Monday Musings

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Name recognition is not a problem for Harvard, Yale or Princeton. When a football coach from HYP wants to stop by a high school or calls a home to talk with an Ivy League-calibre athlete, no one says, "Harvard, what's that?"

It's different at Darthmouth University. (sic)

Dartmouth College football coach Buddy Teevens isn't involved with the Practice Like Pros movement for name recognition. Not his and not Dartmouth's.

But make no mistake about it. That's a side benefit of his involvement with the movement. Consider this from the Tulsa World (LINK)

Terry O’Neil, a former successful television producer, has a simple message: Save the high-impact tackling for where it matters most — in games.

He visited the Oklahoma Coaches Association convention Wednesday and asked rhetorically, “You want to blow up your teammate? Who are you hurting? Us?”

O’Neil attributes the quote to Dartmouth College coach Buddy Teevens, who made a winner of the Big Green with safer techniques and by limiting practice contact.

“He’s one of the only (Division I) coaches who can say to a parent, ‘If your son comes to Dartmouth, he will never tackle or be tackled except for 10 days a year (during games),’” O’Neil said.

Teevens spoke at the Louisiana high school coaches convention a couple of weeks back. High school coaches in that state who didn't know of him or Dartmouth now do.

I don't think he was at the Oklahoma coaches convention but the next time he or one of his assistants calls a high school in Oklahoma where they might not have recruited previously, they may hear, "Oh yeah. Dartmouth. You're the school that started winning when it stopped tackling in practice. I'm looking forward to finding out how you did it."

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Good news for That Certain Dartmouth '14, who graduated with an earth science major and an education minor. After working at Colorado National Monument last summer she has spent this summer as a season ranger in Yellowstone working with the park's youth conservation corps. She just learned that she'll be extended at the park from the end of her current assignment until late November.

She's had good indication that another season position will crop up after this one is finished, so . . . fingers crossed. Seasonal positions are the route into year-round careers in the National Park Service and hopefully That Certain '14 will make it all the way through that door in the not-too-distant future.