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Cleveland Browns publication Dawg Pound Daily has a lengthy story under the headline, Cleveland Browns building diverse organization; The Cleveland Browns are determined to build a culturally, socially and ethnically diverse organization. Scroll down and there's a bit about former Dartmouth assistant Callie Brownson, now the NFL team's chief of staff. (LINK)
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Princeton's Town Topics has a lengthy piece about Tiger quarterback Kevin Davidson’s bid to earn a spot on the Browns’ roster HERE.
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Four Ivy League alums and a coach Dartmouth is familiar with are on The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame's 2021 ballot.Princeton running back Keith Elias, Harvard receiver Carl Morris and defensive linemen Marty Peterson of Penn and John Zanieski of Yale are on the ballot along with former Colgate head coach Dick Biddle.
Green Alert Take: It's strange to see the name of Keith Elias without Jay Fiedler's name nearby. The Princeton back is on the ballot and Fiedler, who shared the Ivy League spotlight equally with Elias in the early '90s, is not because of this criteria for consideration:
"First and foremost, a player must have received First-Team All-America recognition by a selector that is recognized by the NCAA and utilized to comprise its consensus All-America teams."Fiedler was a third-team All-America selection in 1992 but never made the first team.
Green Alert Take II: Given the first-team requirement, Dartmouth's candidates since Fiedler would be tight end Casey Cramer (2002 first-team All-America), Shawn Abuhoff (first-team in 2010) if they name a return specialist, linebacker Flo Orimolade (first-team in 2016) if they name an "athlete," and corner Isiah Swann, a consensus All-American in 2018.
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Jay Greenberg starts his analysis of Princeton’s incoming football class with the quarterbacks, noting that coach Bob Surace is welcoming three QBs in a recruiting class for the first time since becoming head coach in 2010. (LINK)
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The New York Times has a revealing story under the headline, Inside the Sophisticated Campaign to Save Men’s Running at Brown. (LINK)
From the story about how the program was saved:
An early salvo came the day after the university’s announcement, when Melissa Perlman, a publicist who ran at Brown, sent journalists a current student’s essay. He accused Brown of undermining diversity as it sacrificed a program that had molded Olympians.
And . . .
The campaign’s supporters were contemplating escalation, like advertisements in The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal that together would have cost tens of thousands of dollars.Green Alert Take: The successful push to restore Brown men's track, and particularly the idea of placing potentially embarrassing advertisements in leading newspapers, calls to mind Dartmouth's swimmers and swimming alums placing an ad in eBay offering the Big Green swim program for sale when it was about to be cut. (LINK) It's hard not to believe that kind of embarrassment played a role in swimming coming off the chopping block in Hanover.
Green Alert Take II: You'll have to excuse me but this is the perfect opportunity to climb back up on the soap box again and rail about the inherent unfairness of football being the only Ivy League sport not allowed to go on to the postseason. I've got to believe that a similarly innovative PR campaign showcasing the Ivy League's discrimination against one group of student-athletes would ultimately result in the conference dropping the ban against football participating in the postseason.
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And finally, a friend of Big Green Daily has shared a piece from the Houston Chronicle about a couple of Dartmouth track athletes and the surprising role the pandemic in how their love story played out. (LINK)
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EXTRA POINTIt was a little thing but it brought a smile.
We have an alarm that gives off a tone when someone pulls into our driveway. It's not because we are concerned about intruders or anything, but simply because our house faces the view rather than the driveway and it makes it easier to greet people when someone comes to the door.
It wasn't long after we moved here last year that Griff the Wonder Dog came to understand what the alarm means. Every time he hears it he runs to the full-length glass door to see what's up. He doesn't bark – we've never heard him utter a real bark – but he is a curious fellow.
Yesterday a FedEx truck pulled into the driveway and left a package against the door. I was on the phone and by the time I got to the door the truck was pulling out. Leaning against the door was a package – with a large dog biscuit balanced atop it. ;-)
