Recruiting Never Stops

The full recruiting Class of 2014 hasn't even been announced yet – it won't be until the deadline to send in deposits etc. is passed at the end of the month – and already names are bubbling up for the next recruiting class.

It is, as they say in these parts, "wicked early," but there's a tight end named Drew Hansen who has drawn the attention of Dartmouth as well as Penn, Princeton, Yale, Columbia and Tulane according to this news story. The Big Green might want to go to the bullpen and call on its closer if the student-athlete from West Des Moines Valley ends up being a good fit for Dartmouth, and vice versa. Seems to me there's a former Muscatine, Iowa quarterback who might get a kick out of having a fellow Iowan in town. Particularly if the kid is a player.

Bullpen help – literally – was available if Dartmouth had wanted it while recruiting a lineman named John Finnell, who instead chose to attend Trinity University in San Antonio this fall. He told his hometown paper, “This summer, I was recruited pretty hard by Yale and Dartmouth. I like both of those schools, but they’re way up there."

Finnell is from Cleburne, Texas, which happens to be the hometown of Dartmouth pitching ace Robert Young (as well as his brother Russell '08, a Cleveland Indians draft pick). It would be hard to find much better spokesmen for Dartmouth than the Young brothers.

Robert Young, by the way, pitched a six-hit shutout yesterday to key the Dartmouth baseball team to a 3-0, 7-4 sweep of Yale yesterday. The two teams go at it in another pair here in Hanover this afternoon. The Dartmouth softball team also swept Yale yesterday, 11-3 and 10-9. And capping a nice day in Hanover (except for the weather ;-) the Big Green men's tennis team gave old friend Chuck Kinyon a 6-1 win over Brown in his final home match. Kinyon, a fellow Nittany Lion, is retiring at season's end.

The Daily Dartmouth has a column spun out of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname/mascot issue. The column points out that:

ESPN’s Patrick Cain did a recent roundup of bizarre mascots, which included the University of California Santa Cruz Banana Slugs and Dartmouth’s Keggy — who was honored with the “gold medal of our non-medal competition.”

I'm sorry, but while Keggy is kind of cute and even pretty funny, kids are attracted to it (mine were when they were younger) and that's unfortunate.

The perception in some parts of the country is probably that it is an official mascot, and that's horrible PR. And if that's the case, it is at least partly because there is no official mascot.

I can't help but think that with a new president in place and a new athletic director coming aboard the time has come to bite the bullet and introduce a new mascot. It will probably cause a stink at the start, but funny how that goes away. A Google search this morning didn't turn up much in the way of lingering controversy down at Lehigh, which in 1995 went from being the Engineers to the Mountain Hawks. (Here's an abbreviated version of the Lehigh mascot history.)

That being the case, I'm going to put my vote in for the Dartmouth BackPackers (AKA the Packers: think green, proud football tradition, cold weather etc.). But I also think the Dartmouth North Stars works pretty well.

Georgetown has introduced Lee Reed as its new athletic director. He came over from Cleveland State. What I found interesting was a line from a story last week in anticipation of his being named:

"(Lee) Reed will be announced as the next AD for the Big East basketball power, ending what at least one person in Washington, D.C. called 'a very long process' to fill the Hoyas position, which has been vacant since last June."

Discuss among yourselves. (Italics are mine.)

Speaking of job openings, the Cornell Sun writes about interviews for the head basketball job in Ithaca:

Temple assistant Matt Langel and Virginia Tech assistant Bill Courtney have both interviewed for the men's basketball head coaching position, with Wisconsin assistant Gary Close scheduled to arrive on campus early this week for his interview, a source close to the athletics department confirmed.

Back to baseball, Sports Illustrated has the definitive story on Atlanta Braves phenom Jason Heyward, the son of former Dartmouth basketball player Eugene Heyward '81 and his wife Laura '79. Good story about what appears to be a great kid, but learning what it took for him to get to this point was an eye-opener.

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about Dartmouth's new organizational structure under the headline, Kim outlines ‘leaner’ administrative format. That got me to thinking. Is there any time when the word "leaner" isn't a good thing?

And finally, spring football practice resumes tomorrow. Check in on the full BGA site tomorrow night for a look at another key member of the staff and how the session went.