Saturday, January 18, 2014

Geography, Anyone?

Click HERE to bring up interactive map
Wow! Mode Analytics has pulled together a map purporting to show the home county of every Division I (FBS and FCS) player in the nation by county, school and position. That's more than 25,000 players.

The map above shows Dartmouth's 2013 roster. Click HERE to access the full map and move your cursor over the colored areas to learn more. You can even click on Dartmouth and position to see what area contributes the most to the Big Green by position.

To view other schools, use the pulldown menu above and right on the map.

The map below shows all DI players in the nation with the darker the color areas the higher the number of players per county.

WARNING: You could waste a lot of time with these maps ;-)

Click HERE for interactive version.

Headline: Northeastern AD Roby stands out at uninspiring NCAA Convention. Roby, of course, would be former Buddy Teevens classmate Peter Roby '79, who played basketball at Dartmouth and later coached at Harvard.

Speaking of Harvard, Crimson AD Robert Scalise is the central figure in a CBS Sports column headlined, Where do Harvards of the world fit in with big-money football? I'm not sure, but I think it may not necessarily be a good thing when a national columnist responds to your quotes with remarks like, "Well, duh," and "Well, duh, again."

The column finishes this way:
"We were there when the NCAA was founded," Scalise said. "We were there to address these similar issues in the early 1900s." 
How did that work out? 
"We won a Rose Bowl," he said referring to epic 1920 win over Oregon. 
"With the current model we can't win a Rose Bowl." 
Do the 800, Division I or the NCAA care?
To quote Sammy Davis, Jr., and a Certain Former Sports Information Director, "Ouch, babe."