It has been far too long since BGA Daily has brought you word of a Dartmouth commitment so a tweet from Sean Harmon, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound tight end/defensive end from Bishop Blanchet HS in Seattle announcing Dartmouth as his college choice is certainly welcome news. (Special nod to the loyal BGA subscriber who dug this one up. ;-)
Also a basketball player in the winter and a weight man on the track, Harmon was offered by Dartmouth last February and just tweeted his decision. He also holds offers from Columbia and Central Washington and was invited to play in the Tiki Bowl in Hawaii this winter.
🟢All in!⚪️ I am so excited for this opportunity! (Contingent upon acceptance) pic.twitter.com/DDKnulfrgj
— Sean Harmon (@sean_harmon11) August 17, 2020
(Click graphic to watch his highlights.)
•
As we continue to riddle out how Dartmouth (and the Ivy League) might be able to play sports this winter and spring with just half the student body on campus, consider this from a story in The Dartmouth (LINK):
Though many students expected to receive two terms of on-campus enrollment for the upcoming academic year, only around 60 percent of undergraduate students received two terms, according to an email sent to campus by Dean of the College Kathryn Lively on Aug. 3.
37 percent of the undergraduate student body received only one term on campus. Lively said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the one-term assignments were partly due to the “constantly changing” COVID-19 case numbers and the volatility of enrollment capacity for future terms, and partly because some students only chose one in-residence term. Conversely, some international students, who would have otherwise had trouble leaving the country, received three terms.
And . . .
Lively added that the College would reevaluate term capacity and finalize enrollments for winter term in Oct., for spring term in Jan. and for summer term in April.
And . . .
“I totally understand the pain and frustration of some students who only got one term, but we can’t commit to future terms just yet,” Lively said. “We could need to reduce capacity further in winter, or we could have a vaccine by spring, and things like that could change our capacity.”
•
As Dartmouth students try to deal with their on-campus assignments this fall, Big Green athletes – particularly seniors and most of all fifth-year seniors – are trying to make sense of what this year means to them. They are not alone. The Associated Press has a story under the headline, Mulligan: Extra year of NCAA eligibility for fall athletes? From the story (LINK)
Whether college football players play a lot in the fall, a little in the spring or not all over the next 10 months, some athletic administrators want to give them a mulligan on the 2020-21 season.
The NCAA Division I Council meets Wednesday with two important issues on the agenda:
— What will happen with the eligibility of fall sports athletes heading into an uncertain season already impacted by the pandemic?
— Should the NCAA stage fall sports championship events in the spring now that most of Division I has punted on trying to play sports in the first portion of the school year?
Green Alert Take: What the Ivy League will decide is, well, to be decided. But you can be absolutely sure of one thing. Whatever the NCAA decides, the Ivies will be more restrictive. That ended up being the case regarding an extra year for athletes who lost their spring season, and it is pretty much always the case with the Ivy League.
•
From the John McEnroe, "You Cannot Be Serious" department: ESPN has a story headlined, North Carolina shifts to full-time remote learning after outbreak; football unaffected. (LINK)
•
Not only is the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) thinking about playing the spring, it has released a six-game schedule with games beginning Feb. 27 and running until April 24. (LINK)
•
From the Associated Press (LINK):
The Canadian Football League canceled its 2020 season Monday because of the pandemic, marking the first year since 1919 the Grey Cup won’t be awarded.
The move by the nine-team league dashed hopes of a shortened season in the hub city of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
•
There's an interesting tweet directed from Columbia coach Al Bagnoli to the school's football recruits in light of the Ivy League not requiring standardized test scores this year. Find that tweet HERE.
•
Former Dartmouth offensive lineman Matt Kaskey is hard at work in camp with the Carolina Panthers. In the photo above he blocks Penn State product Yetur Gross-Matos, the 38th pick in last spring's draft.
•
A reminder as September nears that if you, like me, subscribed to ESPN+ only to watch Ivy League football you want to be sure to check that automatic renew date. Mine is at the end of the month and I won't be re-upping this year.
Green Alert Take: It's a real shame that ESPN+, unlike the old Ivy League Network, does not offer archived Ivy League games. Perhaps a few Dartmouth subscribers would stick around and re-watch last year's Ivy League championship season on Saturdays this fall. If the Worldwide Leader Plus is smart it will toss up the old games and let us know that's happening before we all pull the plug.
•
EXTRA POINT
It is one of the world's great mysteries.
First, a little background.
When we were putting in our solar tracker this spring a couple of trenches were dug for cabling and they left lengthy scars in our lawn. The ugly dirt areas were re-seeded and covered with hay.
Watering newly planted seeds is always important but even more so this year when we've had long stretches without rain. That being the case, we bought a second hose and connected it to the first to enable us to water the entire length of the areas that had been seeded. I dutifully watered the new lawn each day and rather than putting away the double length of hose, I simply left it stretched out on a different part of the lawn each day.
With the new grass nicely grown in – and a little more rain starting to fall – a few weeks ago I neatly coiled the hose around my arm and placed it at the base of the spigot.
We live on a dirt road and because my car was starting to look particularly nasty, yesterday I decided to hose it down. By now you probably know what's coming.
I went to the spigot, picked up the hose and started to pull. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, a hose that had been as neatly coiled as a new Slinky now looked like something you'd buy from Auntie Anne at the mall. Given that the hose is double-length, it took me at least 15 minutes to untangle it, pulling the nozzle end through loop after loop as my frustration grew.
What exactly is going on here? Do garden hoses, orange extension cords, Christmas lights, white Apple headphone cords, shoelaces – you name it – come to life like something out of Toy Story and dance around when we aren't looking? It's a mystery to me.
Thank goodness for Mrs. BGA, who inherited otherworldly patience from her dad and has come to my rescue time after time after time.
