Fresh off seeing the Super Bowl ad for their Cirkul bottle/drink company aired nationally, former Dartmouth football players Garrett Waggoner and Andy Gay are profiled by CNBC. From the story (LINK):
The Tampa, Florida-based company most recently obtained a $1 billion pre-money valuation — as of a funding round in 2022, according to a Cirkul announcement — and ran a 30-second Super Bowl commercial on Sunday, featuring comedian and actor Adam DeVine.
And . . .
Today, the company has more than 1,000 employees and warehouses in Tampa and Salt Lake City, says Waggoner. It has raised more than $100 million to date, according to PitchBook.
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Given the lofty academic reputation of Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts and the rest of the NESCAC schools, they have frequently been referred to as the "Little Ivies." That being the case, this from the AP should be no surprise (LINK):
Since arriving at Tufts, junior Vaughn Seelicke has seen the Jumbos win Division III national championships in men’s lacrosse and women’s rowing. The men’s soccer team at the elite academic school just north of Boston has qualified for each of the last 10 NCAA tournaments, and won the title four times.
Seelicke and his fellow football players have never had the chance.
And . . .
As a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, the Jumbos can't compete in the Division Ill football playoffs — the only varsity teams on campus that can't play for a national championship. After watching the Ivy League end its century-old postseason football ban, a group of NESCAC players are hoping to follow its lead.
And . . .
“The Ivy League and the NESCAC, especially for football — the rules have always been the same,” said Seelicke, a placekicker from Little Rock, Arkansas. “This has been something that’s been talked about in NESCAC for a long time. But with the Ivy League changing their rules, there’s been a groundswell of support in the NESCAC.”
And . . .
(T)he players say their No. 1 issue is fairness: Every other team on campus can participate in its playoffs and compete for a championship except football. Ivy League football coaches made the same argument for years before their conference dropped its 100-year-old postseason ban in December.
“The issue is equity, being the only sport that doesn’t do it,” Seelicke said.
Green Alert Take: Sound familiar?
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That a piece headlined Longest Continuous College Football Rivalries drops Dartmouth-Cornell into a sub-category under the heading Longest Interrupted College Football Rivalries is annoying and patently wrong. Here's how the Dartmouth-Cornell entry reads (LINK):
Dartmouth-Cornell
Division: FCS
First Meeting: 1900
Continuous Years: 1919-2019
Length: 101 years
Reason: COVID-19
Green Alert Take: If you ask me, the Dartmouth-Cornell streak, like others that were victims of COVID, should have a one-time exemption and still be considered "continuous." The game was still on the schedule; it simply did not take place. That's far different from a streak ending because the schools choose not to play each other.
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Do you ever find yourself wondering why Ivy Leaguers and other FCS players opt to grad transfer? Consider that the three players Dartmouth saw on the other side of the field the past few years who earned invitations to the NFL Combine are all coming off a grad transfer season. They are:
• Princeton offensive tackle Jalen Travis, who played last fall at Iowa State
• Yale tight end Jackson Hawes, who played last fall at Georgia Tech
• New Hampshire quarterback Max Brosmer, who played last fall season at Minnesota
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EXTRA POINT
To all the nonprofits that send us unsolicited greeting cards, mailing labels, calendars, trinkets and yes, this winter even a pair of chintzy knitted gloves, please stop. So you know, my reaction when I get that stuff is to tear your plea in half and dump it into recycling before I leave the post office, even if I support your cause. I do not want you spending my donation trying to guilt-trip others into sending you more money.
