First, as many of you have shared, Niko Lalos '20, was promoted to the New York Football Giants active squad for today's game.
More about that after the weirdness. (Now you can't blame me for "burying the lede." ;-)
As for the weirdness, we'll start with theYouTube video that this screen grab illustrates:
Read the description: "The Facts About Football – Dartmouth College Athletics Revealed." Sounds interesting, right?
Thibault Giroud has perhaps been one of the most influential men in international rugby over the past 18 months, but he is also one of the least heralded.
France's head of athletic performance has been a key figure in the country's rugby revolution of the past year, making a team that can - as the cliche has it - be somewhat laissez-faire when it comes to conditioning, one of the fittest on the planet.
No problem there. But a little deeper in the story comes this (italics are mine):
Giroud's experience is obvious enough from just the quickest of glances at his LinkedIn page, although it is fair to say that he is possibly underselling himself. He mentions he was an Olympic athlete but not that he was a bronze medallist in bobsleigh at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, nor that he was encouraged into that sport through a friendship with Prince Albert of Monaco.
In the results-driven world of athletic performance, it is also curious that there is also no mention of how the 46-year-old was spotted in his youth by a scout from Dartmouth University in New Hampshire and took up an American Football scholarship. Giroud was a running back and was even drafted by the New York Jets, although he never played in the NFL. He did, however, have a career in NFL Europe and later briefly played rugby union, including the 2003-04 season as a wing at Saracens, a role he juggled with work as their conditioner.
Green Alert Take: Nah, I don't think Giroud is "underselling himself."
The Telegraph might want to do a little fact checking because Giroud did not have a football scholarship at Dartmouth University. He did not play football. Nor did he attend Dartmouth. And he certainly was never drafted by the New York Jets (Jets draft history). As for having an NFL Europe "career," a player register for the league has him listed on one roster, for one year, with no statistics (LINK).
(To check the thoroughness of the WLAF player roster I looked up Dartmouth receiver Craig Morton '89 – still the best I ever saw in a Big Green uniform – who played one year for the Frankfurt Galaxy, and there he was: LINK)
Some of Giroud's Wikipedia entry wouldn't hold up to inspection, either.
It's not the first time Giroud's story has found traction. Here's something I wrote in this space back in 2006 (LINK):
In an era of the Internet, it's gotten a little harder to tell fibs because people who know better can read and disprove them. Such is the case with the strange story English rugby trainer Thibault Giroud tells of his days as a football star at Dartmouth. The story in the Guardian reads:
"Born in France to Tongan parents, Giroud's improbable journey began at the age of 17 in Grenoble. "I was lucky I was running a track meet and there was a scout there from Dartmouth College in the US," he recalls. "He was on holidays but after the race came to me and said do you want to play football. I didn't know what he meant by football, but four months later I had a scholarship.
"I didn't speak any English, didn't know anything about the game, and in my freshman year didn't play much. In my sophomore year I started to play well, then I was drafted by the (New York) Jets."
That's not quite the way it happened, of course. I recall writing a story when I was with the newspaper about a European who had played some football over there (I think it was Thibault but I can't be sure because I can't find the story) who came to the U.S., to train with the then-Dartmouth conditioning coach. But he was never a Dartmouth student. He never got a scholarship. He never played for Dartmouth. And he was never drafted by the Jets. Strange story, indeed.
Green Alert Take: It would kind of make you wonder if there's a little more fiction on his resumé, wouldn't it?
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Now for real news about a real NFL player ;-)
"He's a guy that week by week has made constant improvement," (Giants coach Joe) Judge said this week. "This guy plays on special teams for us, he plays on the defense for us. He also plays on the scout team as a fullback and a tight end. He has shown a lot of improvement throughout the year. … This is a guy that works really, really tirelessly. We saw him do things like you saw on Sunday. We've seen it throughout the year in practice. The opportunity came up for him. I think what will impress you about any player is when the opportunity arises, does the preparation show up. I think it did with Niko."
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A newly posted video titled Jonny Barrett 2018 Senior Highlights - Welcome to Dartmouth has the receiver in his Big Green uniform and then shows his high school exploits on the field:
“In order for us to remain a vibrant Division I program that can win Ivy League championships and compete in sports like football, which we’ve spent a lot of time rebuilding here, we just couldn’t do it (making cuts equally across the athletic department) in any sort of equal way. It was going to eviscerate us.”
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EXTRA POINT
What was projected by some services to be our first significant snow storm of the season was a dud. We might have gotten two inches, but it's hard to tell because the wind was howling so violently that it's impossible to get an accurate measurement. There are places where the snow was blown off completely and other places where it has drifted. Maybe next time ;-)
