The May-June issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine has a cover story headlined, Sian Beilock: How a soccer kid from Berkeley journeyed coast to coast and became Dartmouth’s 19th president.
Only time will tell what Sian Beilock will mean for the Big Green athletic fortunes, but it's clear she knows her way around the athletic world. From the story:
At Piedmont High School she excelled in math and science and was a top athlete, walking onto the varsity basketball team as a freshman, competing on the ski team one winter, running cross country, and playing arguably the most high-stress position on the soccer team: goalie.
And this from the story may be familiar, but it's worth repeating:
One of the defining moments in her early life occurred when she was 16. Beilock was a star goalie in the Olympic development program, but when the national coaches came to scout, she played the worst game of her career. It curtailed her dream of making the national team. She never played soccer again, but the experience has become a key talking point in her research on choking under pressure. “Being able to pivot and not get bogged down in something going wrong—that’s such an important skill,” she says. “You’ve got to learn how to fail.”
Find the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine story HERE. And if you are struggling with how to pronounce the new president's name, she's used to that. There's a 10-second video with her helping you HERE.
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As an offensive lineman, former Dartmouth standout Matt Kaskey '19 doesn't have easily accessible stats to share but this is the big one: His USFL Birmingham Stallions are off to a 3-1 start in the spring season. Here he is in a screengrab from the FS1 broadcast. (Thanks for sharing.)
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This space has brought you absurd ads for Dartmouth football tickets, like THIS ONE that would have you believe there are only 40 tickets left for the Big Green's Oct. 28 game at Harvard. (You'll be able to walk up to the window and buy as many tickets as you like five minutes before the game, promise.)
Now there's this ad for a video with the description posted below it:
May 06, 2023 @ 1:00pm 2023 Dartmouth Football Spring Game The main purpose of this channel is to express my love for Football Sports in a creative and fun way. I devote countless hours to making each video unique and inspiring. I really hope you enjoy this channel! subscribe to my channel Please Like Subscribe & Share. Thank You Very Much. And Happy Watching!
#Dartmouth #College #SpringFootball #Football
Here's the deal: The spring game was at 10 a.m., not 1 p.m., and more to the point, the game was NOT streamed, and there is NO video.
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The Ivy League gets short shrift in a Craig Haley piece posted on the Analyst site headlined, Ranking Best Games of 2023 FCS College Football Season (But the More, the Merrier). LINK
The only Ancient Eight mention comes in the Top 5 FCS College Football Rivalry Games section where the Tussle between Brown and Dartmouth game is ranked. Just kidding. It’s Harvard-Yale that gets the nod of course.
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While spending several hours mowing our field yesterday I was listening to a podcast that touched on the story of former NFL defensive end Dennis Johnson, who played in the league for three years in the early 2000's. Perhaps you know his story, but it was new to me and sent me scurrying to the web. A few highlights that I'm guessing will have you shaking your head:
• Johnson actually got on his Kentucky high school varsity football field as a 5-foot-7, 170 pound – wait for it – second grader.
• He earned honorable mention all-state honors as a defensive end at age 11, and started a string of five-consecutive seasons as an all-state first team selection as an eighth-grader.
• Over his extended high school career he had 521 tackles, 76 sacks, 140 tackles for loss, 42 fumbles caused, 25 fumble recoveries, and 19 blocked kicks. On the offensive line he was credited with 200 pancake blocks.
• In addition to six football letters, he earned five letters in basketball and five in track, winning three state championships in the shot, two in the discus and one in the triple jump. He also won the regional high jump title and was fifth in the state in the long jump.
• He was named Kentucky's Mr. Football in 1997 and at 6-5, 270 was chosen by the Arizona Cardinals in the third round of the 2002 draft.
All of that and more is in his archived NFL Draft profile HERE. There's also a dated ESPN story HERE.
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EXTRA POINT
Heading up my hiking trail yesterday, Mrs. BGA and I could hear people coming. But we came around a bend we discovered it wasn't people. It was one person.
It was a fellow with a cell phone pinned against his ear speaking loudly.
Hearing his voice echoing loudly through the woods, I noticed he was wearing a T-shirt with California and a typical SoCal scene splashed across the front of it. I was tempted to shake my head at him and say . . .
Dude?
