right reasons and it had to do more with the institution and opportunity (to earn a Yale degree) than a specific person. Tony will salvage a great class and we will get this group that is coming back off and running."

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We went to see the movie War Horse last night and on the way home I mentioned that there were times in the movie when the young actor playing Albert looked a lot like a member of the Dartmouth football team. That Certain Hanover High Senior laughed and said, "I was going to say the same thing."

If you've seen the movie, do you know who we are talking about? If you haven't seen the movie it's time well spent.

Oh, and if you stick around to watch the credits you'll see one person whose title was, "Goose Trainer." Imagine that on your resumé ;-)

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That Certain Hanover High Grad is running the mile today in a meet at Leverone Field House, then it's over to Leede Arena to watch the improving (in everything but record) Dartmouth men's basketball team play Longwood. The women's team plays Harvard at 7 in a game that unfortunately conflicts with the New England Patriots against the Denver Tebows although, to be honest, I don't know how much overlap there is in the fan base. . . .

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Winter has arrived with a vengeance here in the Upper Valley. Depending on which weather site you check the temperature could drop as low as 10 below zero tonight and the windchill to 25 below.