"Uncle Donnie" McKinnon

The Block Island Times obituary of former Dartmouth All-America Don McKinnon tells of his exploits before college as well as with the Big Green and Boston Patriots. It details his successes in business and goes on to offer more insights on a life well-lived after retirement.

From the Block Island Times:

For the past 20 years, he has wintered in Woodside, Calif., with his good friends, John and Jaye Krumme, and summered on Block Island where he is known by everyone as “Uncle Donnie.”  For many summers he drove a cab, charming his fares with his life stories. He was well known for his love of reading, his movie role in the island-based

movie “Island Bound,” his breakfast roundtables with his friends at Bethany’s Diner and his ever-present unlit cigar (called “the dangerous stick” by his niece’s son). As one close friend, Dick Berkowitz said, “He was a charismatic leader, hugely successful in everything he undertook, blessed with a wonderful sense of humor even in the darkest days of his last illness.”

CLICK HERE to read the full piece.

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Several emailers sent along notes after looking over a story headlined, You’ll Never Guess Which Conference Has the Most CFB National Titles. (LINK)

While much of the nation would be shocked to find out which conference holds the distinction, you have it figured out, don't you?

Yup, the list has the Ivy League out in front with 46, followed by the Big Ten with 39 and the SEC with 29.

Drill down and the Ivy League's titles are distributed this way:

Yale – 17
Princeton – 14
Harvard – 8
Penn – 4
Cornell – 3

Missing from the list? Dartmouth's 1925 team, which was recognized at the time as the national champ, but has since been overshadowed by an emerging national powerhouse that is frequently credited with the '25 title.

From a TipTop25 story after the 1925 Dartmouth powerhouse capped an 8-0 season by defeating the University of Chicago, 33-7 (LINK):

The dust now settled, writers hailed Dartmouth as the national champions. Grantland Rice: "In the midst of all the noise and excitement, football's main banner for the waning year goes to the peace and far-away restfulness of Dartmouth, the college on the hill."

Dartmouth was invited to the Rose Bowl to play 10-0-1 Washington, but they were already widely considered the national champions, and the players didn't want to give up their Christmas holidays, so they voted to reject the offer. That was critical for Alabama, who would not have emerged decades later as the consensus national champion among retroactive selectors without that game.

Ironically, even Alabama's (Bear) Bryant Museum credits Dartmouth with a piece of the title (LINK):

Alabama's football history has been about champions and the '25 team garnered the first national title by posting a perfect 10-0 record and beating powerful Washington 20-19 in the Rose Bowl. It marked the first time a Southern team had been to Pasadena and the locals appeared shocked with the Bama victory. Eastern power Dartmouth shared the national title throne with Bama that year.

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I had to laugh at a Campus Insider story out of Signing Day headlined,  Recruiting 2015 – Who Won Each State? (LINK)

The story had entries like this:

Who won the state of New Jersey ?

Penn State. The Garden State makes and the rest of college football takes. New Jersey’s two best high-schoolers, CB Minkah Fitzpatrick and QB Brandon Wimbush, will be playing at Alabama and Notre Dame, respectively. However, no one thrived more than James Franklin, who’s bringing half of the state 10 best players back with him to Happy Valley. Rutgers, the hometown team? The Knights were boxed out of the state’s gems, a recurring and worrisome theme for the program. 

(Losing Wimbush after he flipped from Penn State still stings, but I digress.)

I scanned down the Who Won story to see what it said about who won the three northern New England states, knowing full-well who won them, but wondering how they would put it. Here's what they said:

Who won the state of New Hampshire ?
No one. The Granite State will not be sending any of its high school graduates to a Power Five FBS program this season.

Who won the state of Vermont ?
No one. Vermont will not be sending any of its high school graduates to an FBS program in the fall.

Who won the state of Maine ? 
No one. The state of Maine will not be sending any of its high school graduates to an FBS program in the fall.

Rhode Island, Alaska and Montana join the northern New England trio in not producing a single FBS player this year.

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Warren Moon, California Assemblyman Ken Cooley and Buddy Teevens

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens has been an outspoken advocate of making football practices safer. Teevens recently met with NFL Hall of Famer Warren Moon and Ken Cooley, who sponsored a California bill designed to do just that. The bill, which was passed last summer and took effect on Jan. 1, applies to high schools and middle schools, public and private. From SF Gate:

The law limits full-contact practices to two 90-minute sessions per week during the season and preseason, and prohibits full-contact practices during the offseason. Currently, coaches can hold full-contact practices daily. The law also forces schools to bench players for at least a week if they suffer a concussion. Current rules allow players to return within a day.

"Football is a great sport, but parents want to know if their kids are going to be safe," said Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, who sponsored the bill. "This is about protecting kids, as well as parents' peace of mind."

Moon has long been active in the push to make football safer. (LINK)