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Dartmouth's Sept. 21 opener at Butler marks the farthest west the Big Green will have traveled since playing Notre Dame in 1945. That tidbit is from an invitation to attend a tailgate at the game sponsored by the Friends of Dartmouth Football, Alumni Relations and the Class of 1975. The gathering will take place from 4-6 p.m. at the Dartmouth tent in a parking lot at the Butler Bowl. There's also a Dartmouth gathering Friday night in town.For more information or to RSVP, click here.
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Here's hoping you are a subscriber to BGA Premium. Not everyone is, so here is note from yesterday's practice story along with some pictures that went with it:Last fall Dartmouth reworked its academic calendar, moving the start of classes up by a full week. One of the casualties for the football team was opportunity to go on Freshman Trips.
Teevens, who has long lamented that he didn’t go on one of the college’s famed DOC trips, wanted his players to get a taste of Dartmouth outdoors and so he packed up his freshmen Sunday and carted them to the Dartmouth Skiway for a steep hike up Holt’s Ledge.
“It was an adjustment for Zach Davis,” a grinning Teevens said. “He didn’t see much of that out in Arizona. (Brandon) Cooper didn’t see much of that in Texas or Darius George in Florida, but I think most of them enjoyed it.
“But as one of them said to me,” Teevens added with a wicked grin, “ ‘Coach, I would recommend maybe next year you let the freshman take the ski lift instead of walking up.’ But now they've hiked on the Appalachian Trail, so if they never do it again at least they can say they did it once.”
That, Teevens believes, will help them fit in better with their freshmen classmates, who are only now arriving on campus after their trips.
“I think they can relate a little bit more now to the freshman experience,” said Teevens. “They were out at Storrs Pond. They were in the water on kayaks and in canoes. They were in the woods. To me it is the entrée to Dartmouth. They can go back into the dormitory and converse with their peers who have been on the Dartmouth Trips. They’ve only had mini-trips, but at least there is an understanding. It was a plus.”
As part of the afternoon, Teevens had Steven Spaulding, Dartmouth’s assistant athletic director for leadership, a West Point graduate and a former Army football player, talk with the team about good decision-making and being a leader.
Rounding out the day, the freshmen were brought back to campus on roads overlooking the Connecticut River and then enjoyed a steak and baked potato dinner at rustic Tom Dent Cabin on the banks of the Connecticut at the west edge of campus.
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| Gathering with the Appalachian Trail sign in the background. (Click photos to enlarge.) |
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| On the trail. |
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| At the top. |
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| The reward |
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| On a Skiway slope |
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| Coach Teevens talks about Dartmouth's outdoor tradition at the Tom Dent Cabin on campus. |
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The lesson from this week's Sagarin Ratings is it doesn't do you any good to beat up on a Division III team. The biggest move by anyone was a drop by Butler, which pounded Wittenberg last Saturday.
148 Harvard (145)
153 Penn (151)
184 Brown (183)
185 Dartmouth (187)
189 Princeton (190)
207 Cornell (208)
214 Yale (218)
230 Columbia (228)
199 Holy Cross (193)
200 Butler (192)
222 Bucknell (219)
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Back to practice this morning. Check BGA Premium tonight for full coverage of the session.
