All Accounted For

With the release of Cornell's list, all Ivy League recruiting classes now have been announced. Find them here:

Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Penn
Princeton
Yale

And for good measure . . .

Holy Cross
Sacred Heart I and Sacred Heart II

As for Butler's class . . . I couldn't find it. Anyone?

•

Lindy's magazine has it's FCS top-25 out for next fall and here are three teams of interest:

12. Lehigh
17. UNH
19. Harvard

•

Two of the three teams above will be dreaming of making it to the FCS Championship game, slated for Jan. 5 in Frisco, Texas. Harvard will be, as comedian Robert Klein said in this memorable audio clip about appearing on Jeopardy, "just watching." (If you listen to the clip, be sure to click the little "x" on the annoying pop-up ad.)

•

Our Green Machine Cal Ripken baseball team capped off the regular season last night with another 10-run rule victory. It's our third unbeaten regular season in a row. The team now heads to Maine to play five games in three days at Harold Alford Fenway Park in Maine (although I've taken a pass on the trip) before starting the playoffs next week.

•

After last night's game it was off to Hanover High School for the Mega Concert, two-plus hours of music with a Certain Hanover High Senior playing percussion. This afternoon his baseball team plays in the state tournament down near Manchester. Hanover isn't the favorite, but hey, it's a 12 vs. 5 game and you know about those ;-)

That Certain Hanover High Graduate, meanwhile, finishes final exams in Barcelona today and then tours a little in France and Italy before returning across the pond for her brother's graduation and the start of Sophomore Summer in Big Green Land.

•

And finally, our "new" used car is at the mechanic today for inspection. When we set up the appointment the mechanic who has gotten to know us well over the years of taking care of our, um, older cars asked, "Did you have someone look it over for you?" (Clearly, he has a good grasp of my mechanical knowledge.) Hearing the answer, he (probably) gulped and said, "I'll look it over for you." I think he'll like what he sees but keep your fingers crossed. I mean, it may have only 100,000 miles on it, but it is a 12-year-old car.

Rugby's Loss Is CFL's Gain

A year ago the Dartmouth's Rugby 7's team got a boost from senior football players who used their final spring to help the Big Green win a national championship. It was not surprising, then, that when the NFL didn't come calling this spring defensive back Shawn Abuhoff turned his attention to the rugby pitch.

But the rugby team will have to do without the Dartmouth corner and return man-extraordinaire after he signed a deal with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. JRO Sports Advisors announced his signing here. (JRO, by the way, is John R. Owens '91, a three-year letterman at Dartmouth.)

Abuhoff said yesterday he flew out to a tryout at College of the Canyons in California two weeks ago to earn the invitation to join the Ticats. He already has reported to the team, which has given him a shot at earning a regular-season roster berth both as a d-back and return specialist. The team's first exhibition game is in just over two weeks.

The Tiger-Cats announcement of Abuhoff's signing is here and his Ticat bio is here.

The 2012 Hamilton schedule:

A Little Trivia

A little piece of trivia for you this morning. When Butler visits Dartmouth next fall for the Big Green's opener it will be the Bulldogs' first game against an Ivy League team and just their second game against a school from New England. The first? The 2009 Gridiron Classic against Central Connecticut, a game Butler won, 28-23, in Indianapolis.

•

In case you are wondering, Dartmouth has played twice against an Indiana opponent. Both games were against Notre Dame and both were forgettable. The Big Green lost to the fighting Irish in 1944, 64-0, at Fenway Park, and again the next year at South Bend, 34-0.

All totaled, Dartmouth has played teams from 21 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.

•

Dartmouth sophomore Abbey D’Agostino (5,000 meters) and senior Alexi Pappas (3,000 steeplechase) qualified in Florida for the NCAA's in Des Moines next week. D’Agostino, who was third last year in the 5,000 at the NCAA's, hasn't lost to a collegian in an individual event this spring according to a story in The Dartmouth.

•

That Certain Hanover High Senior played with the school band in his final Muster Day event yesterday on the Green in rural Hanover Center, about eight miles from campus. It's a true small-town event that this year featured one of my Green Machine players reading A Prayer for a Child by Dr. Seuss. It always moves me when Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies and Girl Scouts whose entire lives are in front of them make their way through the old cemetery replacing small, worn American flags on the graves of veterans. The call-and-response playing of taps from the cemetery with one trumpeter in view and one out of sight is equally touching. Check out pictures from the 2011 Muster Day here.

•

That Certain Hanover High Grad posted a pretty funny paragraph Monday on the daily blog she is keeping about her spring in Barcelona.  Check it out here. A sense of direction was never one of her strong points ;-). She finishes classes this week and then will be back in town for Sophomore Summer before leaving again in the fall on Dartmouth's highly regarded off campus earth sciences program, The Stretch.

Testing, One, Two

Back before we moved our team from Little League to Cal Ripken baseball I had a hard time remembering the pitch count rules. Let's see. If a kid is 11 and threw 29 pitches on Monday and today is Wednesday and my 12-year-old pitched on Saturday which is four days ago but would seem to be last week, who can pitch today? Ripken rules are simpler, which is good, but I still leave that stuff up to someone else.

Which brings me around to this: If youth baseball rules baffle me, how would I ever survive as an NCAA coach? Good question.

Thanks a loyal reader for several links showing what college coaches need to go through before being allowed to recruit. A writer for the Texas site HornsNation (I'm not making that up) took the NCAA Division I recruiting exam and wrote about it here. You can check out the story and then take a practice exam yourself here.

The same loyal reader sent along a link to a CNN/SIstory  that includes this question from a test:

It is permissible to send a prospective student-athlete an institutional postcard that contains an athletics logo on one side and handwritten information on the opposite side. 

A. True
B. False

The answer: An institution may send an institutional postcard, provided its dimensions do not exceed 4 1/4 by 6 inches, it includes only the institution's name and logo or an athletics logo on one side when produced and it includes only handwritten information, (e.g., words, illustrations) on the opposite side when provided to the recipients. Blank postcards issued by the U.S. postal service also may be sent.

Well, OK then.

•

The SportsNetwork has posted its 10 Defensive Linemen to Watch in the FCS next fall and it's hardly a surprise that there is no one from an Ivy League school listed. Selected as the top defensive lineman in the Ivy League is Penn defensive end Brandon Copeland.

Missed This One

Must have been sleeping last July when former Dartmouth and Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland began his second stint as AD at University of the Pacific. He's doing a two-year stint helping reorganize the department in a role officially entitled Vice President of External Relations & Athletics. Find his bio here. Leland was the Dartmouth AD from 1983-89.

Leland has the distinction of twice hiring Buddy Teevens as his football coach – once at Dartmouth and once at Stanford. Leland will be hiring a new basketball coach at Pacific next year and his predilection for hiring coaches he knows, such as Teevens, is noted in this story about the search for someone to head up the Tiger hoops program.

List Posted

Dartmouth has posted its list of incoming football players. Find the list here.

From the story:

Among the recruits are seven defensive backs, six defensive linemen, four offensive linemen, three quarterbacks, three linebackers, three wide receivers, three tight ends, two running backs and two kickers.

Also:

The student-athletes will come from 17 different states and the District of Columbia, while nearly one-third of the group hails from football hotbeds in Florida (6) and Texas (4).

Note: The list includes a couple of players who were not recruited but have indicated they intend to play football.

Park Place

The Dartmouth has a roundup of spring football looking ahead to the 2012 season. On Alex Park moving to the head of the class at quarterback, Coach Buddy Teevens had this to say:

“(He) had a little bit more experience and more awareness. He’s a very gifted athlete, he learns quickly, he has good leadership abilities in the quarterback position and his accuracy as a passer was superior.”

Regarding the recruiting class, Teevens told the school paper:

“Recruiting went very well. This is probably our best recruiting class in predicted performance level and physical capabilities. I think that’s due in large part to success in back-to-back seasons (in 2010 and 2011).”

•

Columbia's recruiting list is the latest to be posted. Find it here.

•

Speaking of Columbia, former Lion great Alex Gross' blog about his season playing in Europe continues to be a reminder that a year overseas isn't a bad way to wrap up a career. Today he writes about handing out game tickets in full uniform at a school science fair and signing autographs on middle-school girls' arms. His most recent post before that includes a picture of his visit to the southern Austria Weinstrasse.

•

 A story in The Dartmouth follows up on a study showing concussions "can harm an athlete's ability to learn." The story quotes Thomas McAllister, director of Neuropsychiatry at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and lead author of the multi-institution study, as well as Rick Greenwald, president of Simbex, the tech company that developed the helmet monitors used at Dartmouth, Virginia Tech and Brown the past several years.

•

Construction work continues on both sides of the Hopkins Center with the tangle of power lines that  spoil the look of the Visual Arts Center heading underground on Lebanon Street and the Hanover Inn project advancing enough to allow 94 guest rooms and a new restaurant to open in time for graduation. The Dartmouth writes about the progress with the Hanover Inn, which has been closed for the renovation since December.

Recruiting News

Add Brown to the list of schools posting its incoming football recruits. Find the future Bears here.

•

Speaking of recruiting classes, a story about the incoming Dartmouth men's basketball class can be found here. There are seven players in the class including a 3-point sniper to keep your eye on.

The Big Green has had two of the best 3-point shooters in Ivy League history in Jim Barton '89 and Greg Buth '01, but has struggled from outside the arc while finishing last in the conference for the past three years. That could change with the arrival of New Jersey sharpshooter Alex Mitola, who led the Garden State with 119 3-pointers last year for Gill St. Bernard's. Mitola made 44 percent of his triples, averaging 18.2 points and finishing his carer with 1,978 points.

The recruiting class:

• Connor Boehm, forward, 6-7, 235, Winnetka, Ill. (New Trier)
• Tommy Carpenter, forward, 6-7, 200, Greensboro, N.C. (Northfield Mt. Hermon in Mass.)
• Kevin Crescenzi, guard, 6-3, 190, Singer Island, Fla. (Benjamin School/Tilton Academy (N.H.)
• Malik Gill, guard, 5-9, 185, New Rochelle, N.Y. (Mount St. Michael Academy)
• Brandon McDonnell, forward, 6-8, 210, Jackson, N.J. (Jackson Memorial)
• Alex Mitola, guard, 5-11, 165, Florham Park, N.J. (Gill St. Bernard’s)
• Matt Rennie, forward, 6-8, 220, North Brunswick, N.J. (Rutgers Prep)

(In case you were wondering, Barton is fifth all-time among Ivy players in 3-pointers made with 242 despite the triple not being introduced until his sophomore year. His 98 3-pointers as a senior are second all-time for a single season in the Ivies. He shot 45.4 percent from long range in his career. Buth is sixth all-time in the Ivy League with 240 3-pointers. No other Dartmouth player is in the top 20.)

•

From The Dartmouth:

The Dartmouth men’s and women’s track and field teams will each send five members to compete at the NCAA Regional Meet at the University of North Florida, which will run from Thursday to Saturday.

•

It might be in flux but the Colonial Athletic Association football means business. The powerhouse conference has already posted its 2012 preseason football guide. There are just three Ivy-CAA games this fall: Penn-Villanova, Penn-William & Mary and Brown-Rhode Island.

No Surprise

The Sports Network's series on the best players at various positions continues with a look at the nation's top FCS wide receivers. No Ivy Leaguer make the top 10 but can you guess which receiver was chosen as the best in the Ivies?

Here's a hint: It's virtually impossible to get the nod without a highly productive quarterback. And if you have a record-setting quarterback, so much the better.

With that out of the way, TSN's pick for the top receiver in the Ivy League is Cornell's Shane Savage, a talented player who also is the beneficiary of having Jeff Mathews throwing the ball his way.

•

Former Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero signed with the Raiders this week. Although he was overshadowed last fall by the numbers being put up in Ithaca and Cambridge, he finished his career 12th in the Ivy League all-time for touchdown passes (39), 10th for completions (517) and 17th in passing yards (5,472).

•

There's no telling how long new Columbia coach Pete Mangurian will have the energy and interest in continuing to write his blog so eat it up while you can. In his latest posting, he writes about his approach to recruiting including this:

How much of it is evaluation and how much is marketing? Is it all about collecting players or about building a team? Do you just go after the best athletes, or the players that fit your program?

•

The dreaded "U" words shows up in a SmartPlanet story headlined, "High-tech football helmets: lifesavers, or just a Hail Mary?" Thad Ide, senior vice president for research and product development for Riddell helmets and someone who should know better says:

“In the Ivy League, Dartmouth University and Brown are HITS users and have changed the way practice is scheduled. They realized players were exposed to unnecessary head impacts during practices, so they eliminated full-contact practices during the regular season.”

•

Speaking of science, a Dartmouth researcher's study is cited in a ScienceDaily story headlined, "How Exercise Affects the Brain: Age and Genetics Play a Role." The story begins this way:

Exercise clears the mind. It gets the blood pumping and more oxygen is delivered to the brain. This is familiar territory, but Dartmouth's David Bucci thinks there is much more going on.

(Thanks for the link ;-)

Wearing No. 35 Is . . .

There are no guarantees about what will happen this summer but it's fun to see Dartmouth tailback Nick Schwieger's bio posted on the St. Louis Rams' website.

•

UPDATE: Penn recruiting release with bios and video highlights.

Penn has added its list of recruits to its roster page. Among those on the list is speedy California wide receiver Cameron Countryman, widely regarded as one of the top, if not the top, recruit in the country in the FCS. Countryman had offers from Arizona State, Colorado and Utah among others. Check out this ESPN video about him.

If Conner Scott back is healthy and Aaron Bailey back in school and Countryman is what the experts think he is, the Penn receiving corps could be frightening this fall.

•

Switching to baseball, longtime major league catcher and Dartmouth alum Brad Ausmus '91, intends to play for Israel's team in the Wold Baseball Classic, taking advantage of a rule that allows "countries to field players who are eligible for citizenship — even if they are not actual citizens." Find an AP story about Ausmus here (and thanks for the link).

By the way, I linked to this before but Ausmus was a guest on the NPR program Fresh Air last year and he was outstanding. You can listen to the interview here.

•

And finally, it was Senior Day for Hanover High baseball yesterday and That Certain Sub Second Baseman started and went 1-for-2 with an RBI single to keep his batting average at .500 for the year (4-for-8).

A Couple Of Ivy Notes

The Sports Network has another edition of its "10 To Watch," this time regarding defensive backs. No Ivy League player made the top 10 but there was no surprise who Craig Hailey labeled the best in the Ivy League. That honor goes to Brown's AJ Cruz, a standout ever since making the All-Ivy second team as a freshman.

•

Speaking of no surprises, former Yale football player Brett Smith was awarded the school's Amanda Walton Award for "spirit and courage in transcending unforeseen challenges." Smith's journey back from the car accident in January 2003 that ended his football career to graduating this year defines spirit and courage. Read about it here.

•

In case you were wondering – you were wondering, weren't you? – our Green Machine won the 3-Pitch Tournament yesterday in style, allowing just one run over three games and taking the championship contest, 8-1. We had three kids crush homers over the wall in the championship game, including one who might have surprised himself more that he did us coaches. Another hit a three-run grand slam (you can only score three runs an inning until the last at-bat) that hit the family truck parked beyond the left-field fence.

Quiet Morning

Quiet morning in the blogosphere today.

•

Congratulations to Dartmouth golfer Peter Williamson who birdied his final three holes yesterday to shoot 67 and finish second among individuals (fifth overall) at the NCAA Regionals in Ann Arbor, Mich. Unfortunately, only the first finisher among individuals qualified for the NCAA Finals and that honor went to Albin Choi of North Carolina State. (full results)

Williamson became just the second golfer in conference history to turn the trick when he won his third Ivy League player of the year honor this spring. The Hanover High product is a four-time, All-Ivy player.

•

Heading out now to the final day of the 3-Pitch Tournament. The Green Machine won two more games yesterday to cruise undefeated through its pool. It is single elimination for our kids today in an event that has been one of the highlights of the season for all seven years that I've worked with the team.

Renaissance Man

If there's been a more interesting player in the Dartmouth football program than Aaron Limonthas over the past decade or so I'd like to meet him. From a Dartmouth Now story about the Houstonian who majors in sociology but minors in women's and gender studies:

While at Dartmouth, he served as Student Assembly president his sophomore summer, was the Afro-American Society vice president, worked as an undergraduate advisor, participated in the Programming Board, was a member of Dartmouth Television, started his own radio show on WDCR, and opened a campus barbershop.

Limonthas, who did an internship for former Dartmouth wide receiver Jimmie Lee Solomon '78 (Major League Baseball's executive vice president for baseball development) last summer and studied in India as well as France, is performing this weekend in the annual Green Key Step Show. Also performing will be former teammate Tyler Melancon, who is stepmaster/choreographer for their act.

•

Our Green Machine team is off to another terrific start this spring with a 5-0-1 overall record counting  wins the last two nights in the always popular Three Pitch Tournament in Lebanon. If you haven't heard of three-pitch baseball click the link. Batters come to the plate with a 2-ball, 1-strike count and you can't score more than three runs in any inning except the last. Games are capped at one hour and pitchers can't throw more than two innings. Think speed baseball. We've got two more games today.

•

Speaking of baseball, That Certain Hanover High Senior is seeing only limited action with the Marauders this spring but he's making the most of it, batting .500 (3-for-6) and playing flawlessly at second base. He had five chances in the field yesterday and made them all. It hasn't been an easy adjustment for a former catcher to go from Little League star to role player, but he's making the best of it.

•

For those of you keeping score, we picked up our new 2000 Subaru Forester yesterday. That Certain Hanover High Senior couldn't stop raving about the "new" car, which when you think about it is either pretty funny or pretty sad. I'm not sure which. It has "only" 100,000 miles on it and really does seem new to me, which I guess says a lot about the late and lamented '93 Expo Vlad. (Oh yeah, we got a $50 junker check for it.)

Gaming

From a Dartmouth Now news release:

To celebrate the alumni gaming community, Dartmouth’s Digital Humanities program is hosting the first annual “Dartmouth at Play: Alumni on the Future of Gaming” on Friday, May 18, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., in Moore Hall’s Filene Auditorium.

One of the panelists is Oge Young '96, billed as "an independent developer who most recently worked as a game development executive with Sony Online Entertainment." Young's industry credits include working on NASCAR SimRacing, NASCAR Thunder and BlackSite: Area 51 in addition to Madden Football and NCAA Football.

Young also happens to be a former offensive tackle for the Big Green. His brother Adam Young '99, was a Dartmouth captain who earned a Super Bowl ring as a soft-handed tight end on the New York Giants practice team – and was sometimes mistaken for star quarterback Kerry Collins.

Back when Oge was working on Madden Football he was peripherally involved in creating his brother's NFL profile. For a story I was working on I asked him whether he could shave a little time off Adam's 40 time. He laughed (at least in part, probably, at my ignorance of the game) and said he could. But he quipped that no one would who ever saw his brother run would believe it.

•

From a New Haven Register story about the Yale recruiting class comes news that transfer Canadian tailback Tyler Varga will be eligible for the Bulldogs this fall as a freshman, and will not have to sit out a year. Yale coach Tony Reno told the paper, "He's a mature player. He'll compete right away."

Green Alert Take: If I'm an NCAA coach I'm keeping my eyes open for talented freshmen at Canadian schools because they can spend a year betting bigger and stronger and then start over at American universities.

•

Those of you who think video can replace the printed word when it comes to press releases will want to check out the Colonial Athletic Association commissioner's video statement on Old Dominion University leaving the CAA in favor of Conference USA and FBS football.

Me? I wanted to scan a transcript of his remarks so I could get the gist of what he had to say, couldn't find one and moved on because I wasn't interested enough to sit and watch a video. I did, however, find a story in the Virginian-Pilot noting ODU's move becomes effective in July 2013.

Odds & Ends

St. Louis Post-Dispatch story about Rams' practice made note of the fact that Nick Schwieger wasn't there and in this case, that's a good thing.

•

Science Daily is one of the media outlets reporting on a study about head impacts appearing in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The author of the study is at Dartmouth, and for once not all the news is bad. From the report:

"The good news is that overall there were few differences in the test results between the athletes in contact sports and the athletes in non-contact sports," said study author Thomas W. McAllister, MD, of The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Lebanon, N.H. "But we did find that a higher percentage of the contact sport athletes had lower scores than would have been predicted after the season on a measure of new learning than the non-contact sport athletes."

And . . .

"These results are somewhat reassuring, given the recent heightened concern about the potential negative effects of these sports," he said. "Nevertheless, the findings do suggest that repetitive head impacts may have a negative effect on some athletes."

•

Former Dartmouth football player Michael Tree '13 was crowned Mr. Dartmouth over a small field that included former teammate Aaron Limonthas '12. The Dartmouth reports.

•

Dartmouth is one of three Ivies and Holy Cross who have been taking a look at a 5-foot-11 Florida quarterback according to this story.

•

Yale has revealed its recruiting class for football and it does indeed include intriguing Canadian transfer running back Tyler Varga.

New (or nearly new) coaches getting such housewarming gifts isn't unusual at Yale. After a 1-9 first year Jack Siedlecki got Air Force tailback Rashad Bartholomew and Stanford safety Thad Merrill in the same year and one season later won an Ivy League title. More recently, Tom Williams got quarterback Pat Witt from Nebraska in his first year. They did not win an Ivy title. Now new coach Tony Reno welcomes Varga, who looks like a "load" in his highlight video.

What Could Have Been

The College Football Hall of Fame has announced its new class and the induction ceremony next winter will feature the one who got away.

From the Colorado website story about the election of former Buff John Wooten to the hall:

He was courted by Dartmouth, Florida A&M, UCLA, New Mexico and New Mexico State.  Dartmouth had an allure to it, being an Ivy League school, but that was too far away for his mother; after all, New Hampshire and New Mexico are only close alphabetically. 

The story notes that, "He is believed to be one of the first African-Americans to earn All-America honors playing a position in the interior line."

Wooten ended up playing nine years in the NFL before beginning a long and distinguished career in pro football administration.

 •

The Sports Network takes a look at the top 10 quarterbacks in the FCS. It's absolutely no surprise that the site's pick for the top quarterback in the Ivy League also happens to be in the overall top 10. As a sophomore last fall, Cornell's Jeff Mathews had consecutive 500-yard passing games and an Ivy record 3,411 yards through the air. He was the Ivy League offensive player of the year in 2011.

A better question would be, Who is the next-best QB in the Ivy League? The answer could change by season's end but heading into the campaign it would seem to be a pretty clear three-way race among Penn's Billy Ragone, Columbia's Sean Brackett and Harvard's Colton Chapple.

•

Week Five opponent Sacred Heart has posted its preseason two-deep and Keshaudas Spence, the 5-foot-10, 230-pound human bowling ball who gave Dartmouth tacklers headaches last fall, is listed as a backup tailback. Greg Moore, who led the team in rushing last year as a sophomore, doesn't show up on the two-deep at all.

•

And finally, this. When our daughters were approaching college a couple of years ago, a friend explained the process of paying for school this way: "It's like buying a brand new Volvo every year and then pushing it off a cliff." Well, our second one heads off in the fall and you can forget the Volvo. For what it will cost us next year for two next year – after financial aid – we are pushing a brand new (albeit base model) 2012 Jaguar XF Portfolio off the cliff. (And yeah, I had to look that up ;-)

I've thought about that a lot since my 1993 Eagle Summit ran into the ground recently at 197,000 miles. Last night we agreed to buy a rust-free 2000 car from a Tuck student heading back overseas in a week. We feel pretty lucky to have found a reasonably priced car with "just" 100,000 miles on it, and no, not it's not a Jaguar. Neither, in case you are wondering, is it an Eagle Summit. It would seem mine was one of the last of the species.

Odds & Ends

The difference between a dream and a nightmare can be a matter of perspective. The Columbia Spectator in a review of the 2011 season writes of the Lions' nightmare/Big Green's dream game in Hanover:

The following week at Dartmouth, the Lions were without Brackett, and senior quarterback Jerry Bell had to fill the role. Both the offense and defense were helpless against the Big Green, as the Light Blue allowed 426 yards of total offense to its 148. Bell threw two interceptions—both of which were taken by linebacker Bronson Green—as the Lions fell in devastating fashion, 37-0.

I don't know if an Ivy League coach has ever written a book about one season but if Columbia coach Pete Mangurian keeps up his blog he'll be off to a heckuva start because he really does give us a terrific look behind the coaching curtain. Check out the latest installment.

•

Matthew Smiley, an assistant coach for the first two years of Buddy Teevens II, gets a mention on FootballScoop for switching from receivers coach to running backs coach at Charleston Southern, an FCS school in South Carolina. Here's a thought: Given that Dartmouth is going to Indianapolis in 2013 to play Butler and Coach Teevens has spoken in the past about the appeal of playing out of the region, Charleston might make for a nice trip. For what it's worth, the Bucs were 0-11 last fall and 3-8 the year before.

•

Harvard has posted a list and bios of its incoming football freshmen here.

•

A sign of the times: Senior leaders on the troubled University of Montana football team have essentially banned Tweeting by the Grizzly players.

•

Remember the USFL? If you are a certain age you probably do. Well, it's starting up again, or at least a league by the same name. The goal is to be a developmental league for the NFL and it might make a nice home for Ivy League players hoping to open eyes. Find a story here.

•

This doesn't look like the most scientific survey I've ever seen, but no matter how you slice it, it's not good publicity for several Ivy League schools. Elite Daily lists the "most dangerous colleges" for crime and the Ivy League has three schools in the top 10, including the most dangerous. Stuck with the label as most dangerous school in the nation is Penn (with Philly's Temple second). Columbia is ranked third and Harvard eighth.

•

The Dartmouth offers an encomium of sorts to late delivery man, Jim "Gusanoz" Dupuis.

Coming Up Empty

Remember that commercial with the guy who *finished*  the Internet? I've looked around and have nothing new for you today.

Check back tomorrow ;-)

Pic With Nick

Nick Schwieger

Nick Schwieger, the all-time rushing leader in Dartmouth history, carries the ball in a St. Louis Rams minicamp. Schwieger signed a free agent contract with the team at the conclusion of the NFL draft.

•

Speaking of running backs, a Canadian tailback who flirted with going to Dartmouth last year may well be transferring to the Ivy League from his Canadian university – but to Yale according to the CTVSWO Sports Twitter feed. Although this highlight video looks to be sped up a bit, the 221-pound back is an impressive physical specimen. For the story mentioning that he was considering Dartmouth (and Baylor) last year, click here.

•

The Dartmouth Aires get a brief mention in the Boston Globe for their rendition of the National Anthem last night at Fenway Park.

•

A very happy Mother's Day especially to Mrs. BGA, the quarterback, captain and MVP of our team ;-)

DiBiaso Honored

Boston.com has a story noting that record-setting Everett, Mass., quarterback Jonathan DiBiaso and his father/coach John are being honored by the Jack Grinold Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the National Football Foundation. Jonathan DiBiaso, who will prep next fall at Exeter but has committed to Dartmouth, is being honored as one of 34 scholar-athletes by the chapter. His father, who has a 198-21 career record at Everett and led his team to a 13-0 record last fall, will receive the Ed Schluntz Contributions to Amateur Football Award.

One of the 34 high school seniors being honored as football scholar-athletes is headed to Dartmouth next fall but St. Sebastian's running back Jack Connolly will be playing lacrosse for the Big Green. While Harvard, Yale and Columbia are each landing one of the honorees, no fewer than six are heading to Brown. The story does not mention which are intending to play football.

•

Honored by the Joe Yukica New Hampshire Chapter of the National Football Foundation recently was Daniel Gorman, a wide receiver who will play football at Dartmouth next fall. Also a kicker/punter, Gorman pitched and batted the Hanover High baseball team to a solid win in a game on Dartmouth's Red Rolfe Field yesterday, taking a no-hitter into the fifth inning, crushing a trio of two-run doubles and leading the Marauders to a 9-0 win.

•

The Sports Network has a projection of the top linebackers in the nation next year and as part of the story picks the top LB in each conference. The choice in the Ivy League: Princeton's Andrew Starks, a second-round All-Ivy pick last fall. Dartmouth's Bronson Green was an honorable mention selection.

We're Right And You Are Wrong

From yesterday's USA Today:

The Football Championship Subdivision is on the verge of expanding its playoff system to 24 teams, from 20, by 2013. The proposal would give an automatic bid to all FCS leagues that want one, seeds the top eight teams and gives them first-round byes and home games in the following round.

The operative part of that quote: ". . . to all FCS leagues that want one."

The Ivy League doesn't want one.

From an Ivy League statement yesterday on a basketball tournament proposal:

"After careful consideration of these proposals, the athletics directors decided that our current method of determining the Ivy League Champion and our automatic bid recipient to the NCAA Championship is the best model moving forward," said Robin Harris, Ivy League Executive Director.

What do these two things have in common in addition to the timing?

That's easy. The Ivy League is right about football and the entire free world has it wrong. The Ivy League is right about basketball and the entire free world has it wrong. If you don't believe it, just ask them.

But riddle me this Batman. If the argument is that playoffs unnecessarily tax student-athletes why did the Ivy League add a postseason lacrosse tournament to get more student-athletes into those playoffs?

If adding another week or two to the football season is so bad, why is it a good idea that the champion of a hockey conference for which the Ivy League is the backbone began play on Oct. 8 and ended play on April 5, a span of 181 days? The 2012 Ivy League football season, from game one to game 10, will last 64 days.

One Ivy League football team would go on to the playoffs if the conference allowed. By way of contrast, all six Ivy League hockey teams went to the postseason, playing a total of 21 games if my math is correct.

And an 11th game for football? Perish the thought because, and tell me if you've heard this somewhere before, the Ivy League is right and the entire free world has it wrong.

Are Ivy League lacrosse and hockey players really so much more accomplished students than football players that they can handle the challenge of the postseason while the football players cannot?

•

As an aside, I grimaced at the executive director talking about the best model moving forward. Not moving backward? Not the best model, period?

•

 It's been raining off and on (mostly on) for the past two weeks and that is wreaking havoc with the Hanover baseball season. Today the Marauders (and a Certain Sub Second Baseman) will be playing local rival Hartford and Dartmouth has graciously allowed the teams to play at Red Rolfe Field. It's a tremendous thrill for the guys, particularly after practicing all week in the gym. Well done, Dartmouth.

•

Researching and writing the Ivy League chapter and essay for the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia was an arduous project and I would be lying to you if I didn't admit it was a huge relief when I finished it. Of course, when it was finished it wasn't finished because at that point the fact checkers got involved. Dealing with them was almost worse than the researching and writing. That said, when the book came out I wasn't as anxious as I usually am when these things are delivered because my piece had been vetted very, very thoroughly. Sure, some mistakes snuck through but I knew we'd all done our best to make the section as clean as possible.

Likewise, Mrs. BGA spent countless hours working on a chapter she wrote for the just-released Primary Care, A Collaborative Practice. The fact checkers got to her, too, and unlike me she wasn't getting paid anything other than a copy of the weighty (in more ways than one) tome. But because of the eyes that studied her submission she could be confident they caught what she might have missed, which when you think about it is a lot more important in a medical textbook than some silly sports book.

All of which brings me to this week's Sports Illustrated. Dartmouth golfer Peter Williamson is recognized in Faces In The Crowd for winning another Ivy League golf championship and being named Ivy player of the year for the third consecutive year. But how in the world did the fact checkers allow him to be listed as being from Portsmouth, NH, more than 100 miles from his home right here in Hanover?

•

When we brought the first of these babies home with somewhere around 100,000 miles on it I thought it was the ugliest car I'd ever seen.

A dirty Vlad in happier times

The guy who sold us the second one said his kids called it the "Nursemobile," because it looked as stylish as a European ambulance.

I thought it was my jokes but the truth is the players on my Little League team used to race to ride with me to away games because they thought it was hilarious to ride in a clown car.

I get it.

The sliding door was finicky, so much so that one of our kids (or maybe it was me) dented it near the handle hip-checking it closed. The back hatch wouldn't always latch and I'm embarrassed to admit I had to take it to the mechanic just to get the front hood to close properly on those few times I checked the oil. Oh yeah, and the gas cap door was stuck open a couple of inches after the time I had to pry it free with a screw driver while the line built behind me at the gas station. People would point it out all the time and I'd thank them and go on my merry way. Doors weren't exactly a strong point. Good thing it had only the one door on the driver's side ;-)

And no, it didn't have much power. Actually, it didn't have any power and the engine really did sound a little like a sewing machine. Good luck pulling into traffic with one of these bad boys. The AM radio was unplayable because of static from the day I brought it home, the squirter for the back wiper dangled by a thread, the AC didn't work and even the mechanics couldn't figure out why one brake light worked some times and not at other times. I could go on.

But even at 19 years old it got better than 30 mpg on the highway, was pretty dependable in the snow and was a great car to teach the kids to drive in, what with a truck-sized windshield that afforded a great views as people blew by us on the highway. And the inside was cavernous. Fold the seat down and you could save a few bucks on a road trip by sleeping in the back without bending your knees if you absolutely had to. At least that's what I was told ;-).

Over the last 16 or so years I had two of these cars, identical except for the badge and the fact that one was a five-speed and one an automatic, one a four-wheel drive and the other two. The first was a 1984 Eagle Summit. The last a 1993 Mitsubishi Expo we bought seven years ago. Yeah, we went backwards a year but that's the kind of thing you do when you are in love. A better $1,800 I never spent.

I'd hoped the old friend we bought with about 100,000 miles on it would make it to 200,000 and dang if it didn't get close. Made it to 197,000 and change before the transmission finally gave out. The sad fact that it would have cost more to replace the tranny than we spent for the car 97,000 miles ago left us little choice. Sadly, it was time to let it go.

Yesterday Mrs. BGA visited the mechanic to collect the key for our PO box and my parking pass, who knows how many coins from the floor and under the seats, and assorted other flotsam and jetsam from the seven years I shared with a car we nicknamed Vlad (as in another certain old Expo named Guerrero). I just couldn't bring myself to say goodbye in person.

According to Mrs. BGA, the mechanic said the money the car will bring from the junk people should about cover the cost of the time he put into diagnosing its end, and at my request, looking into the possibility of a installing a used transmission if he could find one. (He couldn't.) We may even come away with a few dollars, but that feels like blood money.

So long, old friend.

Editor's Note: If you happen to see another one of these odd little creatures for sale in the next few weeks drop me an email. (The Dodge Colt Vista is the same car.) Doesn't matter where in the lower 48. It's a longshot but I may just take the plunge because when the right one comes along you can't let her get away.

Ram Tough

The Sun Chronicle down in Attleboro, Mass., catches up with local product Nick Schwieger for a story about Dartmouth's career rushing leader signing with the St. Louis Rams. Schwieger, who begins his first minicamp in St. Louis today, told the paper that he chose the Rams after hearing from Cincinnati Bengals' head coach Marvin Lewis.

•

With Schwieger graduating The Sports Network faced a quandary picking the "Top Running Back" in the Ivy League as part of a story headlined, Ten FCS running backs to watch. Should it pick Princeton's Chuck Dibilio, who galloped for 1,068 yards last year and gave Schwieger (1,310) a run for the Ivy rushing title? Or would TSN pick someone else given the health issue that could have ended Dibilio's college career after just one year?

The Sports Network went with the second option, tapping Harvard's Trevor Scales (81.6 yards per game) as the top back in the league. Consideration probably also went to Penn's Brandon Colavita (73.9 ypg), Brown's Mark Kachmer (63.2 ypg) and Yale's Mordecai Cargill (53.0 ypg), who put up good numbers despite being the Bulldogs' second tailback option last fall.

•

Former Dartmouth quarterback Steve Stetson '73 is stepping down as football coach at Hamilton College in favor of coaching the men's and women's golf teams at the highly regarded NESCAC school in Upstate New York. The Utica Dispatch has a story.

Stetson, who won the Utica City Amateur senior golf title and served as interim golf coach at Hamilton last March, is the former head football coach at Boston University and later served as an assistant at New Hampshire. He was in his second stint at Hamilton.

•

OK, so it's not the NFL or even the CFL, but pro football in Europe is still football with many of the same trappings. On his blog former Columbia great Alex Gross, now a two-way star in Austria, had a link to the following promo put up by the opponent he will face in his next game (televised live on the Internet):

More Nick

Record-setting Dartmouth tailback Nick Schwieger heads to the Midwest today for his first minicamp with the St. Louis Rams. The Taunton Gazette has a story about a dream come true for the 5-foot-10, 210-pound Ivy Leaguer who agreed to a free-agent contract on the Saturday night of the NFL draft. From the story:

He received a call from the Rams 10 days ago, prior to the final day of the draft.
“I had a small chance of being drafted,” he said. “After the draft, I got offers from the Rams and the Bengals. The Rams seemed to be my best opportunity to make the roster.”

Schwieger verbally agreed to a free-agent deal with the Rams last Saturday and officially signed with the team last Tuesday. Following graduation, he will head back to St. Louis.

To see what Schwieger is up against in his bid to become the first Dartmouth player since Casey Cramer '04 to make it to the NFL, check out the St. Louis Post-Dispatch list of 23 free agents signed by the Rams.

•

Roar Lions 2012 blogger Jake Novak has listed the six games he would broadcast if he were the programming director for the NBC network that will be carrying Ivy League football in the fall and just six games were carried. Dartmouth is one of three teams that does not appear on his list.

The question hanging out there (or maybe I missed the answer) is whether the schedule will be set before the start of the season, or whether decisions will be made on a week-to-week basis. To be sure, Dartmouth's chances of getting on the tube would improve with a quick start and injection into the Ivy League race.

•

(Click for a better look.)

While friends and relatives from metropolitan areas might disagree, we don't really feel like we live in the wilderness here, just 7-plus miles from the Dartmouth campus. That said, you can go miles behind our house, up and over Moose Mountain, before you hit another road. And if you were to try to circle our "block" my guess is you'd have to travel well over 20 miles to do it.

But it did feel a little like the wilderness last night. Now, we've had bears in our garage when I forgot to put the door down and moose strolling through the woods out front, and we often fall asleep to a chorus of passing coyotes, but last night was a strange one.

We're still not sure what it was but there was some kind of violent-sounding disagreement (?) going on in the darkness after we hit the sack and it went on for a long time. (No, it wasn't neighbors. They aren't that close ;-) It was clearly two different kinds of animals loudly screaming and screeching at each other and it was unlike anything we ever heard before. We opened the window for a bit to try to identify whatever it was to no avail. I suppose one of the combatants might have been a Fisher (I've spotted them in the past) but I could find no evidence this morning of a fight. All I know is if I were in a tent in the woods and heard the harrowing screams we heard last night I wouldn't have slept a wink. Next time I'm going to keep a recorder handy like this person did.

TV Or Not TV, That Is The Question

Check BGA Premium tonight for a capsule look at each of the incoming regular decision recruits with quotes from coach Buddy Teevens on each player.

•

Perhaps the headline in the Philly.com blog Soft Pretzel Logic was a little exuberant (Ivy League strikes major national television deal with NBC Sports Network) but it's true that the Ivy League has renewed the contract that puts conference football games on an NBC network. The Ivy League's formal release notes that the conference and the network have reached . . .

. . . a two-year renewal of their national television rights agreement today that includes an increase in football games, and the first-ever rights for the NBC Sports Network to televise men's basketball and men's lacrosse games.

According to the release, there will be a minimum of six and no more than 10 football games (including Yale-Harvard) broadcast along with the same range of men's basketball games and up to four men's lacrosse games.

Games will be carried on NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), nee Versus and formerly Outdoor Life Network.

(Unfortunately NBCSN requires an upgrade of our satellite package and that's not in the cards here on the shoulder of Moose Mountain.)

•

The Boston Herald High School Insider sports blog has a note about Patrick Lahey being voted a Dartmouth football tricaptain along with Bronson Green and Garrett Waggoner. From the story:

Lahey missed last season as he had two hip surgeries to repair torn labrums. Through hard work, Lahey has returned to his pre-injury standards in the weight room, bench pressing 405 pounds and squatting 600.

It's likely that when a lot of people in these parts hear the name Patrick Lahey they think of this fellow, although I can state with near 100 percent certainty the second guy can't bench 405.

•

In a Slate.com article in advance of author Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) arguing tonight that college football should be banned, he is quoted saying:

My father went to Dartmouth, back when the Ivy League played really good football. We went to a lot of games. I remember, one weekend, we actually saw three. We went up to Cambridge to see Dartmouth-Harvard, and then came back to LaGuardia. Ate at LaGuardia. Went to the Jets game that night. Then, the next day, we went to the Sunday Giants game.

Several thoughts after reading the Slate piece. First, I didn't know his father was a Dartmouth alum.

Second, Bissinger writes that football is "antithetical to the academic experience." The italics are mine because that one word will resonate in a bad way with followers of Dartmouth football.

Another thought. It would appear that Bissinger is ready to blame college football for everything including the common cold.

Slate: You’ve written that “the overemphasis on sports is a leading cause of America losing its competitive edge.” Is the problem that serious?

Bissinger: Absolutely. Football creates what William G. Bowen, the former president of Princeton, called a dangerous “athletic culture.” There have even been studies showing that, when the football team is good, the average student GPA goes down, because there’s more partying. And I think football is one of the biggest reasons for our decline because it’s become such a massive part of our education system.

So, America is losing its competitive edge because of college football?

A final thought. It might behoove Bissinger, a Penn grad, not to paint everyone, every team and every conference with one brush.

Green-White Redux

The Dartmouth takes a look at Saturday's Green-White Game on Memorial Field. Safety and new tricaptain Garrett Waggoner had this to say about the nontackling scrimmage:

“The good thing about the non-contact rule was that it limited injuries, and we came out of the game pretty healthy. We showed the coaches on film that we were in the right place at the right time. The defense showed its cohesiveness and demonstrated the ability to swarm to the ball carrier.”

•

A couple of line drives down the line with runners in scoring position that were snared and an 11th-inning Cornell home run denied the Dartmouth baseball team the Ivy League championship and a return to the NCAA's in the final game of another terrific season. (link)

•

Although Penn won the Ivy League women's lacrosse championship Dartmouth got a measure of revenge yesterday by winning the conference tournament. (link)

Dartmouth's reward: the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and a rematch at Syracuse, which beat the Big Green earlier this year in New York, 22-4. Syracuse (16-3) is the No. 4 seed. Penn earned an at-large bid and gets No. 6 seed Loyola.

•

From The D:

A total of 1,080 students accepted Dartmouth’s offer of admission to the Class of 2016 as of the College’s May 1 deadline, representing 49.5 percent of the 2,180 students who were accepted. . . .

•

Upcoming on BGA Premium early this week is a look at the regular-decision recruiting class.

The Day After

Click here for a look at the Green-White Game on the official Dartmouth website as posted by a certain former member of the college's sports information department ;-).

Outgoing Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim quoted in this morning's edition of the local daily after watching the Spring Game (link):

"This is one of the things I'll miss most about Dartmouth. I'll always be a Dartmouth fan. I'm going to watch every (football) game online next fall and if they get to the point where they're competing for an Ivy League title, I'd like to come back and watch."

•

 From BGA Premium:

Rising junior linebacker Bronson Green, senior strong safety Garrett Waggoner and fifth-year offensive lineman Pat Lahey were announced as captains during a break in the action.

“I think it is a great group of captains,” said Green. “Pat has been around. This is his fifth year coming up. He has been through it all. He was here for that 0-10 season. And Garrett Waggoner works his butt off.

“Between the three of us, with me representing some of the younger guys, I think we will do a good job bouncing ideas off of each other, working with the coaches and being the middlemen between the team and the coaches.”

•

 Buzz Bissinger, author of the acclaimed Friday Night Lights, writes in the Wall Street Journal Why College Football Should Be Banned. Bissinger is a Penn grad and former editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian.

•

After splitting yesterday's twinbill with Cornell, Dartmouth baseball plays the Big Red in the rubber game of the Ivy League Championship Series this afternoon in Ithaca for the conference title and the automatic bid to the NCAA's. (link) Meanwhile, the Big Green women's lacrosse team, which saw the Ivy League title slip away with a loss at Harvard in the final game of the regular season, will face host Penn today for the Ivy tournament championship. (link)

Note: In case you are wondering, the Ivy League football champion still can't compete in the postseason.

•

As if the financial aid offer we got for That Certain Hanover High Senior wasn't distressing enough news (and trust me, it was), my car went in for a simple alignment Friday. The mechanic jumped behind the wheel to see how it drove . . . and half a mile later was calling for a tow truck. The early diagnosis: probably a shot transmission. Now, the car is a less-than-distinguished 1993 with 197,000 miles on it so I knew it was nearing the end. But the timing could have been better. A lot better. Until we can find a reasonably-priced beater to replace it I'll be driving around in a 1984 VW bus. And did I forget to mention Mrs. BGA's car has about 145,000 miles on it? Argh.

Are You Ready For Some (Kind Of) Football?

It's Green-White Day for Dartmouth football. Rather than draft teams as has been the case the past several years, Dartmouth will play the first offense against the second defense and the second offense against the first defense. Mindful of "concussive issues," and with a roster depleted by injury at several key positions, Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens is following the USC model and has decided the spring contest will be "non-contact," something he has done before. (He shares his thinking at the end of this video.)

After a cold and wet series of spring practices, a morning fog is expected to lift and the sun could finally shine on Memorial Field before the festivities are through. Check BGA Premium tonight for a look at how the Green-White went, thoughts from coach Teevens and the announcement of the 2012 captains. (I have a guess about that and I'll let you know if I got it right this evening.)

The (Tentative) Green-White Schedule

• On the field at 9:45
• Practice component for 40 minutes (walk-through, stretch, individual, pass skel, inside run)
• Break for five minutes
• Scrimmaging at 10:30 (three quarters (regulation timing)
• Finish around noon.

Also, have you checked out the new Facebook page for Dartmouth athletics? Fortunately for those of us who aren't Facebook people, you can still access the page. ;-)

Dartmouth Sports On Facebook

Dartmouth went live at 9 a.m. with its new Facebook page. To access the page click this link: "The All New Dartmouth Sports on Facebook."

Scroll down to check out the video, Behind the Scenes: Making of the 2012 Dartmouth Football Poster.

Note: If, like me, you do not have a Facebook account you can still watch the video.

Teevens Video

CLICK HERE to watch and listen to Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens talk about spring football practice in a video posted by the Dartmouth sports publicity office.

Ivy QBs On Watch List

Four Ivy Leaguers have been named to the College Football Performance Awards Quarterbacks Watch List. Can you name them?

Here are some clues.

1)  One deserves to be among the favorites coming off last season.
2)  Two had terrific sophomore years but struggled a bit last fall.
3)  One will be in his first year as his team's regular starter.

Give up?

1) Cornell's Jeff Mathews
2) Columbia's Sean Brackett and Penn's Billy Ragone
3) Harvard's Colton Chapple

Those are the only quarterbacks Dartmouth will see who are on the early list. Colgate's Gavin McCarney, who impressed on Memorial Field last fall in the final game of the series with the Raiders, is also on the list.

Find the full Watch List here.

While we are at it, are  you curious how the returning Ivy QB passing stats stack up? Find their 2011 passing stats here. The 2010 passing stats are here.

•

The Big Green returns to the field this afternoon for the final practice before Saturday's spring, uh, game (?). Coverage tonight on BGA Premium.

Six Honored By NFF

Graduating Dartmouth football players joining Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck and others as members of the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame 2012 NFF Hampshire Honor Society are:

• Joey Casey
• John Gallagher
• Chad Hollis
• Luke Hussey
• Tim McManus
• Foley Schmidt

Posterized

Featured on the just-released 2012 Dartmouth schedule poster (from left to right) are 6-foot-8, 305-pound senior offensive tackle John Scheve, 6-1, 215 junior linebacker Bronson Green, 6-2, 205 senior safety Garrett Waggoner, 6-0, 200 junior tailback Dominick Pierre, 6-3, 245 senior defensive tackle Mick Davis and 6-0, 195 senior tailback Greg Patton. (Click poster to supersize.)

•

Chuck Zodda '09 was a walk-on placekicker for the Dartmouth football team (fb bio) who began his career as a soccer player. These days he's a financial analyst frequently seen on TV (video clip) as well as an aspiring musician who will be bringing his act ChuckEasy to Dartmouth for the Green Key block party on May 19 (link). Check out the ChuckEasy sound here.

•

Click here to see video of Yale Daily News sportswriter Chelsea Janes discussing what she considers the sorry state of Yale athletics and why it is so on the FOX Business show Varney & Co.

•

Dartmouth will be back on the practice field tomorrow for the next-to-last practice of the spring. Fortunately my eighth season helping coach the Green Machine Cal Ripken baseball team kicks off tonight, nicely sandwiched between two practices by the Big Green ;-)

Pro Prose

Wide receiver/defensive back Corey Vann's column in The Dartmouth has this to say about Dartmouth tailback Nick Schwieger, who signed over the weekend with the St. Louis Rams:

When former Dartmouth offensive coordinator Jim Pry, who came from coaching Big Ten-caliber talent at the University of Illinois, used to watch film of Schwieger, he would always remark, “This kid could play against anyone in the country.” But in reality, Schwieger wasn’t playing against anyone in the country. He was playing against Ivy Leaguers. And when NFL scouts consider this factor, they usually think, “Oh, he was just beating up on a bunch of soft, nerdy kids. Let’s see what happens when he has to pick up Ray Lewis on a blitz.”

In fact, Pry told me the exact same thing.

•

The list of Ivy Leaguers getting a shot at pro football continues to grow. Here's what we know now (assuming I didn't miss anyone):

• Dartmouth - TB Nick Schwieger, Rams
• Brown - Alex Tounkara-Kone, Bills
• Columbia - OT Jeff Adams, Cowboys
• Cornell - K Brad Greenway, Jets
• Harvard - OT Kevin Murphy 49ers
• Harvard - DL Josue Ortiz, Jets (tryout)
• Penn - LB Erik Rask, Jaguars (camp invitation)
• Yale - DL Jake Stoller, Steelers

•

Incoming defensive back Will Konstant of Lyons Township HS in Illinois is the subject of a story about his lacrosse exploits in the Sun Times LaGrange edition. With 94 goals he has a shot at the school's all-time scoring record. Konstant tells the paper:

“I feel my biggest strength as a lacrosse player is the athleticism I have out there. The main thing, though, is my leadership transfers from football. I try to get guys believing we can go out there and win every game. Like in football, I tell the guys how important it is being in the weight room and working their tails off. You have to constantly try to get bigger, stronger and faster.”

He also notes, "I’m hoping to play lacrosse in college.”

•

Not sure exactly what it means but there's this from the National Football Foundation (NFF):

Appalachian State, Arizona, Auburn, Clemson, Dartmouth, Delaware, Maryland, Middle Tennessee, Mississippi State, N.C. State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Stanford, Texas, Texas - San Antonio, Texas Tech, UAB and Wyoming have joined the NFF as Institutional Academic Members.

•

The Sports Network writes that, "The possible expansion of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs by 2013 continues to move downfield."

From the story:

The playoffs will remain at 20 teams in 2012 for the third straight season, but FCS schools are hoping to have a 24-team field in place for 2013. ... 

... A 24-team field would provide an automatic bid to the Pioneer Football League champion and provide three more at-large bids. Currently, 10 conferences have auto bids - but not the PFL - and there are 10 at-large bids.

Green Alert Take: The window is going to close on the Ivy League at some point, but maybe that's what the presidents are hoping. By the way, the non-scholarship PFL is the home of 2012 Dartmouth opponent Butler.

•

If there's already an impression of the Ivy League as "nerdy" (see Corey Vann's column at the top of this page) and as avoiding the football playoffs, I'm not sure the Harvard Crimson sports blog did much for the Ivy's images with two of its latest stories, Harvard Polo Renaissance Weekend and Croquet Places Fifth at Nationals ;-)

•

You can catch muckraking Yale Daily News sportswriter Chelsea Janes on the FOX Business show, "Varney & Company" today at about 10:45 a.m. Eastern. Janes has authored a series of well-written stories looking into the derailing of the Yale athletic program.

•

And finally, the folks in the Dartmouth sports publicity office have been extremely generous to me with their time and efforts since I started up BGA (and for years before that when I was at the local daily) so the least I can do is offer a little help back at them.

Heather Croze, the longtime assistant director of sports information and men's hockey contact at Dartmouth before leaving last spring, is hoping to travel to Brazil in a PR capacity with the Athletes in Action women's basketball team. The tour will include "several humanitarian efforts with clinics in each city." To make the trip possible Heather is required to raise a certain amount of money to cover food, lodging, travel and other team expenses by May 21. If you'd like to help you can:

Give online at www.give.ccci.org and enter Heather's tracking number (5648920) in the "Give a Gift" box.

Or contribute by check (make your check payable to Athletes in Action and mail it to:
                             AIA Brazil Tour
                             Attn: Doug Gotcher
                             380 E. Fort Lowell Rd., Suite 240
                             Tucson, AZ  85705
 * Do not include Heather's name but rather her tracking number (5648920).

•

And finally, back at it for Dartmouth football practice today unless, for some reason (like the heavy rain going on out there right now) they move the session to tomorrow. Check BGA Premium tonight.