Yesterday's BGA Daily featured a 1922 recording of As the Backs Go Tearing By.
And today?
You can own an original film from the 1929 Dartmouth-Yale game, won by the Elis, 16-12. From eBay (LINK):
This listing is an Antique 1929 Yale vs Dartmouth Football Game Film & Graphic Box.
This box measures about 4 inches wide, and is in very nice condition.
The film appears in nice condition however I cannot guarantee the content of the film.
The game featured Yale legend Albie Booth running for 268 yards and getting this mention by Dick Williams of the New York World:
"He was deprived of 43 yards when an official detected a Yale man in the act of sinking his teeth in the calf of a Dartmouth leg while both lay on the ground 30 yards behind the point to which the play had progressed."
Green Alert Take: If THAT is on the film it's well worth the $59.99 asking price.
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With just over a month left until the Calgary Stampeders open their delayed Canadian Football League season the CFL website is revving up. A recent posting about the Stamps notes that it is "reviewing every team’s depth chart as it stands to date. Note that these are not official team-issued depth charts, but projections based on insight and analysis from around the league."
Here's the site's defensive depth chart for Calgary (LINK):
It's a little hard to see but atop the right defensive end is Flo Orimolade '17.
Originally signed by the Rams, Orimolade landed in Calgary where he opened eyes with his quick-twitch pass rushing ability. Unfortunately, the former Ivy League defensive player of the year hasn't played since 2018. He missed the 2019 season with a quadriceps injury that needed surgery and the 2020 season was canceled because of COVID-19.
Orimolade and the Stampeders are scheduled to open the CFL season Aug. 7 against the Toronto Argonauts.
Green Alert Take: I have no issue with the graphic spelling of DEFENCE. It is Canada, after all. What I have a problem is writing that someone is a defencive end. That really looks weird.
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In its first home game of the 2021 season Dartmouth will face a player who is third in the nation in career touchdowns. That would be Sacred Heart tailback Julius Chestnut, who has crossed the goal line 32 times.
From Craig Haley's Twitter:
FCS active leaders in career touchdowns:
1. Daniel Smith, Campbell/Villanova: 39
2. Troy Andersen, Montana State: 34
T3. Julius Chestnut, Sacred Heart: 32
T3. Jah-Maine Martin, N.C. A&T: 32
T5. Ulonzo Gilliam Jr., UC Davis: 31
T5. Julien Gums, Nicholls: 31
T5. Quay Holmes, ETSU: 31
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Ever wonder if technology will some day allow officials to determine without debate whether the ball has crossed "the yard to gain" for a first down or "broken the plane" when it is at the bottom of a dogpile? A CBS Sports story answers that question – sorta. The story (LINK) notes that every NFL ball has embedded within it . . .
"a nickel-sized piece of technology that weighs a whole 4 grams. That radio-frequency
identification (RFID) tag sends signals to receiver boxes set up in every NFL stadium, and metrics like height and velocity and even RPMs are measured for every single throw of every single game."
It turns out that even game officials are "tagged" via RFID.
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EXTRA POINT I wasn't sure they would make it.
Last November I pulled a dusty AeroGarden hydroponic planter out of our basement, filled it with water and planted "cascading petunias." By Christmas week they were starting to bloom and they flowered all through winter. By mid-spring, however, they were finally starting to fade. They seemed to be nearing the end earlier this month, so we transplanted them to baskets and moved them outside with little expectation that they would thrive in their move from water to dirt:
This may drive you nuts after a while, but it's kind of fun until it does. It's a video of a 1922 recording by Dartmouth College band playing As the Backs Go Tearing By, a song you will hear to this day:
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Big Blue View is taking a look at players on the 90-man roster the New York Giants are bringing to camp this summer and starts a recent entry this way (LINK):
Niko Lalos went from being an undrafted free agent out of the Ivy League to a contributing defender and fan favorite for the New York Giants a season ago. Can his Cinderella story continue in 2021?
The posting on the former Dartmouth defensive end finishes this way:
2021 Outlook
Lalos seems to be a “bubble” player entering training camp. He provided a short-term, somewhat unexpected, boost to the Giants’ defense a year ago. With lots of new faces on the 90-man roster on the edge and at defensive end, Lalos faces competition to remain on the roster. He does have practice squad eligibility, and in my view that is likely where he will end up.
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Sites like BGA Daily aren't the only ones struggling to find something to post during the dog days of summer. Sports Information offices can also have difficulty digging up things to post, which is why they "announce" or "unveil" football schedules fans already know.
Penn made its 2021 football schedule official yesterday (LINK) with the proviso, "All dates are subject to change."
Green Alert Take: Like Dartmouth, Penn has its game against the Big Green listed for Saturday, Oct. 2. Do not be surprised if that "subject to change" thing comes into play for that game. The Dartmouth-Penn game has been switched to Friday night in the past and it would not be in any way a surprise if it happens again this year. In fact, I'm betting on it. Figuratively, of course ;-)
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It's a sad time for Sept. 25 Dartmouth opponent Sacred Heart with news that former Pioneer running back standout Keshaudas Spence was killed in a shooting in Pawtucket, R.I., last weekend. He was 29 years old. (LINK)
Spence was a thorn in Dartmouth's side the two times the Big Green faced him. In 2011 he ran for 129 yards and two touchdowns while helping the Pioneers to a 24-21 win in Connecticut and the next year he had 138 yards and three touchdowns as they won in Hanover, 27-10.
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EXTRA POINT Those of you who have been around this electronic precinct for a while know that I don't have a cell phone and have absolutely no interest in owning one.
That being the case, when we moved to our Vermont hillside home a little over two years ago we had a landline installed. Yup, they still have those, and the phone works just fine, thank you very much.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
I should say the landline works just fine on incoming calls. As for outgoing calls, they are fine as well – once you figure out what you have to dial.
I'm not sure if it's a Vermont thing or if it is an across-the-board change but whether I am calling somewhere in town, elsewhere in the state or across the river in New Hampshire, I almost never get through on my first attempt. Virtually every time I get a recording telling me I have made some kind of dialing mistake. I either do or don't have to dial a 1 before the number. Sometimes I have to use the 802 area code even though we live in the 802 area code, which seems silly. Sometimes it's 1+802, sometimes it's just 1 and sometimes it might be 802, without the 1 – although I'm still not sure about that last one.
True story. There have been times I've had to dial a number four or five times before I finally stumble into the right combination. And I swear, they change the rules from day to day.
I don't know if cell phones have the same issues but it's almost (read: almost ;-) enough to get me to start thinking about getting one of those things.
A little business before getting down to, uh, business ;-)
Monday being by far the busiest day of the week for BGA Daily at this time of the year, I thought to remind you that sign-ups for BGA Premium will begin one week from tomorrow, July 6. A link will go up here and directions for how to sign up will appear on the BGA site. Thanks to everyone who has allowed me to (barely ;-) hang on this long.
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There are a lot of smiles around Memorial Field right now. Dartmouth is in the midst of its first camp session in two years and has its first commitment from a rising high school senior.
Tweeting his intention Saturday to continue his academic and athletic career at Dartmouth was Michael Betsy, a 6-foot-4, 280-pound offensive lineman who heard from a good number of high-academic schools including Harvard, Penn, Brown and Columbia. Here's his commitment tweet:
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Dartmouth coaches started working on the 2022 recruiting class well before the 2021 class went final.
Speaking of the 2021 recruiting class the latest in series of introductions to players arriving on campus in a little over seven weeks features Dillon Holifield, a 6-2, 195-pound safety from Roswell, Ga., who fielded offers from Yale, Penn, Cornell, Bucknell and Tennessee State per Rivals. Check him out on the Dartmouth football site HERE (and don't forget to click the speaker icon to bring up the sound).
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It is safe to say former Dartmouth offensive lineman Matt Kaskey '19 (center in photo above) has had an interesting offseason away from the Carolina Panthers. Kaskey recently joined with former Dartmouth teammate Zach Husain '17 and rugby alum Dylan Burke '19 to summit 19,341-foot Mount Kilimanjaro in support of the NFL Waterboys effort.
Matt has a long history of tackling athletic challenges. At New Trier High School, Kaskey played for the football team, where he led the team as a captain in 2014 and was named to the All-Chicagoland, all-conference, and all-area team member.
Then, he attended Dartmouth, where he played offensive tackle for the football program for four years, beginning in 2015. During his college football career, Kaskey earned a number of awards including: All-Ivy honorable mention, All-Ivy League First Team, and the team’s Jake Crouthamel Award.
Kaskey signed with the Los Angeles Rams as an undrafted free agent following the 2019 NFL Draft. He’s since played 2 seasons with the Carolina Panthers.
Kaskey has always dreamed of applying his athleticism to bigger and more impactful endeavors. Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is a dream that serves both of those purposes. As Kaskey told the Waterboys team, “Clean water is something that everyone can and should have access to.”
To make a donation through Kaskey's web page, click on the photo below:
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Former Dartmouth track and Nordic ski standout Ben True '08 withdrew from the 5,000 meters at U.S. Olympic Trials yesterday but his dream of representing the United States in Tokyo isn't finished quite yet. True, who crossed the line one spot out of making the U.S. team in the 10,000, needed a top-three finish in the 5,000 to make his long-awaited Olympic debut. He ended up scratching from the race, which saw two of the runners who finished ahead of him in the 10,000 finish in the top three. If either of those runners elects to pull out of the 10,000 to concentrate on the 5,000 True would be named to the U.S. team.
One of the two runners who holds True's fate in his hands has said that as of yesterday he intended to run in both events while the other is still considering his options. Athletes are required by the U.S. Olympic committee to make their intentions known about whether they will double by Thursday (July 1).
EXTRA POINT The weather wasn't perfect for our weekend away, but when it comes to beautiful and relaxing campsites, Mrs. BGA and I agree Maidstone State Park in the wilds of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom is near the top of the list.
Yesterday morning we enjoyed pancakes at our own private section of sandy beach . . .
. . . only a first down way from where we parked our '84 VW camper:
Hard as it is to believe, in a few days we can say, "The Ivy League begins preseason next month and the FBS starts playing games, including a B1G Ten showdown between Nebraska and Illinois."
That being the case, Mrs. BGA and I are determined to squeeze every last opportunity out of summer and so we have loaded up the '84 VW Wesfalia poptop and are on our way to Maidstone State Park in the wonderfully named Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.
We'll be off the grid so is all I'll have for you until Monday is this response to the Fox College Football question, “Which team looks the best in green?”
The charts posted on BGA Daily earlier this week included a listing of Dartmouth players who would have been on the field last fall but have chosen to graduate rather than return for a bonus season in 2021.
Several emailers suggested that it would be interesting to also post a list of players who were members of the last Dartmouth team to take the field – the 2019 Ivy League champions – to see who has moved on since we last saw the Big Green in action.
To that end, here are the seniors from the 2019 team who will certainly be missed:
Offensive Line – Zach Sammartino, Tanner Aiono, Ben Culmer, John Lass, Anders Peterson
Defensive Line – Jackson Perry, David Chalmers, Seth Simmer, Jordan McGriff
Defensive End – Niko Lalos, TJ Simpson
Linebacker – Jack Traynor, Nigel Alexander, Colton Forster, Ross Andreasik, Andrew Lemkuil
Defensive Back – DJ Avery, Ryan Roegge, Isiah Swann
Punter – Davis Brief
LongSnapper: Grant Jaffe
Green Alert Take: The nice thing about developing a winning program is that there's always a good amount of talent in the pipeline. The bad thing is you bid farewell to some very good players each spring. Read that list down again and you'll see that was certainly the case after the 2019 season.
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Talented players go and talented players take their place. The search for more of the latter picks up steam this weekend with the long-awaited return of the Buddy Teevens Football Camp bringing a good number of Ivy League hopefuls to Hanover:
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The Ivy League football media day is set for Aug. 16 with Dartmouth football practice slated to begin later that week.
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From a Richmond Times-Dispatch story about former Dartmouth quarterback Brian Mann's introductory press conference after being named William & Mary athletic director:
Mann’s large quarterback hands — better with which to grip rain-soaked or frigid footballs — are unmissable, and if he moves on from athletics administration, Mann could make a living as a public speaker. Standing at a lectern, Mann placed prepared notes in front of him, but rarely glanced down while hitting all the right notes in a polished presentation that paid homage to the harmony of education and athletics.
“What you saw today is actually who Brian is. The more you dig, the more you hear that’s authentically him,” said Jeremy Martin, the interim AD Mann succeeds and the co-chair of the search committee. “Every time you dug a little deeper, you go, ‘This feels more and more like a William & Mary person,’ until ultimately, he became the William & Mary person.”
Dartmouth gets a few mentions in the story:
Mann majored in history and loves William & Mary’s lengthy story that begins with a 1693 founding. At his last two professional stops — California, Berkeley, located near Oakland and San Francisco, and Rice, in Houston — he missed the relationships built in tight-knit spots, such as Hanover, N.H., Dartmouth’s home, and Williamsburg.
When Mann speaks about “a transformational education that can change lives,” he refers to Dartmouth, which he says changed his life, and William & Mary, which he believes does the same.
After apologizing for not having the time to thank everyone, Mann mentioned two people from his Dartmouth days:
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EXTRA POINT
It was at the Jenny Lake campground in Grand Teton National Park on a cross country trip in my old Mazda pickup truck that Mrs. BGA and I got our first glimpse inside a VW Westfalia poptop camper. The folks in the site next to ours, ironically from Massachusetts, invited us to take a good look around the iconic vehicle and we were immediately hooked.
After several years of looking we bought our 1984 Westy in 1994.
Flash forward to our most recent visit to Yellowstone to spend time with That Certain Dartmouth '14, who was working as an educational ranger at the park. Leaving Old Faithful I spotted a VW Rialta in the parking lot and with no one around to give us a look inside we spend a bit of time peering through the windows to see what it was like. What we saw was, to an extent, a VW Westfalia on steroids.
Now flash forward once again. Driving down the interstate the other day I looked to my left and in a gravel parking lot in front of a tired-looking business that sells lawn tractors and snow blowers I thought I spotted what I thought was a Rialta with a piece of pink paper hanging from the rear view mirror suggesting it was for sale. VW hasn't made the Rialta since 2005 and like our Westy they have become increasingly rare in the east.
It turns out it was indeed a Rialta for sale and yesterday we took it for a drive. In the interest of full disclosure, we weren't really serious about buying it but then again, when we took a Subaru Baja for a test drive eight (?) years ago we weren't serious about that and we ended up buying it. It would be TCD'14's car until a few weeks ago.
What we discovered is the Rialta isn't a VW bus but neither is it one of those enormous RVs in which pensioners escape the snow. And it drives like a Lexus compared to our underpowered VW, a four-speed manual without power steering. The inside is really nifty, with a full bathroom featuring a pull-out shower if you can believe it.
All in all, it's a pretty cool vehicle and it was fun to get a closer look at it. But not to worry. Our '84 VW Westfalia Vanagon isn't going anywhere . . . except camping up in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom this weekend ;-)
Today's Instagram/Twitter video from the Dartmouth football office introduces us to Braden Mullen, an aggressive, 6-foot-3, 215-pound linebacker from Loyola Academy in Glenview, Ill.
Former Dartmouth quarterback Brian Mann '02 will be introduced today as the new athletic director at William & Mary.
Mann, who stands third on the Dartmouth career list for passing yards, left private business and started his career in athletic administration in Hanover in 2009, working as the Big Green's director of football operations for two years. He then shifted to the fundraising arm of the Dartmouth athletic department before eventually moving on to Rice University and in February of 2019 to UC Berkeley.
As a fifth-year senior in 2002 Mann set the Dartmouth single-season yardage mark for passing with 2,913 yards, a record that still stands. He's third in career passing with 5,912 yards.
Find the William & Mary press release about its new athletic director HERE and a "What They Are Saying," post HERE.
W&M President Katherine Rowe:
“He has a wonderful habit of exceeding goals at top institutions, which also is a hallmark at William & Mary. . .. (He) has the strategic insights and know-how to get us to where we need to go.”
The Virginian-Pilot has a story HERE and there's another out of Richmond HERE.
Green Alert Take: In the interest of full disclosure, I consider Brian a good friend. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with those who say W&M hit a home run. I'll be tuned in to his introductory press conference at noon today HERE.
Green Alert Take II: The field of strong candidates to be the next permanent director of athletics at Dartmouth has shrunk by one.
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A news service story about Dartmouth's latest Community Conversation with outgoing Provost Joseph Helble offers another sign of progress looking ahead to the fall under the headline, Community Conversations: Masks off, Vaccines on; Many COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted on campus, effective June 24. (LINK)
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EXTRA POINT When we lived on the shoulder of Moose Mountain I spent time on a Hanover rural broadband committee. I remember a radiologist (or maybe he was some other kind of doc) pleading at one of our meetings for improved Internet in rural Etna because without it he couldn't do work from home and real estate values in the outlying areas of town might drop.
I'm no doctor but I felt his pain back then and I feel it now. I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate that we at least have DSL at our Vermont hillside house, but yesterday was another day when Mrs. BGA was videoconferencing from home and had to throw up her hands and switch from our DSL service in favor of the mobile hotspot that we got when we were living off the grid. I've got a family video I'm going to toss up on YouTube this afternoon and I'll be parking the VW bus outside the library to use its signal rather than be stuck for hours trying to upload it from home.
Seriously, shouldn't the stability and speed we get from our regular internet provider be more robust than what is beamed from a cell tower to a mobile hotspot?
For what it's worth, we've heard that fiber optic internet will be installed in the next two years but I'll believe it when I see it . . . or when the "buffering" stops. I just hope it's working when I try to watch the presser at noon.
Two more freshmen introduce themselves in quick Instagram/Twitter posts from the Dartmouth football office. Meet Zachary Farris, a 6-foot, 175-pound defensive back from Cardinal Gibbons in Fort Lauderdale HERE and Ejike Adele, a 6-1½, 245-pound defensive tackle from Westminster School in Atlanta HERE.
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The last in a three-part positional look at who is gone and who's returning for the 2021 Dartmouth football team is a glimpse at the specialists. As was the case with offense and defense the past couple of days, this is based largely on published rosters. There are additional holders and return specialists who have practiced those responsibilities but who have not yet appeared in those positions during games so they are not included. (Click the chart to enlarge it.)
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The Minnesota Vikings website has a story announcing the hiring of Chris Blanco '07 as Assistant Director of Pro Scouting. From the posting (LINK):
Blanco is beginning his Vikings tenure while preparing for his 10th NFL season. He spent the previous nine seasons with the Houston Texans, working as a pro scout since May 2017. A native of La Mirada, California, Blanco was a two-year starter at cornerback for Dartmouth College, earning a bachelor's degree. He also earned a juris doctorate degree from the University of Iowa College of Law and served as a recruiting assistant for the Hawkeyes football team.
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Dartmouth has announced it will be putting commercial FM radio station WFRD (99 Rock) up for sale. WDCR, once the college's AM radio station, will continue as an online station. (COLLEGE RELEASE)
For a little more history on Dartmouth broadcasting, check out the Wikipedia entries for WFRD and WDCR.
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EXTRA POINT I hope to break away from the computer this afternoon to head about 10 miles south to Lake Morey Country Club to look in on the final round of The Jeff Julian Memorial Vermont Open Golf Championship. For many years I covered the annual 54-hole stop on the New England state open circuit, writing about newly minted pros dreaming of the PGA Tour, including some who would actually make it, like Sean O'Hair and Brett Quigley. I wrote about former PGA players like Jumbo Elliott and Billy Ziobro having a final fling in the nether reaches of the pro game, and remember thinking Dana Quigley could make his mark on the Champions Tour when he hit 50, which he most certainly did.
As a freelancer I interviewed Dylan Dethier, who had written the book A Young Golfer's Epic Journey to Find the Essence of the Game (read my story HERE) even before joining the Williams College golf team. And one of my favorite interviews at the event was with tennis great Ivan Lendl, a Connecticut resident who played a few tournaments on the New England Tour for fun. I wasn't much of a fan when Lendl was playing tennis but found him to be a delightful and gracious interview.
Each year I'd catch up with Rich Parker, now the Dartmouth men's golf coach and for many years one of the top finishers at the Vermont Open. He'd always fill my notebook with great quotes. I clearly remember Jeff Julian – grandson of legendary Dartmouth basketball coach Doggie Julian – playing in the Lake Morey Tournament on a brief hiatus from the PGA Tour. I'd been friends with Jeff for years and the very slight slur I noticed in his speech when we spoke was concerning. It would be one of the first signs of ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, which would take his life and lead to his name being added to the tournament title.
I haven't covered pro golf in a few years and I miss it. The three days of the Vermont Open were three of the longest and most grueling days of the year when I was at the paper and still the tournament was something I looked forward to each June. Nothing against college football, but as I've said before, having covered the Vermont, New Hampshire and New England Opens many times as well as two Masters tournaments, two U.S. Opens and countless other pro and amateur events, I think in my next life I'm going to be a golf writer.
Following up on yesterday's offensive chart, today we take a look at Dartmouth's defensive personnel (with positions per the official Dartmouth roster). The same caveat about potential changes in roster size offered yesterday apply. To that end, this year’s chart should be seen as reflecting who is eligible to play on the Dartmouth team this fall and not necessarily who will be on the team. (Once again, click the chart to enlarge it.)
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The Dartmouth football office has another quick "Meet the Freshmen" video with today's entry being James Coslet, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound offensive lineman from Watchung Hills, N.J. He is the son of JJ Coslet '97, a three-year letterwinner and member of the undefeated 1996 Big Green Ivy League champions. Find the James Coslet intro video HERE.
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Former Big Green standout Drew Estrada gets a mention as a receiver and return specialist in an Athlon look at the 2021 Baylor team ranked 58th in the preseason by the publication. Estrada is a grad transfer for the Bears. (LINK)
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For a layman's look at the big news yesterday that could lead to major changes in the landscape of college athletics, check out an Associated press story headlined EXPLAINER: The Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA. (LINK)
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Abbey D'Agostino '16 and Helen Schlactenhaufen '17 both came up just shy last night of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.
D'Agostino, who ran a courageous 15:07.08 in winning her 5,000 meter qualifying heat Friday night, was outkicked down the stretch and finished fourth in 94-degree heat. She crossed the line in 15:31.06. Third-place finisher Rachel Schneider earned the final berth on the U.S. team by finishing in 15:29:56. (Schneider ran her high school track at St. Thomas in Dover, N.H.)
Find a story about Cooper's Olympic bid coming up just short HERE.
Helen Schlactenhaufen finished fifth in the 1,500 in 4:04.41 with the top three making the Olympic team.
Dartmouth's final chance to be represented on the U.S. track team comes Sunday night when Ben True '08 runs in the 5,000 finals at 10:30. He narrowly missed making the Olympic team in the 10,000 last Friday night, finishing one spot out in fourth place. Five years ago he missed making the American Olympic team by half a second in the 5,000.
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EXTRA POINT
Pulling up 2021 Ivy League football rosters the other day I was surprised to discover that one of our former neighbors on the shoulder of Moose Mountain will be a sophomore tight end at Brown in the fall. He has older brothers currently at Princeton and Penn, with the first recruited for football and the second for lacrosse.
The three Ivy League brothers are reminders of why we moved to Hanover before our kids started school. Our old dirt road runs about three-or-so miles with only 12-15 houses on it and yet I can think of two kids who grew up there who went to Brown, two who went to Dartmouth (you know one of them ;-), one currently at Penn, another at Princeton and one who graduated from Yale. Oh yeah, and I can think of another who had eyes only for that other Penn. You know. The one with State on the end of it and that 107,000-seat football stadium ;-)
Each year I pull together charts looking at the Dartmouth football roster by year and position. Today we take a look at the offense, with defense being posted tomorrow and special teams on Wednesday.
Keep in mind, there are always position changes unannounced at this time of year, players who will not be returning for one reason or another, and even occasional additions to the roster. That makes building these charts tricky. But this year it is trickier than ever.
Given changes in Ivy League eligibility policy as a result of COVID-19, rosters posted by Cornell have 145 players, Harvard 138 and Columbia 133. Dartmouth has 103 players on the roster posted on the Dartmouth football web page (LINK) and that doesn't count 29 incoming freshmen.
Adjustments the Ivy League and individual schools may be instituting with regard to allowable rosters sizes this fall have not been made public but it's reasonable to assume schools will not be bringing 130 or more players back for the preseason. That being the case, this year's chart should be seen as reflecting who is eligible to play on the Dartmouth team this fall and not necessarily who will be on the team.
Click the chart to enlarge it and on a Mac click again. (I'm not sure about the procedure for Windows people.)
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EXTRA POINT I stumbled across a story last week about the abundance of chipmunks in northern New England this spring, the result of a "good fruit year" and a mild winter. Several years ago, when we spent a summer living in the off-the-grid tiny house, it was squirrels that were overrunning the Twin States and we saw them everywhere. They were big, they were fat and a lot of them were making some very bad decisions about crossing roads.
I found myself thinking about the volatility of animal and insect populations during my hike early this morning.
Yesterday marked the end of the mythical black fly season, which in New England is reputed to run from Mother's Day to Father's Day. I've hiked a wooded trail up Wright's Mountain virtually every morning between those two days and haven't seen a single black fly that I can recall. Not one. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any mosquitoes, either.
But I did see a chipmunk on the trail the other day. Trust me. I'll take Alvin, Theodore and friends over black flies and mosquitoes seven days a week.
Running back/slot receiver Christian Benson, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound dynamo from Parish Episcopal HS in Dallas, is the latest incoming Dartmouth freshman to show up on the football program's Twitter feed:
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Speaking of incoming freshmen, 6-2, 187 wide receiver recruit Jackson Gerard of St. Francis HS in Illinois was the subject of a story in the Daily Herald after a strong performance at the 2A state track meet at Eastern Illinois University. From the story (LINK):
Gerard, who committed to Dartmouth for football, said he spent part of the morning handling calls with his college coach to learn the football playbook.
"It's been a crazy (morning) especially with the weather," Gerard said. "Track is pretty complementary for me with football. It goes into football, but I felt I could compete this year and it was fun competing this year and being really good in track and getting to go to state was a whole new experience."
Gerard finished sixth in the state in the long jump and 13th in the 100 meters.
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Scott Caulfield, who worked with football, swimming and rugby as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Dartmouth from 2008-11, has been hired as the first director of strength and conditioning at Vermont's Norwich University. (LINK)
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If you root for Dartmouth athletes it really was the joy of victory and the agony of defeat watching the U.S. Olympic Trials for track and field last night.
The joy:
Abbey D'Agostino Cooper '14, who saw her Olympics in Rio end with a tumble to the track, needed not only to finish in the top three in the 5,000 last night to advance to the finals, but was encouraged by her coach prior to the race not to wait for the finals and to try to run an Olympic qualifying time. Breaking from the pack, she ran out to a huge lead and in the final laps ran not against the competition but against the clock. From the Washington Post story above (LINK):
Cooper reached the last 200 meters with 35 seconds to spare. She pumped her arms and breathed deep. Every athlete on the field lined up near the inside lane, clapping and exhorting her. She heard noise but no voice, too focused on running, on finishing.
She made it across the line with time to spare and will now run Monday at 8:40 p.m. Eastern needing a top-three finish to punch her ticket to Tokyo.
Former teammate Dana Giordano ’16 finished well back in the same race.
In the 1,500 Helen Schlachtenhaufen '17 advanced to the semifinals (9:40 tonight) with the final Monday at 8:05.
Also running tonight is Cha'Mia Rothwell '20 in the 100-meter hurdles. She's scheduled to be on the line at 8:04. The semifinals will be at 9:03 tomorrow and the finals at 10:43 tomorrow.
In constrast to Cooper's joy of victory is the agony felt by another former Big Green standout.
Dartmouth grad Ben True '08, who missed joining his wife on the last U.S. Olympic team at Rio by less than half a second in the 5,000, needed to finish in the top three in the 10,000 last night to make his first Olympic team in what has to be, at age 35, his last Trials.
He was in position to make the U.S. team until the final sprint and wound up in the worst position of all – fourth – one miserable spot away from Tokyo. He will have his final Olympic chance Thursday at 11:04 p.m. when he runs in the 5,000.
A lengthy story by old friend Glenn Jordan '85 in Maine's Portland Press Herald in advance of the Trials detailed True's almost desperate bid to fulfill his Olympic dream. The piece noted that he had lost his contract with Saucony after nine years and with his first child due shortly, had to keep racing and remain in the Top 20 in the world or he would "lose the health insurance plan provided to elite athletes by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee." Find the story HERE.
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EXTRA POINT I'm not what you would call a car guy but I used to have an old Mitsubishi Expo (nicknamed "Vlad" after another old Expo – Vlad Guerrero) that I really loved. It was an odd car, so odd that for away Little League games players on the team I coached would race to ride with me. I like to think it was because of my jokes but I wonder sometimes if it was because they wanted to ride in a clown car. One of the players actually called it a "nursemobile."
Anyway, with about 190,000 miles or so on the odometer Vlad started misbehaving and I brought it to our longtime mechanic for a look-see. When I went by his shop a few days later to learn its fate I pretty much knew what he was going to tell me as soon as I saw his face.
I told him: "My goal was to drive this car until it died."
He responded with just two words: "You succeeded."
And with that, Vlad was headed to the great beyond.
I bring that up because That Certain Dartmouth '14, like her dad, is not a car person. But she's had a Subaru Baja, a car almost as odd as my old one, for seven years. She named it Betsy Baja and loved it the way I loved Vlad.
Betsy had 220,900 miles on the odometer this week when it decided it had no interest in going up a hill out in Colorado. Luckily, TCD'14 wasn't on a deserted mountain road and her boyfriend was able to bump/push the Baja a half mile or so to his house. When it was clear the car wasn't going to start a call went out to Triple-A and off it went on the back of a flatbed tow truck.
I don't know if the mechanic in Colorado had the same way with words that mine did. Either way, the message was the same.
Epilogue: The Baja has already been replaced by a 2013 Outback. It has 109,000 miles on it but unlike Betsy, it has working air conditioning and that's no small bonus with the current heat wave in Colorado.
(Be sure to click the speaker button to get sound while watching.)
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With the Dartmouth freshmen finally being introduced via Twitter and Instagram this seemed to be a good time to take a look at rosters around the Ivy League. Unfortunately, only five of the eight have been updated for 2021 with Penn, Princeton and Yale the outliers. (Dartmouth has updated its roster but has not yet added in the freshmen.)
Here's how the rosters shape up by class participation:
Dartmouth 2 Graduate Students 10 Fifth Years 29 Seniors 32 Juniors 29 Freshmen (Per BGA)
Harvard 50 Seniors/Fifth Years (and possible Graduate Students) 32 Juniors 34 Sophomores 26 Freshmen
(Working up the Harvard numbers was tricky because both freshmen and sophomores were classified as "first-years," and other classes were not promoted, ie. the juniors were referred to as sophomores for eligibility purposes, etc. Also, Brown and Columbia, like Harvard, did not break out fifth-years.)
Add it up and in a league where seniority is of great value, here is how the schools stand with regard to true seniors plus fifth-years plus grad students:
54 Cornell 50 Harvard 44 Columbia 41 Dartmouth 28 Brown
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EXTRA POINT Each day as I make the two-mile drive to the trailhead a few minutes after 6 a.m. I pass a woman in a chartreuse T-shirt and black sweat pants running in my direction. I am likely the only car she will see. I slow, pull to the other side of the narrow and winding dirt road and wave as I go by. She always waves back.
I don't know the woman's name. I don't know where she lives. I have been tempted to stop the car, roll the window down and tell her how impressed I am to see her each morning because it seems clear she is making a serious effort to lose weight.
I do not stop. I do not roll the window down. I do not say anything because I do not want to offend her. So I just smile and wave and marvel each morning at the woman's determination.
With the Dartmouth Twitter account back online the football office is rolling out quick video presentations for the incoming freshmen. Check out this post featuring running back Q Jones:
The first videos of the freshmen can be accessed via Twitter HERE and on Instagram with safety Carson Franks' posting HERE and offensive lineman Nick Marinaro's HERE.
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OK, you are probably wondering why this video is posted here, right?
It's because former Dartmouth and Canadian Football League safety Garrett Waggoner '13 and quarterback Andy Gay '13 have, if you'll excuse the pun, caught lightning in a bottle. A Cirkulwater bottle to be exact.
The teammates developed the idea of a flavored water bottle while at Dartmouth and, after a few fits and starts, the product has taken off with help from users singing its praises on TikTok. Here's a headline from a story in Tampa Bay Inno: After going viral on TikTok, Tampa startup Cirkul hires 100 with plans to double by end of year. A few notes from the story (LINK):
• (T)he "Cirkul water bottle" hashtag brings up thousands of (TikTok) videos that cumulatively have more than 31.1 million views.
• "Going viral" is not a new concept, but there's no guidebook for companies on what to do when it happens. For Waggoner, his focus was the customer, he said, which meant creating a third shift in roughly 24 hours to help with order fulfillment.
• The company hired 100 people in the last three months, plus an additional dozen customer service representatives. (They plan) to hire roughly 100 more by the end of the year. The company is also expanding their space, adding in a 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse that will triple their current size.
• (I)n November 2020, the company announced it closed a $6.6 million Series A round.
(Waggoner and Gay) graduated and started their "classic gritty entrepreneur story," according to Waggoner, with him working as a valet and Gay selling women's shoes in Nordstrom while working to launch Cirkul. The company launched in 2018, first in Boston before moving to Tampa full-time.
Green Alert Take: A valet and selling women's shoes in Nordstrom. You can't make this stuff up!
The story had this capsule look at the Cirkul bottle:
The company sell is simple: a shatterproof, BPA-free bottle that takes in flavor cartridges, which can be controlled to dispense more or less flavor with a twist. The cartridges range across 43 flavors and six lines, including caffeinated, teas, coffees and electrolyte packages. All blends are zero calories, no sugar and no artificial flavors.
Athlon has released its 2021 Preseason Top 25 and Oct. 16 Dartmouth opponent New Hampshire comes in at No. 22. From the story (LINK):
What to Know: UNH, seeking its first FCS playoff appearance since posting 14 in a row from 2004-17, boasts plenty of experience in the offensive and defensive backfields and at the line of scrimmage. Getting a big step from quarterback Max Brosmer is important after the Wildcats ranked last in the CAA in scoring in 2019, but running backs Carlos Washington Jr. and Dylan Laube provide a strong 1-2 punch. The defense features safety Evan Horn and defensive lineman Niko Kvietkus.
Green Alert Take: It feels as if Athlon might have given a little too much emphasis on what happened during the spring season, although if that's the case Sept. 25 Dartmouth opponent Sacred Heart might have at least shown up in the "On the Cusp" category. The Pioneers, who won the Northeast Conference in the spring, gave No. 5 Delaware all it could handle in the NCAA playoffs, trailing just 12-10 midway through the fourth quarter before falling in Newark, 19-10.
Green Alert Take II: No Ivy League team appears in the On the Cusp section but it would be a shock if at least one doesn't finish in the Top-25 next fall.
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The Any Given Saturday message board has a growing thread about the decline and fall of Patriot League football HERE.
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The Dartmouth sports information site has a story headlined, Dartmouth Well Represented at U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials; Five former Big Green runners seek a berth on the U.S. Olympic Team (LINK).
Set to compete at Historic (but newly renovated) Hayward Field in the trials, which run from tomorrow through June 27 are:
Abbey (D'Agostino) Cooper '14 and Dana Giordano '16 in the 5000 meters. (First round tomorrow at 8:54 p.m. Eastern with the finals Monday at 8:40 p.m.)
Helen Schlachtenhaufen '17 in the 1500 meters. (First round at 7:03 p.m. tomorrow, semifinals are Saturday at 9:40 p.m. and the finals Monday 8:05 p.m.).
Cha'Mia Rothwell '20 in the 100 meter hurdles. (First round Saturday at 8:04 p.m. Eastern followed one night later by the semifinals at 9:03 p.m. and final at 10:43 p.m.)
Ben True '08 qualified in both the 5000 and 10,000. (The 10,000 finals will be tomorrow at 10:25 Eastern. The 5000 trial will be one week from tonight at 11:04 with the final at 10:30 on June 27.)
EXTRA POINT Yesterday's PAT about the audio book I had to re-download from the Vermont state library to finish (which I did while mowing later in the day) reminded me about the overdue policy at our little Etna library when we still lived on Moose Mountain.
For most of the years we lived in Etna there were no fines. You were on the honor system to return books on time.
Etna, as a lot of you know, is part of Hanover and a few years ago our little library was instructed by Hanover's Howe Library to start charging fines.
It was a pain for the tiny Etna library staff and in my case, at least, a bad decision. As I told our librarian, when returning books in a timely fashion was on the honor system I would never even think to have an overdue book. But once they instituted fines I could assuage my guilt for keeping a book too long by simply turning over a little pocket change.
If the idea of the fines was to get books back into circulation faster, in my case it was a bad idea, the law of unintended consequences in action.
BGA Daily is something of a high wire act out-of-season and, as you might expect, particularly so this year. Will I be able to find something – anything – of interest to post for you today? If not, will I be able to manufacture something by digging into the record book?
Today was starting to look like one of the tough days and then, voilá, I stumbled across a "Teevens Teleteaser" posted by the Dartmouth sports information office. Whew!
Now I can start worrying about finding something for tomorrow . . .
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The Analyst (STATS) has dug up the top Returning FCS players for this fall who have the highest percentage of their team's scrimmage yards since 2019. Dartmouth will be seeing the player atop the list in the second week of the season (LINK):
1. Julius Chestnut, RB, Sacred Heart: 42.5 (2,700 of 6,348)
Green Alert Take: I had a chance to chat with former linebacker Will McNamara '16 at the wedding Saturday and told him a little about Chestnut. When I brought up how many times a player has come into the Dartmouth game with gaudy statistics only to end up looking pretty pedestrian the conversatio quickly turned to the genius of defensive coordinator Don Dobes. We agreed it will be fun to see what Double D cooks up for the Sacred Heart standout this fall.
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It wasn't surprising to find a Dartmouth name under the headline, Bengals Working With Five Coaches In NFL's Minority Fellowship Program. What was a little surprising was that the name in question belongs to a former Dartmouth softball player. From the story (LINK):
Tessa Grossman, graduate assistant and sports performance coach at Illinois State University. Grossman is a 2020 graduate of Dartmouth College, where she played first base on the varsity softball team. As a coach, she has worked as an intern with the strength staffs at Dartmouth (2018), the L.A. Rams ('18), University of California-Berkeley ('19) and Mamba Sports Academy ('18). She joined Illinois State in July 2020.
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Brown Stadium will have an artificial surface when Dartmouth travels to Providence in November and in advance of the installation the program has pulled together a quick video explaining the motivation for the move away from the facility's usually muddy and always infamously slow grass field:
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EXTRA POINT For the past 14 days I've been listening to an audio book during my morning hike on Wright's Mountain, and while mowing the lawn. Correction. I've been listening to the book for 15 days.
I know this because the book, which I had downloaded for two weeks from the Green Mountain Library Consortium, expired yesterday before I had finished it. Eager to find out how the mystery ended, I dowloaded it again and tried to recall what chapter I was in when the loan expired. I figured I would have to fast-forward through sections I had already heard all the while being cautious not to go too far and give away the ending. I anticipated it was going to be a royal pain.
I needn't have worried. After the book downloaded for the second time it queued up right where I left off, all by itself.
As promised, a relatively detailed look at the incoming Dartmouth recruiting class went up on BGA Premium last evening HERE. (The individual capsules will be updated as more information becomes available.)
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Jennifer King, who spent a year as a quality control assistant at Dartmouth and is now on the staff of the Washington Football Team, appears in the Believe in Women Twitter series:
A story under the headline Forecasting the New York Giants Second-Year Linebackers suggests former Dartmouth defensive end Niko Lalos should . . .
. . . find a spot on the practice squad. Lalos’ ball awareness and knack for making big plays will make him the first in line to get called up if anyone on the Giants defense gets hurt. Those skills could also translate well to special teams.
The mention of Niko Lalos sent me looking for the latest on his former teammate Matt Kaskey, who saw his first NFL action in the Carolina Panthers' final game last fall. A story headlined No obvious answer for Panthers at left tackle, but team has options. A closer look lists Kaskey among the "Other Candidates," and calls him a "backup/practice" contender.
With no word yet on how the Ivy League is going to handle Name, Image, Likeness but its sister conference has gotten a jump on the Ancient Eight as reported in a press release that includes this:
The Patriot League and INFLCR have entered into an innovative multi-year partnership to empower conference-member student-athletes to share content and to manage student-athlete Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) activities through the new INFLCR Verified platform.
INFLCR (think: Influencer) bills itself as "The nationwide leader in athlete brand-building." Find the INFLCR website HERE.
More from the Patriot League release:
Student-athletes, coaches, staff and other brand ambassadors will gain access to photos, videos, and graphics produced by the member institutions, delivered through the INFLCR software and mobile app, to share on their personal and team social-media channels. This access enables each student-athlete the opportunity to share their story and grow their brand.
Green Alert Take: Ivy League, you are on the clock.
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EXTRA POINT Vermont Public Radio has a podcast series titled Brave Little State. Maybe there should be one titled. Sensible Little State. As the outlet Seven Days reported yesterday (LINK):
Slightly more than 80 percent of all eligible Vermonters have now received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to Gov. Phil Scott, who celebrated the milestone by making good on his promise to lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions.
And . . .
Vermont is the first state in the nation to have vaccinated four out of every five eligible people.
And there was this from the New York Times (LINK):
Vermont has been very successful at handling the coronavirus. A New York Times database shows that the state has reported fewer cases and fewer deaths, relative to its population, than any state but Hawaii. Vermont has vaccinated 84 percent of its adult population, aged 18 or older; Hawaii and Massachusetts are the only other states so far that have exceeded 80 percent by that measure.
Can't help but feel a little proud of our neighbors in the state Mrs. BGA and I lived in when we were first married and moved back to a couple of years ago.
Regardless of what he does on the Dartmouth football field over the next four years one incoming Big Green recruit's life story already sounds like a movie.
Here's the lede to a Denver Post story about running back Q Jones winning the Gold Helmet Award, "presented annually to the state’s top football player, scholar-athlete and citizen, someone who embodies excellence on and off the field:"
In Fountain-Fort Carson’s season opener last fall, Alexisius “Q” Jones Jr. took the first handoff and ripped through the left side of the line. The Trojans’ tailback deked one defender and then outran another en route to an effortless 33-yard touchdown.
That’s when Jones dropped to a knee and bowed his head in unbridled emotion as his teammates mobbed him.
The Dartmouth pledge wasn’t just celebrating the score. He was lost in the moment thinking of all he had been through to have a chance to show his talent. And he was setting the stage for a season that culminated in him winning the 2020 Denver Post Gold Helmet Award.
Jones led the state of Colorado with 1,853 rushing yards, with 20 touchdowns and a 9.9-yard average per carry, but his story is bigger than that. Much bigger.
Watch a 10-minute interview with Jones, including some eye-popping highlights:
Jones will be one of two premier Colorado running backs at Dartmouth this fall. He joins rising junior Noah Roper, who led the state in scoring and came within a yard of leading it in rushing as a senior while finishing as one of five finalists for the Gold Helmet.
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A reminder that a story with brief bios of all of Dartmouth's incoming recruits – featuring comments from coach Buddy Teevens – will be posted on BGA Premium tonight. CLICK HERE to visit the site. The story will be in the pull-down menu under the heading, 2021 Spring.
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At the end of March I wrote about former wide receiver Daniel Gorman '16 earning admittance to medical school and why that was so special to me and our entire family. The Reader's Digest version of that Extra Point is that Daniel spent more nights at our home than I can count as That Certain Nittany Lion '16's best buddy growing up – so many nights that he kept a toothbrush at our house – and that I coached him both in Little League and a little with his mom on the hardwood. (LINK)
Daniel was always a terrific athlete and this may be a cliché but it's true – he's an even better person. It's why he won the Dartmouth athletic department's Timothy Wright Ellis 1955 Memorial Award, "given to a man showing extracurricular and scholastic drive, spirit, loyalty and amiability (as) nominated and voted on by the captains of the men’s teams."
And why he was was presented with my all-time favorite award, the football program's Manners Makyth Man Award "given each year to the player who best conducted himself to the advantage of Dartmouth and displayed good manners in the sense of William Wykeham's phrase, 'Manners Makyth Man.' "
We were in Massachusetts yesterday helping our good friends the Gormans celebrate Daniel's wedding to former Dartmouth runner Maya Jarostchuk '17 with That Certain Nittany Lion '16 serving as a groomsman.
If the Jarostchuk name is familiar it might be because Maya's dad Alex joined brothers Ilia (a former New England Patriot) and Basil on the University of New Hampshire's famed "Russian Front." From a New Hampshire alumni magazine story about the trio of defenders (LINK):
In UNH football, it's not often that members of the defense team psych out opponents by speaking Russian. But for the Jarostchuk brothers, who played Wildcat football in the late '80s, a comment like "Ya vozmu sorok shest—A ti vozmi tritsatz dva!" (I'll take 46—you take 32!) while waiting for the snap was a fun way to unnerve the opposition.
The Russian piece came into play yesterday as Maya's father used his booming voice to help conduct the traditional Russian wedding ceremony. The culture was on full display again during the reception when Daniel and Maya were celebrated by, among other guests, a group of former Dartmouth football players from around the country who were as entertained as were all of us who were at our first Russian reception:
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EXTRA POINT If you've been regularly reading the PAT you might remember a previous post about return address labels and how I shook my head at Mrs. BGA actually spending money to buy a few sheets of them when we moved from Hanover (Etna) to our little Vermont hillside town. (LINK)
The pile of unsolicited labels has only continued to grow. Last week I needed one of the stickers and it turned out that our cache of the things hasn't diminished much even with my recycling virtually every one we have received in the past year. Ironically, most continue to be from national parks and conservancy advocacy groups.
