Yesterday's posting about Dartmouth's standing atop the list of schools in the student-athlete Graduation Success Report (LINK) mentioned that football was one of the 14 Dartmouth sports (out of 20 under the auspices of the NCAA) to have 100 percent of its players who began their careers in 2013 collect their diploma. That sent me to the NCAA Graduation Success Page to see how the 2010-13 freshman football classes around the league stacked up over the four years:
Cohort Year 2010
100 – Dartmouth
100 – Harvard
98 – Brown
98 – Columbia
97 – Yale
96 – Cornell
96 – Princeton
94 – Penn
Cohort Year 2011
100 – Dartmouth
100 – Harvard
98 – Brown
98 – Columbia
98 – Yale
97 – Princeton
96 – Cornell
94 – Penn
Cohort Year 2012
100 – Dartmouth
100 – Yale
99 – Harvard
98 – Columbia
97 – Princeton
96 – Cornell
95 – Brown
94 – Penn
Cohort Year 2013
100 – Dartmouth
99 – Yale
98 – Columbia
98 – Harvard
97 – Princeton
96 – Cornell
94 – Brown
92 – Penn
How do those numbers compare nationally? From the NCAA release:
Student-athletes who play football in the Football Championship Subdivision graduated at an 80% rate, an increase of 1 point and the highest rate ever for that group. Their peers in the Football Bowl Subdivision graduated at a rate of 81%, down 1 point from last year.
Green Alert Take: The Ivy League is doing just fine, thank you very much.
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As we try to chase down the names of football recruits in the Ivy League it's worth noting that recruiting during the pandemic is difficult. It didn't get any easier with this out of the NCAA (LINK):
The Division I Council on Wednesday extended the recruiting dead period for all Division I sports through April 15.
“The COVID-19 numbers are not trending in the right direction for the Council to allow in-person recruiting and the associated long-distance travel for coaches, prospective student-athletes and their families,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Pennsylvania. “We acknowledge the impact the restrictions are having on student-athletes who dream of being Division I athletes, but we must prioritize the health and safety of current and potential student-athletes and their families, as well as coaches and others on campus.”
The dead period started March 13 and has been extended several times aleady.
And what, exactly, is a "dead period?" Again, from the NCAA:
During a dead period a college coach may not have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents, and may not watch student-athletes compete or visit their high schools.
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For what it's worth, 16 Division I football games canceled or postponed last week and that number is being approached this week.
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There's good news for Dartmouth in what would seem to be a difficult fund-raising time. From a Dartmouth release (LINK):
Through the generosity of two alumnae donors, the head coaching position for the Dartmouth women's lacrosse team will be named in honor of Josie Harper, a pioneering leader in college sports who became the first female athletics director in the Ivy League.
The two anonymous donors, both former lacrosse team members, are each donating $1 million to endow the position in recognition of Harper.
Josie Harper came to Dartmouth as head coach of women's lacrosse in 1981 and directed the program for 11 years. She served as athletic director from July 2002-June 2009.
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A message board poster contributing to the discussion of Ivy League football stadiums dug up this aerial look at facilities around the conference. Dartmouth's Memorial Field gets short shrift with scenes that unfortunately do not include the new home stands and press box:
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Recognize this?
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
On this date 157 years ago Abraham Lincoln spoke those words at Gettysburg. He got that first part wrong.
Click HERE to watch, and listen and think. It's less than three minutes, less than 300 words and well worth your time.
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EXTRA POINT
Griff the Wonder Dog and I hiked our local mountain again yesterday afternoon and with a little snow on the trail I eschewed my "trail runner" shoes in favor of a pair of lightweight hiking boots. While they had good traction and my feet stayed warm, my toes ached on the downhill as my feet slid forward in the boots. I believe I'll go back to the lightweight trail runners for as long as I can.
It's still early in the year for the kind of snow cover that lasts all winter (although as 2018 showed, it could come any day). That being the case, it's time to break out Griff's Muttluks. The sooner I can get him used to walking around the house in them the better for both of us when the snow begins to pile up.
I just hope this year I can figure out a way to keep them from slipping off his feet because trudging back up the mountain to find lost booties in the snow is no fun.
For either of us.
