A Presidential Visit

President Kim addresses the team early in Friday's practice session. (Click to supersize)

Have you voted yet in the schedule poll over there to the left?

I'll Take This One, You Take That One

Curious how the draft went for Saturday's Green-White game? Here are the round-by-round picks for the first 15 rounds. (There were 38 rounds total.):

White (Captain Tim McManus)
1. Center Austen Fletcher
2. Defensive back Garrett Waggoner
3. Defensive back Shawn Abuhoff
4. Quarterback Conner Kempe
5. Offensive lineman Kyle Cook
6. Defensive tackle Mark Dwyer
7. Receiver Tanner Scott
8. Linebacker Matt Oh
9. Linebacker Garrett Wymore
10. Offensive lineman Ryan O'Neill
11. Defensive tackle Mick Davis
12. Tailback TJ Cameron
13. Tailback Chris Hardy
14. Defensive back Joey Casey
15. Offensive lineman Alex Wodka

Green (Captain Pat Scorah)
1. Defensive end Charles Bay
2. Offensive lineman John O'Sullivan
3. Quarterback Greg Patton
4. Offensive lineman Rob Bathe
5. Tight end John Gallagher
6. Offensive lineman Will Montgomery
7. Defensive back JB Andreassi
8. Defensive end Connor Phillips
9. Linebacker Aaron Limonthas
10. Tailback Nick Schwieger
11. Defensive tackle Tyler Green
12. Offensive lineman Pat Lahey
13. Tight end Justin Foley
14. Linebacker Tyer Melancon
15. Wide receiver Shawn Bode

What can you learn from that? Not much, actually. I sat in on one of these drafts and between the rules, the giggles, the players who are questionable because of injury (read: Nick Schwieger) and the oversights, it can be pretty funny. The final rosters, by the way, will be adjusted a bit by the coaches because of injuries and positional needs. The complete rosters (such as they are right now) will be on Green Alert tonight.

In case you are wondering, the Green-White is still set for 10 a.m. with the temperature rising into the upper 70's in the afternoon.

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A certain blogger isn't the only one who thought he might be in line for a family reunion Sept. 18 when Dartmouth was scheduled to play at Colgate. Kickoff specialist Don Kephart – whose boomers were reaching deep into the end zone yesterday – has a brother on the Raider track team. Andrew Kephart is a freshman pole vaulter out in Hamilton, N.Y.

The Utica Observer Dispatch writes about the schedule maneuvering that has Colgate playing at Syracuse and Dartmouth at Bucknell. Gate coach Dick Biddle is quoted this way:

“I don’t look at it as a payday. I look at it as an opportunity. It’s a stretch game, but it should be fun. It should be enjoyable. It’s a heck of a challenge. It’s kind of a reward for our success. There is not one negative thing about it.”

Chuck Burton, who chronicles not just Lehigh football but Patriot League goings-on while periodically tossing in some Ivy mentions, calls the schedule juggling a win-win-win for Colgate, Bucknell and Dartmouth in his Lehigh Football Nation blog.

In case you were curious, there is a web page where teams can find opponents looking for games on particular days. It hasn't been updated, but check it out here to see some of the teams that at one point might have been potential Sept. 18 opponents. On Green Alert last night Coach Buddy Teevens mentioned Charleston Southern, Drake and Wingate as three schools that were contacted.

New Cornell coach Kent Austin is the subject of a Q&A in the Cornell Sun. Austin identified one area of concern that was painfully obvious watching the Big Red the past couple of years:

"Football is a tough game and we need to become more physical overall as a football team, and the players have responded really well; they’ve worked hard and we’re proud of the progress that they’ve made at this point."

Brown's official website has a blurb about tomorrow's Brown-White game to be held at the Berylson Family Field not Brown Stadium, which is one of the two last natural grass fields in the Ivy League. (Yale Bowl has the other.)

Harvard football is hosting a bone marrow drive today. There's a story here.

And the new offensive coordinator/quarterbacks/receivers coach at Division III NESCAC member Wesleyan is ... the old head coach at Yale. The New Haven Register has a story about Jack Siedlecki once again scratching his coaching jones.

A friend has pulled together a moving video tribute to Owen Thomas, the Penn football player who took his own life. Find the video here.

The Daily Dartmouth catches up on the press conference introducing Paul Cormier as Dartmouth's new head coach of men's basketball. I stopped by his office a couple of days ago and you read it here first that Corms has hit the ground running. He shared a few of his thoughts about changes he hopes to make and suffice it to say they are ambitious, overdue and should help.

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Site preparation work has begun for the building of Dartmouth's new Visual Arts Center. A few photos taken this week ...


The view toward from Lebanon Street toward the heating plant. Gone is Clement Hall.
The view back toward the arches of the Hopkins Center. Brewster International House, the former Brewster Hall, has been demolished.
A walkway from Lebanon Street to the Hood has been created. The Hop is to the left and the Visual Arts Building will be to the right.

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Below, construction continues on a non-Dartmouth building a block away ...
The new Six South Street Hotel goes up behind the post office in Hanover.

Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing some of you at the Green-White tomorrow. I'll have one or two ace statisticians with me – a certain Hanover senior and a certain soph.

Bucknell Posts Schedule

If it wasn't official before (it was ;-) it is now. Bucknell has posted its 2010 schedule and Dartmouth will be the Bison's third game after Duquesne and Marist. The game is listed as a 1 p.m. start.

The Bucknell schedule:

9/1 at Duquesne
9/11 at Marist
9/18 Dartmouth
10/2 Cornell
10/9 Penn
10/16 at Georgetown
10/23 at Lehigh
10/30 Lafayette
11/6 Fordham
11/13 Colgate
11/20 at Holy Cross

From first to worst? Jake Novak over at Roar Lions Roar, his Columbia football blog, opines that with Sacred Heart and Bucknell replacing New Hampshire and Colgate that Dartmouth has gone from the toughest schedule in the Ivy League to the easiest in two fell swoops. Jake also touches on some of the other reasons why things are looking up in Hanover.

Pencil Bucknell in for Sept. 18

Heading out to yesterday's postponed football practice, this was the sight in our driveway here on the shoulder of Moose Mountain.

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The end zone of Bucknell's Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium

Word finally broke yesterday afternoon about Dartmouth opening the season at Bucknell instead of Colgate. Here's one of the quotes from coach Buddy Teevens in last night's Big Green Alert:

“It's a nice opportunity for us to see a different team in a different environment. We just announced it to our team and the guys are excited about it.

"Now we have to do a little bit of preparation. We don't know much about them and they have a new coach down there. So we have to kind of go to school on what, when, and how they are doing things. But we do crossover with Bucknell occasionally with recruiting, so they will know some of our guys, and we will know some of theirs.”

Still nothing up on the Bucknell website as of 9:30 this morning. The official Dartmouth release on the change can be found here.

Colgate has a short release on its site here. From that release:

The Colgate University football team will face a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision opponent for the first time since 2003, when it travels north to the Carrier Dome on Saturday, September 25 to face Syracuse.

From the Syracuse website:

“We are pleased to play Colgate, a program with which we have a long-standing tradition,” said Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone. “In completing the schedule we exhausted all of our options to schedule a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent without adversely affecting our future schedules, but the options did not present that opportunity. Colgate is an in-state school with a solid program that played for the FCS National Championship in 2003.”

From a Syracuse blog:

(Colgate coach Dick) Biddle, who was a Colgate assistant in the early 1980s when the Raiders visited the Dome twice, said he remembers how excited players were to face a team like Syracuse.

“It’s quite an opportunity for us,” he said Wednesday. “Obviously, we’ll have our hands full.”

Teevens said Dartmouth spoke with seven potential opponents about a game. He did not name them. The Patriot League composite schedule shows Bucknell was the only school from the Ivy League's sister conference with an opening on Sept. 18. Interestingly, the schedule shows Bucknell with no scheduled games before Dartmouth. That would mean – barring another schedule change – that the Big Green has the chance to open with a team also playing its opener for the first time in years.

A little more about Bucknell in a Daily Item look at the start of spring football in Lewisburg, Pa.:

The Bison return 13 starters, including six on offense who will have to learn the new pro-style system the Bison will employ ...

Find Bucknell's spring recap here and its 2010 roster here.

And in case you were wondering, we drove directly from Bucknell to Hanover Sunday and with no traffic, just a little drizzle and a slow driver a good part of the way – me – we made the trip in about 7 hours, 15 minutes. That's a little more than two hours longer than the trip to Colgate meaning next fall's already arduous travel schedule (no games in New England) just got a little longer.

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The concussion discussion is growing louder. From a CBSsports.com story culled from wire reports:

An NCAA panel is recommending that all schools come up with a detailed plan on how to handle an athlete with a concussion, including exactly who has the authority to clear that person to play again.

In December, the NCAA committee responsible for safety recommended sidelining an athlete with concussion-related symptoms until cleared by a health care provider -- and for at least the rest of the day if he or she shows particularly worrisome symptoms.

Now, the panel wants schools to write up specific plans for how that evaluation process will work.

New Hampshire tight end Scott Sicko has done an about-face. The subject of numerous stories and news reports after his decision not to sign a free agent contract and pursue his education, Sicko has instead decided to sign with the Dallas Cowboys. The Manchester Union Leader has a story.

Sad news out of Boston where Hoong Wei Speicher, mother of former Dartmouth longsnapper Josh Speicher '09 has died. Click here for a notice and to sign a guest book.

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Finally, and I do mean finally, That Certain Hanover High senior had to turn in the paperwork today citing her college choice in order to be eligible for local scholarship help. After an agonizing few days she's thrilled with her decision, although the irony given the news of Dartmouth's schedule change is hard to ignore. (She's still on the waitlist at Dartmouth.) Her decision:

Teevens Interview Coming

Just talked to Buddy Teevens for a BGA premium story tonight. Practice was postponed but obviously there's a good story on the way. Check in later for Coach Teevens' thoughts about Bucknell and a few other things ....

Breaking News on Schedule

It's now official. Dartmouth will open the 2010 season at Bucknell instead of at Colgate. Check back in a bit for more details.

The Bucknell football website is here.

The Bison will be under the direction of new head coach Joe Susan after going 4-7 last year (2-7 Patriot League). Bucknell finished the 2009 season with an upset win over No. 13 Holy Cross.

Find the Bucknell 2009 results here.

Dartmouth is 4-1 all-time against Bucknell, winning the most recent game in Lewisburg, 31-13, in 1993.

The all-time series:
1963 - at Dartmouth 20, Bucknell 18
1989 - at Bucknell 36, Dartmouth 20
1991 - at Dartmouth 34, Bucknell 16
1992 - at Dartmouth 44, Bucknell 14
1993 - Dartmouth 31, at Bucknell 13

Green Alert Take: Bucknell will come out with its hair on fire in its first game under a new head coach, and winning on the road has been extremely difficult for Dartmouth in recent years, but make no mistake. Bucknell is not Colgate.

Green Alert Take II: Credit to Coach Buddy Teevens and the Dartmouth athletic administration for doing what it could to give a young and developing team a more manageable schedule.

Draft Day Photos

Defensive end Charles Bay accepts the No. 1 jersey symbolic of the top draft pick for the Green team yesterday in anticipation of Saturday's Green-White Game. At left is Pat Scorah, who made the pick. At the right is Clint Cosgrove, new commissioner of the Green-White. (Photos courtesy of Chris Feller, head of player relations and team communication.)

Center Austen Fletcher holds the cherished No. 1 jersey after being chosen first overall by White team captain Timmy McManus. The commissioner, as commishes tend to do, shared the photo. ;-)

Full rosters will be posted when they become available.

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 <{:-)

More Pros

Forgot to mention this earlier but Yale all-time punt leader Tom Mante has been invited to a Chicago Bears mini-camp and Harvard tackle James Williams, considered perhaps the best NFL prospect in the league coming into last fall, has signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Bucs.

Basketball Press Conference: Winning Matters

Reminder: The Green-White game is set for 10 Saturday morning on Memorial Field.

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Showers and 38 degrees are in the forecast for today's football practice. Brrr. ... Check in tonight on Big Green Alert Premium for a look at how things went Saturday and today.

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While the press conference introducing Paul Cormier as the "once and future" head coach of men's basketball was a bit of a dud from a media participation perspective – only one person asked a question until I tossed one out trying unsuccessfully to get the thing going – there was some good stuff that came out of the event, most of it from Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim.

President Kim told the audience that he watched the team closely this year, that he followed the NCAA Tournament with an eye toward what coaches might be available at season's end, and that he spent at least an hour with each of the finalists for the Dartmouth position.

A few excerpts from President Kim's remarks that Big Green football followers (and followers of all of the college's other sports) should appreciate:

A question every single one of the finalists asked me was, "Does Dartmouth care about winning?" And my answer was an unequivocal, "Of course we care about winning." Because if we win, what does it mean?

It means that these guys have worked their butts off over the spring and the summer to get ready for the next year. It means that these guys learned to work together as a team.

There was that great story about the Cornell team, all 14 living together in one house. Most of the description was frankly about how disgusting it was to be in that house. ... But that process brought them together in a way that was palpable. You could see it on the court.

That means if we win that these guys have learned how to work and play with each other in a way that goes beyond what the rest of the competition is. It means that these guys have learned something about persistence.

And you know, we are thinking now about what are the most important habits of the mind that we want to instill in our young people before they leave Dartmouth College? At the top of the list is persistence. So if these guys are persistent, if the coach can motivate them to be persistent and every day go out and work hard in preparation for the next year, it means not only are we winning but these guys have learned these skills.

So winning to me is simply an indication that our young people have done all that it takes, not only for success on the basketball court, but (they) have built skills that will serve them extremely well for the rest of their lives. Learning how to be tough. Learning how to get through when you don't think you can get through anymore.

I learned (that) first in two-a-days in football practice when I was in junior high and high school, learning how to fight through pain and get through adversity. I learned doing (what we called) killers. Those line running drills that you do at the end of practice every day.

And ...

I was a 5-10 Korean-American kid from Iowa and I wanted to play in the NBA. I was a gym rat all the way through junior high and high school. I learned lessons on the basketball court and the football field, on the golf course and the tennis courts that I know I never could have learned anywhere else.

And so I made it clear to everyone at Dartmouth College that we are going to do sports right. We are going to get it right. We are going to be competitive in everything we do. We are going to make sure that all of our athletes get the kind of support they need, but moreover, we are going to make athletics at Dartmouth a transformative experience. Not only for our athletes but for our entire community.

And ...

If in the ... sports that attract so much attention nationally, if we are doing well, the spirit of the whole campus is lifted and we want that to happen. And not only that. The spirit of all our alumni is lifted, and when our alumni spirits are lifted we do well.

And to the players who were at the press conference ...

I expect you all to come back huge and strong, jumping out of the gym and ready to work together to win an Ivy League championship very, very soon.

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While there was a story in the Columbia Spectator about the hiring of new coaches at Dartmouth and Cornell that mentioned Cormier being introduced yesterday, there was nothing in the Daily Dartmouth.

The story in the Valley News had one telling tidbit:

Cormier said he's been authorized to pursue qualified transfers from schools outside the Ivy League.

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From a Syracuse blog:

The hot rumor is that Syracuse will be filling the remaining spot on the 2010 football schedule with Colgate.

The Daily Princetonian has a look at the Princeton spring game, which wasn't really a game at all. From the story:

Perhaps the most striking change — and the one that (Bob) Surace and his coaching staff are trying to emphasize most — is the team’s pace of play. Since Surace took over at the helm of the program, one of his primary goals has been to make Princeton’s offense fast and aggressive so that opposing defenses have difficulty reading and stopping the Tigers’ drives.

As the Tigers move into their summer sessions, Surace’s focus is on improving the team’s overall strength and conditioning.

“In the spring, we went from being horrible (in terms of our strength and conditioning) to below average,” Surace said. “Now we have to go from being below average to excellent ..."

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For the second time in 4 1/2 years, there is unspeakable sadness on the Penn campus as another Quaker football player has died. Owen Thomas, chosen a Penn captain for next fall, was found dead Monday afternoon. Foul play is not suspected. The Daily Pennsylvanian has a story. In October of 2005 Penn's Kyle Ambrogi took his own life.

Green-White Time

For those of you who are wondering, the Green-White scrimmage is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Field. Details on the format, etc., will be posted later in the week.

Going Pro

Hard to believe but the forecast for Tuesday in these parts calls for 6-12 inches of snow at 1,000 feet and above. The world headquarters of Big Green Alert is at about 1,500 feet. Uh oh. I better get the lawn mowed today ;-)

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The list of Ivy Leaguers (and Dartmouth opponents) who are getting an NFL look is growing. Much of what follows is unofficial and it's not complete, but at this point here is what it looks like:

Brown
David Howard (Tennessee Titans) 7th round draft pick
Bobby Sewall (Titans) free agent
Buddy Farnham (Tampa Bay Bucs) free agent
Jimmy Develin (Cleveland Browns) free agent

Cornell
Bryan Walters (San Diego Chargers) free agent

Penn
Jake Lewko (Titans) free agent

Colgate
Pat Simonds (Philadelphia Eagles) free agent

Holy Cross
Dominic Randolph (New York Giants) free agent
Chris Poole (Giants) free agent

New Hampshire
Chad Kackert (Jacksonville Jaguars) free agent
Sean Ware (possible Carolina Panthers) free agent

For a list of all 19 FCS draft picks this year, click here.

Want to guess who participated in Harvard's spring football game? Andrew Hatch, the Harvard QB who played most recently at LSU. Yes, that LSU. From a story in the Harvard Crimson:

He was ruled ineligible to play by the NCAA last season, but (Harvard coach Tim) Murphy is optimistic that he will be eligible in 2010—though he noted that Hatch has not yet been cleared, and the team may not know until Sep. 1 about his availability.

Hatch completed four passes Saturday night for a total of 81 yards.

“We run a (much) more sophisticated, pro-style offense than LSU did,” Murphy said. “They were very simple, just kind of three-step stuff, bubble screens and get it to their fast guys. Here it’s a little bit more like a pro-style offense, at least from the pass-game standpoint. (Hatch has) shown flashes of brilliance, he’s just got to be more consistent.”

Still awaiting an announcement of some v-e-r-y interesting Dartmouth football news that an e-mailer from another Ivy League city has heard rumored as being in the works also. If you connect the dots it's sounding like it is going to happen. Stay tuned.

If I remember correctly, Princeton's Brian Taylor was the last (only?) Ivy League basketball player to leave early for the NBA, going to the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1972 draft. Well, it's finally happened again. Sort of.

This time it is a player giving up eligibility for the WNBA.

Columbia's Judie Lomax, the Ivy League's Player of the Year and the NCAA rebounding champion the past two years, will go to camp with the Connecticut Sun. But as the Columbia Spectator notes, there needs to be an asterisk. A transfer from Oregon State, Lomax had just one semester of eligibility left, meaning if she returned to Columbia's roster she either would play in the non-league season next year or sit out until the second semester and play in the league campaign.

Harvard center Brian Cusworth faced the same one-semester dilemma as a senior in the 2006-07 season after taking a medical redshirt.

Dartmouth will be holding a press conference today introducing Paul Cormier as the new men's basketball coach. Still can't believe that no one has headlined a story about his hiring this way:

Back to the Future III

Cormier follows in the footsteps of Chris Wielgus (women's basketball) and Buddy Teevens (football) who returned to Dartmouth for a second stint after enjoying success the first time around.)

And finally, it's Decision Week for high school seniors, including one who is blowing out candles today. I envy her choices, but wouldn't want to be the one who has to decide.

Soggy Sunday

Greetings again from Happy Valley where the Internet is back working. (Sorry about yesterday.) The rain is coming down and packing up the tent is not going to be much fun. Then it's off to Lewisburg, Pa., where that Certain Hanover High senior has a meeting with the Bucknell track/cross country coach.

Yes, I named the school. And the Patriot League school she visited last week was Colgate. Oh, and she's still got her fingers crossed that something might happen with the Dartmouth wait-list.

Those three schools are in an interesting dance right now, which is why I've named all three of them in one place for the first time. (TCHHSS also took a second visit to Hamilton College of the NESCAC last week, but while she thoroughly liked the school it's probably fallen off to the side.)

But I digress.

I'm sitting here in a tent in Bellefonte, Pa., trying to figure out what to write about high-level meetings among athletic department officials from the three schools. (Sunday night: I've edited something out because I don't want to betray any confidences.)

Do I share information (that is starting to spread) or sit on it out of concern that there's still some back-room wheeling-and-dealing going on that could be jeopardized if word gets out?

The final decision: I'm going to sit on it. Please don't hold it against me if you don't get the big scoop here, and understand that I'm trying to do the right thing.

Trust me, though, you'll want to keep checking out the blog because if Mrs. BGA heard it, albeit through a back channel, word is going to get out and soon.

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In NFL Draft news, Brown defensive lineman David Howard was chosen by the Tennessee Titans in the seventh round. Teammate Bobby Sewall is headed to the Titans as a free agent. ... Colgate's Pat Simonds is going the free agent route to the Philadelphia Eagles.

UNH's Scott Sicko had a free agent deal lined up with the Dallas Cowboys but has decided to walk away from football. Interesting story here.

In spring football action, Yale quarterback Patrick Witt completed 12-of-16 passes for 245 yards and three touchdowns in the Bulldogs' Blue-White game.

The Harvard Crimson-White game featured Collier Winters passing for 177 yards and running for 34 with two touchdowns.

Princeton held its spring game but unfortunately you have to watch the video to find out what happened because I haven't watched it. Sure wish they'd put up a story.

Penn has named its captains. Holy Cross also chose captains.

And finally, the forecast of rain kept the attendance down to 55,000 at Penn State yesterday, but the Blue-White game of Blue-White games was still quite the extravaganza.

Remember that commercial where the wife says something to the husband along the lines of, "I thought you were on the Internet." And he answers, "I finished it."

Well, that's about the way it is with the Soph and his unending T-shirt, baseball hat, souvenir hunt in State College. I'm not sure there isn't anything he hasn't been tempted to buy as we visited all the shops on College Avenue three or four times apiece. Needless to say, he did buy a "few" things. Oh, and we are bringing home some grilled stickies ;-)

Happy Valley Hello

It was a chilly night in the tent here in Nittany Nation. Then it was fishing this a.m. in the trout pond with that Certain Soph.

We'll be heading into State College in a few minutes for the annual T-shirt and souvenir shopping extravaganza with the two of 'em. Honestly, we will go into at least 15 shops and look at every last shirt and hat and thingie they can slap a logo on. But first, grilled sticky buns at Ye Olde College Diner.

Yesterday started with ice cream at the Creamery. The Soph had Peachy Paterno, of course. (Those funny Vermonters Ben & Jerry learned ice cream making via Penn State correspondence if the myth is correct.)

That Certain Senior and her mom will be heading an hour east this afternoon for a Society of Woman Engineers dinner at that Patriot League school. Tomorrow morning it's a breakfast for Presidential Fellows at the school and then Accepted Students day festivities. Not that any decisions about a school have been made. ;-)

While the Other Two are an hour east, that Certain Soph and I will be spending our time at University Park watching the Nittany Lions at Beaver Stadium in the Blue-White game, which will be broadcast live on ESPN2.

Greetings from Happy Valley

We ended up leaving at 4 a.m. and arrived at the campground at 1:30 with a 20-minute stop for lunch, one gas-up and five minutes at a rest area to adjust the "corn-hole" game bungeed to the roof rack.

BGA Premium will have a story tonight unless the Internet goes down. A spy in the sky has offered a few thoughts in the event something of real interest happens. Either way, check in tonight.

Don't have much for you right now because we are headed into State College. Check out what The Valley News and The Dartmouth had to say about the hiring of Paul Cormier as men's hoop coach.

Later

If the wi-fi is operational at our KOA I'll have a blog for you later today. We left the Moose Mountain world headquarters of Big Green Alert at 4 a.m., and hope to be in the vicinity of Happy Valley by 1 p.m. Long drive.

Hoop Coach Named

Paul Cormier to return as Dartmouth men's basketball coach.

In the Headlines

The main story from in the clip above (click to enlarge) is about quarterback guru Tom Martinez. It begins this way:

Tom Martinez is to the NFL what Hank Haney is to the PGA Tour. Martinez is the man behind the man.

You can read the full story here.

A regular reader sent along a PDF of the story not because of the "main bar," but because of that little box under the fittingly green headline 2014. In case you can't read it, when you enlarge the clip, here's what it says:

Wow.

While one future Big Green player has been a media darling, a former Dartmouth player has tried to dodge the media according to Vanity Fair, which identified the mystery Dartmouth football player whose fabulous New York City condo is featured in the upcoming film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The Chelsea penthouse is written up in a New York Times story and you can get a look inside the place in this slide show.

Editor's Note: As the Times story says, the former Dartmouth player who owns the apartment did not want to be named. I covered his career in Hanover and know him, so I'm going to respect his wishes and leave it to you to click through and find out who it is if you'd like. What I can tell you is he played in the mid-1980s and knew his way to the goal line. Maybe now he'll even subscribe ;-)

Tom-toms are drumming that there will be news on the men's basketball coaching front. Soon. Perhaps real soon.

And finally, BGA will be taking its annual April sabbatical from Thursday through Sunday as we head out to State College, Pa., for the Penn State Blue-White scrimmage. Those of you who have been regular visitors to this electronic neighborhood may return to your coffee because you've heard this before, but for the newbies out there, this is the one and only chance I have to bring those Certain Sports Fans to a Penn State "game."

No, unfortunately it's not a real game. But since before the Certain Two were born I've worked every single Saturday but one in the fall. (There aren't two kids their age who have seen more Dartmouth football games, home and away, probably ever.) But through osmosis or something, they've got a little Nittany Lion blood in them and always used to ask when I would take them to a Penn State game.

Because I work when Penn State plays that's a non-starter. So this will be the fifth year in a row that we'll do the next-best thing and drive eight hours out for the Blue-White game, camp at the nearby KOA, and enjoy the festivities along with 75,000 or so of our best friends ;-)

(In the interest of complete accuracy: Only two of us will be at the game this year. The other one and her mom will be going to an accepted students deal at a Patriot League school not that far away. It will be her second accepted students trip to a PL school this week.)

Anyway, I'll have a Dartmouth spring football story on Big Green Alert premium tomorrow night after practice – hopefully with a few additional thoughts from one of my spies in the sky. Saturday's action will be recapped next week. I'll be back at Tuesday's practice and there for each and every one the rest of the way.

As for the blog, if the KOA Internet is working, I'll be sure to touch base. If it's not working, all will be quiet on the Big Green Alert Blog front.

Another Name

Another day, brings another recruiting target, for another year down the road. And this is no small target.

According to Yahoo.com and Scout.com 6-foot-8, 311-pound Brian Moran of Atherton, Cal., and Sacred Heart High School already has offers from Dartmouth and Stanford. Moran's father, Matt, was an offensive lineman for the Cardinal. Find an early list of schools that have shown interest in him here. If nothing else, the list shows Dartmouth is in good company.

The Dartmouth Friends of Football Golf Classic is set for June 19 at Hanover Country Club. Find information about the event here and you can download the brochure/flyer on the event here. (I get a chuckle out of the use of the term Classic. I've seen the swings some of the football Friends have, and classic isn't the first word that comes to mind ;-)

Down at Penn work on the $25.7 million George A. Weiss Pavilion project making adaptive reuse of the area under one side of the Franklin Field grandstand is wrapping up. Check out the first few pictures of slide show in the Daily Pennsylvanian. For more information on the project, the news release announcing it can be found here. It will be interesting come Oct. 2 to see how this ambitious and innovative effort turned out.

Kudos to Dartmouth football opponents Brown, Penn, Yale, Holy Cross and Colgate for their efforts in helping build up the national bone marrow registry. No one asked, but it just seems to me that coordinating a league-wide effort is something the Ivy League office might think about in the future.

No news on the Dartmouth men's basketball coaching search. Yesterday the Cornell Sun had piece about candidates in Ithaca. Today the Columbia Spectator reports that sources have indicated interviewees include, "current NJIT head coach and former Columbia assistant Jim Engles, St. Mary’s associate head coach Kyle Smith, and University of New Orleans’ head coach Joe Pasternack."

Judging by the names that have surfaced for the three Ivy League openings, it doesn't appear that any of the schools has decided to follow the Harvard model and go after a big-name coach.

Another big day on the diamonds for Dartmouth as the baseball team notched an 8-2, 3-2 sweep of Yale and the softball team knocked off the Bulldogs, 7-3 11-3. Both teams are tied for the lead in their divisions. The baseball team is knotted with Brown (with a nod to Harvard, which swept the Bears yesterday) while the softball team is all-square with Harvard.

Spring practice No. 4 for the Dartmouth football team at 4:45 this afternoon. The goal, as it is after every practice from the preseason through the final game in November, is to have a full story on BGA by 10 p.m. Eastern. Sometimes it is a little later than that but it's always the goal ;-)

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.

Five Months From Today ...

With the season opening five months from today, it's as good a time as any to revisit one of the highlights from a year ago:


Last evening's Green Alert had a look at new defensive coordinator Don Dobes. He explained his approach this way:

“My defensive philosophy starts with the basics of being fundamentally sound, being aggressive, being attacking. Great enthusiasm and great energy. I think you have to play the defensive side with a passion for the game. I feel like you've got to run around like your hair is on fire, but at the same time be disciplined, be detail-oriented and be determined."

Another excerpt:

“I told the guys on my interview that when I started coaching at Penn in the early ‘80s the two teams that we had to beat were Yale and Dartmouth. Those were the two that we put up and said, ‘OK, this is where we want this Penn program to go.’ That's what (head coach Jerry Berndt) said. So that's why I feel we can be successful again here, and there's no reason why we can't get to that upper echelon and compete again.”

Players like (Zack) Walz and (Josh) Dooley and Anthony Gargiulo ‘06, who saw his CFL career and NFL hopes wrecked by a cheap-shot knee injury, are certainly familiar names to Dobes.

“Those are the kind of guys that we want to put up on the mantle and want to be like,” he said. “Part of it is getting these guys to understand that there was always a tough, junkyard dog mentality to this place. That's what we want to re-create.”

Dobes, by the way, will be coaching against his son Kevin in the 2010 finale at Princeton and he spoke about what that would be like.

One of the more impressive freshmen at Dartmouth a few years ago was a defensive back named Chance Robbins, of Jenks, Oklahoma. As happens occasionally with athletes as well as students who wouldn't know Alumni Gym from Alumni Hall, Robbins decided to transfer. I'd originally heard he was going to go to Arkansas to play but could never find his name on a roster. Instead he turned up Oklahoma State and appeared on this OSU roster. The twist in the story is that he ended up not playing for the Cowboys. Rather he turned his attention to poker and it sounds as if he's having some success with it.

Robbins isn't the only Dartmouth football player to turn to poker. Chip Reese, who died in 2007, was one of the absolute legends of the game. (Green Alert blog link) And Andrew Seidman '09 has done well as a poker player and author. (BGA blog link)

Holy Cross held its spring football game yesterday in Worcester. Not that there's much to learn about Dartmouth's Week 5 opponent from the writeup, but if you are so-inclined you can find it here. Of note, as the post-Dominic Randolph era begins at Holy Cross, the Crusader offense surrendered eight sacks and averaged 3.4 yards per play yesterday. Hard to say from a distance but senior Ryan Taggart might have put a strong claim in on the QB job by completing 11-of-13 passes for 102 yards.

Randolph, of course, was the straw that stirred the drink for the Crusaders last year, throwing for 3,776 yards and 34 touchdowns while also leading the team in rushing with 480 yards and seven touchdowns. Taggart was 2-for-2 passing as the top backup a year ago and ran for seven yards. Think things will be different in Crusader Country next fall?

It was a rough day for Dartmouth sports yesterday with the No. 7 women's lacrosse team seeing its chances for the Ivy League title damaged with a hard-fought, 9-6, loss to No. 6 Penn at Scully-Fahey Field and the men's team taking it on the chin against No. 6 Princeton, 16-2.

Baseball and softball both had their doubleheaders against Yale shifted from Saturday and Sunday to Sunday and Monday but even this morning the weather looks a little dicey.

And now for today's feel-good story, thanks to a regular reader. Here's a New York Times piece on a unique NFL hopeful:

(Brandon) Crawford, like so many others, has dreamed of being in the N.F.L. since he was a child. But he has dreamed much longer than the others hoping to be selected this week. Crawford is 33, an age when most professional athletes are icing their knees and pondering retirement.

Finally, that Certain Hanover High Senior is headed to central New York today to overnight at a couple of schools on her list, one from the Patriot League and one in the NESCAC. Later in the week she'll visit central Pennsylvania to overnight at another Patriot League school. She'll be meeting again with the coaches at all three schools. Then the hard part comes ;-)

Is the Next One Out There?

Practice at 9:45 this morning. Hopefully the snow that is now falling up here on the mountain isn't falling down in town. Check BGA tonight for an interview with new defensive coordinator Don Dobes and a look at today's session.

On a slow day, something to digest at breakfast, or lunch if you slept in:

Ivy League Rookies of the Year*
1981 Derrick Harmon, RB, Cornell
1982 Mike Caraviello, QB, Dartmouth
1983 Doug Butler, QB, Princeton
1984 Rich Comizio, RB, Penn
1985 Chris Flynn, RB, Penn
1986 Craig Morton, WR, Dartmouth
1987 Bryan Keys, RB, Penn
1988 Solomon Johnson, RB, Columbia
1989 John McNiff, RB, Cornell
1990 Matt Brzica, QB, Dartmouth
1991 Jay Fiedler, QB, Dartmouth
1992 Pat Goodwillie, LB, Penn
1993 Miles Macik, WR, Penn
1994 Eion Hu, RB, Harvard
1995 Sean Morey, WR, Brown
1996 Isaiah Kacyvenski, LB, Harvard
1997 Todd Tomich, DB, Yale
1998 Johnathan Reese, RB, Columbia
1999 Chas Gessner, WR, Brown
2000 Dante Balestracci, LB, Harvard
2001 Steve Jensen, DB, Dartmouth
2002 Josh Dooley, LB, Dartmouth
2003 Ed McCarthy, OL, Yale
2004 Steve Morgan, K/P, Brown
2005 Mike McLeod, RB, Yale
2006 Austin Knowlin, WR, Columbia
2007 Alex Gross, LB, Columbia
2008 Matthew Hanson, DB, Harvard
2009 Trevor Scales, RB, Harvard
*Sophomores of the Year until freshmen were made eligible for varsity football

Total Rookies of the Year
6 Dartmouth
5 Harvard, Penn
4 Columbia
3 Brown, Yale
2 Cornell
1 Princeton

Is No. 7 out there for the Big Green this fall? The season, by the way, starts five months from tomorrow out in Hamilton, N.Y.

In this excerpt from Thursday's BGA, new offensive coordinator Jim Pry, who came over from Illinois, talks about the first couple of days of practice:

"There's a difference, of course, between the players I'm used to but I’ve been impressed. These kids have really pushed themselves.

“I'm excited about their enthusiasm. How much they want to win. How much they want to play. If that continues for 12 practices I'm going to be happy. They've got a little fire in their eyes.”

And ...

“These guys are like sponges. They want to learn. They want you to coach them. They want you to teach them new things. It's fun that way.”

Holy Cross is holding its spring game at 10 this morning. Hopefully the weather in Worcester is better than it is in Hanover today.

Better Late Than Never

Dartmouth defenders work on staying low Thursday afternoon. Actually, they don't have a choice with this piece of equipment ;-)

---

And now for today's blog ...

Former Dartmouth Director of Sports of Information Art Petrosemolo has created a slide show of photos he shot at last year's Cornell game and set to music. Find it here.

To be honored at the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame Northern Connecticut Chapter Scholar Athlete Banquet next month is 6-foot-2, 250-pound defensive tackle recruit Martin Pomykala.

New Dartmouth offensive coordinator Jim Pry was the subject of last night's posting on Big Green Alert Premium. Said Pry of the quarterback derby he is overseeing:

“I've come into this with truly an open mind. And I think I've got four good guys. Right now anyone could do it. That's the great thing. I like it a lot. Who knows? We might be a three-quarterback system before it's over. Whatever we can do to get the ball controlled and get (time off) the clock and score points.”

To see a receiving workout by NFL hopeful Buddy Farnham of Brown, click here. Keeping in mind how atrocious the mud was during the Brown game last year in Providence, do check out the surface of the practice field Farnham was catching passes on. ... And the practice field alongside it.

Holy Cross has formally announced its recruiting class. For a list and bios, click here. (A reminder: Dartmouth's class won't be official until all the paperwork is returned at the end of the month, at which point BGA will have a look at the full class.)

Dartmouth plays lacrosse under the lights at Scully-Fahey Field. It plays soccer under the lights at Whitey Burnham Field. Football? Not so much. The Harvard Crimson has a story that notes how Night Lights Brighten Experience at Harvard Stadium.

Now for a couple of stories outside of sports from today's Daily Dartmouth. One details a change in reporting structure for the college administration. The other notes what on first glance seems to be a welcomed change in the Hanover police policy regarding underage drinking on campus.

And finally, keep your fingers crossed that the Internet gets going on the mountain before tomorrow morning. An aside: Another bear claw and I'll explode.

Snow Delay

Here's the view out back this morning. We got about 3-4 inches of snow up on the mountain. Town got a dusting at most. ... Internet was down on the mountain so I've driven into town and am encamped at Panera Bread to use their wi-fi. (Love the bear claws.) I've got a few things to catch up on before I can get to the blog so check back in a bit.

Scenes from Spring

Dartmouth players make use of some seriously oversized hackey-sacks during Tuesday's first spring practice. (Click to supersize pictures)
Quarterbacks Greg Patton, left, and Conner Kempe take shotgun snaps.
The home office of BGA on a day sunny enough to require an audible with the laptop.

Looking at the Rosters

Day Two of Dartmouth's spring football on tap. The Big Green will be on Memorial Field again at 4:45. There will be a story on the BGA site tonight.

*

Seven of Dartmouth opponents have updated their rosters, weeding out the graduating seniors and players who have left the squad. Incoming freshmen, of course, are not yet listed. Updated rosters are available for:

Columbia
Cornell
Penn (with updated bios)
Princeton (with updated bios)
Colgate (with updated bios; year in school not updated)
Holy Cross
Sacred Heart

Something I did not realize until working my way through the rosters: Cornell has a transfer quarterback from New Hampshire. Josh Vick's UNH bio is here. He completed 3-of-3 passes for 38 yards last fall as the No. 3 QB and ran twice for a gain of 10 yards.

The Daily Dartmouth has a look at the Dartmouth men's basketball coaching search. Most of it is a reprise of what has already been reported in the local daily. A correction and an addition on the list of candidates identified in the story. Paul Cormier is described as a former Dartmouth assistant. In fact, he was the Dartmouth head coach. Missing from the story was the final candidate who visited yesterday: Albany coach Will Brown.

The Columbia Spectator has a story on the basketball coaching search down in New York City.

The feel-good story of the week (or month, or year) was shared by a regular reader ;-) You aren't going to believe this one, but be sure to check it out for a story of real courage.

Another reader sent along this link from the Daily Princetonian that says, "If Princeton is in last place in the meal plan race, Dartmouth is definitely in first."

Two thoughts:
• It's highly doubtful that the Dartmouth football coaches, players and their families would agree.
• Having visited (and eaten at) a number of colleges that draw from the same student demographic as Dartmouth over the past year, it's highly doubtful that many in a Certain Family would agree. Please excuse the pun, but I suppose it is a matter of taste (and quantity).

And finally, for those of you asking ... that Certain Hanover Senior had a nice chat yesterday with a teacher who had daughters attend each of her likely final two choices. Good research. At practice Tuesday, I had a chance to speak with an alum who had daughters who went one of the schools left standing. And lest you think Dartmouth has fallen completely off the radar, it hasn't. Stay tuned because Final Decision Day is 15 days away.

A Different Perspective

Editor's Note: Off on a freelance interview in southern Vermont again today. I won't be back until mid-to-late afternoon so if there are updates, they'll have to wait. If you run Safari as your browser and you don't see last night's story on Green Alert premium, clear your cache and reload. If you forgot your password I'll get it to you tonight.

Dartmouth kicked off spring practice on a breezy but beautiful Tuesday. This is the way last night's report on Big Green Alert premium began:

HANOVER – The shocker was seeing Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens in the Memorial Field home stands about six or eight rows up for a few minutes during the first of the Big Green’s 12 spring practices Tuesday.

With new offensive coordinator Jim Pry running quarterback drills, Teevens was free to wander around Memorial Field observing not just how the offensive drills went under Pry but also how defensive drills proceeded under Don Dobes, the new coordinator on that side of the ball.

“You can see more,” admitted Teevens, who has been very hands on with the quarterbacks in his first five years back at Dartmouth. “To be able to watch and see the guy that's dragging his butt, the guy that's breaking his assignment, the guy that's dropping the ball, missing the pickup, overthrowing the ball? I'm a notetaker. I've got three pages of notes. Pluses and minuses.”

While you’d expect a few coordinator-withdrawal pains at least at the start, Teevens didn’t seem out of sorts about the change.

“One of the big things I think is the comfort level I have with the coordinators,” he explained. “They are savvy guys. They've been around. I trust them, what they do and how they do it."

The report went on to detail comings and goings in the program, updated injury situations and position changes, and included Teevens' take on the early quarterback depth chart.

Not that you would ever put much faith in what a blogger writes, would you?

Speaking of bloggers, the Brown Bear blogger has lists of what he projects as the top offensive and top defensive players in the Ivy League next fall. Dartmouth has someone on each side of the ball, which might not be something for a Penn or Harvard to crow about, but is worth noting.

Sophomore Nick Schwieger is one of two tailbacks mentioned (the other is Penn's Lyle Marsh) while sophomore corner Shawn Abuhoff gets a nod on the other side of the ball. It's easy to quibble with selections for stories like this, but it's hard to argue with either of the Dartmouth players mentioned.

The Cornell football home page has a story under the headline, Cornell Football Coaching Staff Has Experience Second To None.

The Daily Pennsylvanian has a story about picking a new Quaker mascot. From the story:

While the mascot is known for roaming the sidelines at football and basketball gamesn the Quaker appears for a host of other sports, such as volleyball in the fall or baseball and women’s lacrosse come spring.

Additionally, the Quaker often makes appearances at weddings, parties and even the occasional business meeting.

Sounds pretty cool. I wonder if the Big Green mascot does things like that? Oh, I forgot. There isn't one.

Bucknell University has a new president from Stanford who supposedly was a member of the Toby Gerhart for Heisman" Facebook group, but that's not why he's mentioned here. Rather it is the first comment after the story about John C. Bravman that should bring a smile to your face. It says:

"Dr. Bravman To borrow from a centuries old reference to a school to our north, Bucknell "is a small university but there are those of us who love it."

Spring Outlook Posted

For a thorough look at Dartmouth's football prospects heading into the spring, visit the school's official football website.

Coach Buddy Teevens is quoted this way:

“We have new offensive and defensive coordinators, so spring practice will give us the opportunity to improve our understanding of the schematics on both sides of the ball, not to mention special teams. We have a good bit of depth and great numbers on campus for practice, giving us a high degree of competitiveness amongst the players.”

Countdown to Spring Action

Being a one-man band I can't promise this every day, but if Dartmouth has resolved its "public" wi-fi issues, I'll have Twitter updates today throughout practice here. If you don't see them, I wasn't able to get access.

With spring football starting, this is as good a time as any to offer an excerpt from the final Optimist and Pessimist column that appeared on Green Alert Premium shortly after last season concluded:

Just two seniors who were regulars this fall are graduating – safety Peter Pidermann and offensive lineman Alex Toth. Could Dartmouth ever say that before?

That means, with wide receiver Niles Murphy eligible to file for a medical redshirt season, every player who scored a point for Dartmouth can return next fall. The top seven pass catchers, two lead rushers, two quarterbacks who started games and the entire offensive line sans Toth are all back. And that's not even counting Timmy McManus, who will make a huge contribution no matter where he plays.

On the other side of the ball, the top five tacklers return and with safety Tony Pastoors in the same situation as Murphy, every player who had double-digit tackles this fall except Pidermann has the opportunity to come back. That’s 18-of-19 double-figure tacklers back if you are counting.

Placekicker Foley Schmidt, kickoff specialist Don Kephart and punter Matt Kelly all return as well.

With so many young players getting experience this fall, another year of strength training ... and recent history pointing to another solid incoming freshman class, the future is blindingly bright.

And it doesn’t hurt that while Dartmouth is returning virtually everyone, other teams are losing significant star power.

That was from one of the weekly Optimist and Pessimist columns. The Optimist goes on to list what he feels are:

• Two teams Dartmouth should be a heavy favorite against
• Five games that should be a tossup
• Three tough outs

The Pessimist goes on to list:

• Two teams Dartmouth should be a favorite against
• Five that are "close" to being a tossup
• Three teams he says it is "not happening against"

Not a whole lot of difference between The Optimist and The Pessimist heading into the fall, which is curious.

*

While Dartmouth is just getting started late this afternoon, Penn has already wrapped up spring ball. For a pretty thorough look at how things shaped up in West Philly, visit the Penn website.

Speaking of spring ball, venerable broadcaster Bob Fouracre will call the Holy Cross game on Internet radio this Saturday at 11. He'll even have interviews and highlights after the contest.

Kudos to Brown football for joining the bone marrow testing drive. A brief about the effort in Providence can be found here.

Incoming Oklahoma freshmen Austin Katigan and Joe Dowdell get a mention in a NewsOK.com blurb. The piece states the obvious to anyone who has been paying attention:

Like I said last week, former Oklahoma receiver Jarrail Jackson has opened up the Dartmouth campus to Oklahoma recruits. Jackson is an assistant for Dartmouth.

The Columbia Spectator writes about the importance of big bucks in the search for a basketball coach in Morningside Heights and the potential attractiveness of bringing in a big name the way Harvard did when it lured Tommy Amaker three years ago.

*

Dartmouth appears to be on the verge of wrapping up interviews with finalists for its vacant head coaching position. It sounds as if today will see a visit by former coach Paul Cormier, currently an advance scout for the Golden State Warriors. "Corms" steadily built a solid team the first time around. After a 5-21 debut season in 1984-85, the Big Green went 11-15 the next fall, 15-11 the following year and then put together back-to-back seasons of 18-8 and 17-9. Only a couple of missed foul shots at the end of regulation in the final game of the '87-'88 season kept Dartmouth from a tie for its only Ivy League title since 1959. Cormier left Dartmouth for Fairfield after the 1990-91 season.

In other business – literally – the Daily Dartmouth has a story about changes in store for the Hanover Inn. The D writes:

College officials have decided to employ an outside agency — real estate firm Carpenter & Company — to serve as the asset manager of the Hanover Inn, Senior Vice President Steven Kadish wrote in a letter to Hanover Inn employees on Monday. College officials hope the appointment will allow the College to focus its financial resources on research and education instead of subsidizing the Inn, which has lost money over the past few years, Kadish said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

*

And finally, that certain Hanover High sophomore went 1-for-2 with an RBI and a run scored in his first jayvee baseball game of the spring. Batting third, his sister popped out to right and hit a screaming liner directly at an outfielder as her team was, um, "mercy ruled" in its opener. On the plus side, she threw out the only runner who tried to steal on her early in the game. On the other side, a pickoff throw to first was low and got past the first baseman. Both teams are now off until after next week's spring break, which should clarify a certain college choice.

Spring Ahead

Spring practice begins tomorrow afternoon. The forecast is for sun and 61 degrees. Thursday is supposed to be almost identical while the five-day shows Saturday as "showers and 48 degrees."

There will be same-night coverage on Big Green Alert premium following every practice except the April 22 and 24 practices when Family BGA will be making our annual trek to State College for the Penn State Blue-White game (and also revisiting a contender as The Great College Decision of 2010 winds down). If I can corral a correspondent to pull together a few observations on the two days in question, I'll post those on the site. Otherwise, I'll catch you up on everything you missed when I get back.

• Tuesday, April 13
• Thursday, April 15
• Saturday, April 17
• Tuesday, April 20
• Thursday, April 22
• Saturday, April 24
• Tuesday, April 27
• Thursday, April 29
• Saturday, May 1 (Spring game)
• Tuesday, May 4
• Thursday, May 6
• Saturday, May 8

Kudos to the Daily Dartmouth for anticipating the start of spring football with a Q&A featuring defensive lineman Eddie Smith and tailback Nick Schwieger with contributions from defensive end Matt Oh. From the Q&A:

Why is it a different story for this season?

(Schwieger): Basically we’re experienced. We’ve gotten a lot bigger, both individually and as a team. We’ve got a lot of people vying for that quarterback spot. And it’s no longer just freshmen and sophomores. We have juniors out there with two years of experience under their belts. To be honest, we have some ballers out there on the field, some really athletic kids that are going to make a lot of plays. It’s time to rise up.

The Salem News in Massachusetts has a look at the All-Decade baseball team from its coverage area and it includes a former Dartmouth two-sport athlete. From the story:

Jason Blydell, Swampscott: Perhaps the most gifted athlete on our list, Blydell had the range to run down nearly anything in the outfield and the skills to make breathtaking snares that turned extra-base hits into outs. Blydell hit .330 his senior year and helped the Big Blue win Division 3 North baseball crowns in both 2002 and 2003.

Blydell, a 2004 grad who also holds the Swampscott single season record for touchdown receptions (17), played both football and baseball at Dartmouth College. He is now serving his country as an officer in the United States Marines Corps.

Memories are pouring into the Penn website about the legendary Dan Staffieri – "Coach Lake" – who died last week. One of them is by Dan Liebsch '98. Dan wrote:

In the early 1990s I played football for the Little Quakers, and Coach Lake psyched us up before one of our home games at Franklin Field. I went on to play for Dartmouth, and after we played Penn in 1997 I went over to him on the field. Before I could introduce myself he said, "Northeast Philadelphia. Germantown Academy. Little Quakers. How are you, Dan?" Could not believe it. I was always jealous that Penn had him as part of their program. An icon that will be missed.

Another from Buddy Teevens:

As a competitor through the years, I admired Lake's love of his teams, loyalty to his players, and enthusiasm for the game. We'll miss seeing him from across the way.

Spotted at yesterday's baseball game: Middlebury hoops coach Jeff Brown, who acknowledged that he would be doing an on-campus interview today for the vacant Dartmouth head coaching position.

And finally, the spring sports season starts in Hanover today for those two Certain Hanover High student-athletes. To his credit, the soph said his sister is in her final season and he encouraged us when there is a conflict to catch her games so I'll be in nearby Lebanon this afternoon if I can get a freelance assignment done in time.