It might be a tad premature to name a top male athlete of the 21st century but the Middleton Times-Tribune outside of Madison, Wis., could have done worse than pick Casey Cramer '04, who starred in three sports at his high school, earned All-America honors as a tight end at Dartmouth and then spent five years in the NFL, once earning the league's Special Teams Player of the Week honors. (LINK)
For anyone who saw the relentless blocker and second-leading receiver in Dartmouth history play, this quote from one of his high school coaches will ring true:
“The level of his work ethic in the weight room, the level of his work ethic on the playing field, the level of his competitiveness, the level of his courage to be a leader were all things that he did better than pretty much everybody before and after him at MHS. He had one speed and that speed was all out, all of the time. He never took a play off in a game, he never took a rep off in practice, he never took a rep off in the weight room, and he was arguably the best leader we have ever had.”
•
From CBSSports regarding former Dartmouth corner Isiah Swann (LINK):
Swann (undisclosed) went unclaimed on waivers Monday, per the league's official transactions report.
The Bengals waived Swann with a failed physical designation Sunday. The undrafted rookie out of Dartmouth will work to latch on elsewhere when healthy.
•
Devin Darrington, who ran for 734 yards and seven touchdowns for Harvard last year while earning a spot on the All-Ivy League second team, has entered the transfer portal. A story on ESPN said he cited the Ivy League's decision to cancel all fall sports as a 'big part' of his decision." (LINK)
From the story:
“Darrington cautioned that all options are on the table, however, including returning to Harvard or even taking the semester off in order to preserve the year of eligibility.”
While Darrington's name hasn't yet made it onto the unofficial 247Sports transfer portal listing, seven other Ivy League players – most grad transfers – do appear:
• Harvard's Liam Shanahan, a 6-foot-5, 304-pound offensive lineman will grad transfer to LSU.
• Harvard's John Stivers, a 6-3, 235 tight end, will grad transfer to Arizona.
• Brown's Brendan Pyne, a 6-foot-, 215 linebacker, will grad transfer to Colorado.
• Columbia's Oren Milstein is looking for a home as a grad transfer kicker.
• Columbia's Mozes Mooney, a wide receiver, will have two years of eligibility wherever he lands.
• Cornell's Nicholas Null, a kicker, is a grad transfer with no official new school yet.
• Princeton's Jaylen Bailey, a 5-11, 210 linebacker, is in the portal after one year at Princeton.
Columbia's Joseph Scowden, a 6-4, 290 offensive lineman, was reported to be in the portal in a Rivals tweet but is not on the 247 list.
Dartmouth corner DJ Avery, who would have been a fifth-year senior this fall, has tweeted his move onto the transfer portal but does not show up in the 247Sports listing, either. Nor does Dartmouth grad Zach Sammartino, who has been widely reported to be on FBS radars after playing last fall as a fifth-year senior with the Big Green.
•
FootballScoop is talking with coaches whose seasons have been called off and following up on the Q&A with Brown's James Perry now has a piece with Columbia's Al Bagnoli. (LINK)
Asked about spring football, the dean of Ivy coaches says (italics are mine):
I’m the chair for the Ivy League coaches this year, coincidentally, and nobody has given us a specific metric. But obviously if there’s progress on a vaccination, if the numbers improve significantly, I think it’s every institution’s desire to reopen fully for the spring if it’s safe to do so. If they can reopen safely and include all four classes, then you have a possibility of a spring Ivy League-only season. It’s going to take some improvement, whether it’s in the cure or in the infection rate that we currently have now.
•
The Northeast Conference, home of recent Dartmouth opponents Sacred Heart and Central Connecticut, is the latest FCS league to shut down for the fall. (LINK)
Green Alert Take: Unless I've missed someone, scheduled 2020 Dartmouth opponent Marist is now the only FCS school in the northeast that hasn't yet pulled the plug on the season.
•
The difficulty of playing football this fall, and even of bringing students back to campus is on display at Rutgers where 15 football players have tested positive after a campus party, putting the program is on hold. (LINK)
•
WMUR TV out of Manchester, N.H., has a piece about a protest regarding Dartmouth cutting the swim teams. (LINK)
The last time Dartmouth tried to drop swimming a very effective PR maneuver saw the team put up for sale on eBay. This time, the story notes:
"They placed 853 pairs of goggles on the campus green, each representing area children who have received donated swimming lessons from members over the last 5 years."
The lede of the WMUR story missed the first reason given the college for dropping the sports, returning athletic admissions slots to the general student body:
Varsity athletes at Dartmouth College have staged a protest after their swim and dive team was cut for budget reasons.
•
CNBC has a story under the headline, The top 10 private colleges that pay off the most in 2020 (LINK).
The top five:
1. Stanford
2. Harvard
3. Chicago
4. Princeton
5. Dartmouth
Find the top 50 HERE.
•
And finally, sad news from the glory days of Dartmouth athletics with the passing of Oz Griebel, a pitcher on Dartmouth's 1970 College World Series team who also played a little football for the Big Green as a linebacker. Griebel, 71, died a week after being struck by a car while jogging in Pennsylvania.
From a Hartford Courant story (LINK):
A longtime and outspoken fixture in Connecticut, Griebel twice ran for governor and started a new push for election reforms over the past year.
For 16 years he led the MetroHartford Alliance, the region’s chamber of commerce.
Connecticut governor Ned Lamont said of Griebel:
“He loved this state and the people who live in it, and he enthusiastically believed that its best days are ahead.I loved listening to his spirited energy whenever he spoke about the opportunity to make Connecticut and the Hartford region an even better place to live and work.
“We can all take a page from his commitment to work across the aisle and remove politics from policy,” Lamont continued. “He will be missed, and I extend my deepest sympathy to his family. There is no place like Oz, and there was no one like Oz.”
A story in the Connecticut Mirror mentions his athletic achievements. (LINK)
•
EXTRA POINT
This is not a place to go on about the world's troubles but occasionally . . .
While much of the country struggles with COVID-19, Vermont reported just one new case yesterday and has only one hospitalized patient fighting the illness in the entire state. There have been 56 deaths attributed to the coronavirus in Vermont since the pandemic began with none in more than six weeks. The New Yorker has a story under the headline, What Vermont and Its History Might Teach the Nation About Handling the Coronavirus. (LINK)
New Hampshire, meanwhile, added 13 positive cases yesterday and with two more deaths has lost 411 lives to the disease.
As of tomorrow, all Vermonters will be required "to wear masks or cloth facial coverings any time it is not possible to maintain a physical distance of at least six feet with others from outside their household." That leaves New Hampshire as the only New England state without a mask mandate. (LINK)
Live Free or Die, indeed.
