Ah Spring

Snow has started to build this morning but the temperature could challenge 80 degrees this weekend. Don't like the weather in Northern New England? Wait five minutes.

Afternoon snow showers on Moose Mountain Tuesday gave way to a burst of sunshine. It's snowing again this morning (pretty hard as of 9 a.m.) but we dodged the overnight deep stuff that closed some schools and brought two-hour delays to others.

Yesterday's Dartmouth football practice was postponed. The team is expected to be back out on Memorial Field today and if it is there will be full coverage tonight on Big Green Alert.

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The Daily Dartmouth has an overview of spring football practice. From the story:

“(There is a) great deal of energy and enthusiasm, great progress in strength in the offseason and a number of young guys who were doing off-campus programs are back and working together,” (coach Buddy Teevens) said. “(The team is) maturing physically.”

The Dartmouth website has a Q&A with Teevens. Sorry, but the most interesting question once again is about the quarterback derby. Here's what Teevens had to say about that competition:

"Well, we have four guys out there, and they are all performing well. It’s a learning process for each of them with a new offensive coordinator, but they have not only picked up things well, but retained that knowledge. We are still in the evaluation process, as we will be for the entire spring, but I have been pleased with everyone in the group."

Dartmouth isn't the only school with a pretty good competition under center. At Harvard the return of LSU transfer Andrew Hatch has certainly made things interesting. Here's what Crimson coach Tim Murphy had to say about Hatch in a Q&A with the Harvard Crimson:

"He’s shown flashes of brilliance, he’s just got to be more consistent, he has to take care of the football more, but it is a legitimate competition. And if he hadn’t been here, I’m not sure that it would have been. I would have said that (returning starter Collier Winters is) pretty much a slam dunk, but now there’s a competition, so we probably won’t know who our starting quarterback’s going to be until conceivably a week before the Holy Cross game."

In another story, the Crimson writes of Winters:

His 57.4 pass-completion percentage, 15 touchdown passes, and three touchdown runs were good enough for second-team All-Ivy honors, and his ability to orchestrate a pair of late scoring drives in a comeback win in The Game proved that he could perform in the clutch.

So looking to 2010, with most of the receiver and tailback corps intact, shouldn’t Winters be a shoo-in to reprise his role as Harvard’s primary signal caller?

The answer is no, the Crimson writes, because ...

Hatch is now back taking snaps at Harvard Stadium, just two years removed from earning the starting role out of preseason for LSU—the then-defending national champions—in 2008.

The Brown Daily Herald has a piece about David Howard, the Ivy League's first draft pick since 2007. The story reprises Howard's unusual route to the NFL. From the story:

After verbally committing to play football at Delaware, the Brown track and field program recruited Howard at the last minute. His older brother — who had played football at Harvard — and his dad — who was a high school guidance counselor for 30 years — convinced him to head to the Ivy League.

Once on campus, Howard didn’t go unnoticed by the Brown football team for long. On the day he arrived, he found an e-mail in his inbox from one of the assistant coaches of the football team, trying to recruit him to hit the gridiron.

It took him a year before he finally accepted the coach’s offer ...

There's precious little news anywhere on 2010 opponent Sacred Heart but the school website does have a brief note on the Pioneers naming captains for the upcoming season. Not surprisingly – from a distance at least – quarterback Dale Fink is one of the captains. From the release:

Fink will lead the Pioneer offense in his fourth season starting under center this fall. The senior signal caller enters his final year in a Pioneer uniform holding 11 Sacred Heart passing records. A two-time All-Northeast Conference quarterback, Fink is coming off a 2009 season where he threw for 2,064 yards and 17 touchdowns. For the third-consecutive season, Fink completed over 60% of his passes hitting on 212-of-347 (.611) passes. He led the Northeast Conference in passing yards per game (206.4), total offense (206.4), completions (212), completion percentage (61.1) and touchdown passes (17) last fall.

Syracuse.com follows up on last week's New York Times story quoting former Orange AD Jack Crouthamel – the onetime star tailback and head coach at Dartmouth – on Syracuse and the Big 10. The headline from the Syracuse.com story:

Jake Crouthamel on if Syracuse should go to the Big 10 if invited: "Absolutely"

The New York Times story can be found here.

Congratulations to Craig Haley on taking over as the FCS Executive Director at The Sports Network. Craig was a beat reporter covering Princeton and Ivy League football for 11 years. We crossed paths many in press boxes and exchanged a good number of emails over the years as we traded information and occasionally news tips. Craig will do a terrific job at The Sports Network, the definitive source for FCS (nee I-AA) football.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian has an update on the death of Penn football captain Owen Thomas confirming that he took his own life. Penn coach Al Bagnoli was quoted in this earlier Philly.com story.

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And finally, we received word this week that the Hanover High School indoor track teams won the New Hampshire Class I Girls and Boys Sportsmanship Awards. That Certain Hanover High senior served as a captain of the girls team and also won the school's individual sportsmanship award for girls indoor track. Over her four years she's won a lot of honors for her athletic ability, but what makes this dad proudest is the five times she was called to the front of the room at end-of-season banquets to be presented team sportsmanship awards.

Oh yeah, and the Great College Decision of 2010 is imminent. The choice has to be reported to the high school tomorrow to be eligible for local scholarship help. As of this morning it was impossible to tell which way the wind was blowing <{:-)