The local Valley News has a story centered around Dartmouth football's efforts to stay relevant with high school players. From the piece, headlined Ivy Recruiting Operations Shift Amid Pandemic (LINK):
“I’ve been doing this for a long period of time and never anything quite like this,” said (coach Buddy) Teevens, who owns a 105-93-2 all-time record at Dartmouth and has been in the coaching ranks since the late 1970s. “You can’t leave campus; you can’t have people on campus to view your facilities. Thankfully, Zoom and other technology have stepped in and has been fairly effective for us.
“The thing you miss, obviously, is the interpersonal connection. Normally, I’d be visiting 90 to 120 homes, where you can sit in a living room and see how a young guy interacts with his family. Generally, you swing by the field and talk with the faculty, other students, lunch ladies, the janitor. Just to get a sense what Joey’s like. That’s all absent.”
Here's one example of how Dartmouth football is promoting itself online:
Dartmouth technically was not in violation of Title IX before the July cuts, (attorney Arthur) Bryant says, because athletic departments can also comply with the law by stating they are fully accommodating the underrepresented sex by offering every sport for which there is sufficient interest and ability for a viable team, or offering continued program expansion for the underrepresented sex.
But those two factors take a back seat when programs are eliminated, as happened at Dartmouth, shifting the focus back to the number of women athletes at Dartmouth in proportion to total enrollment of women.
Also from the story:
(Athletic director Harry) Sheehy, (President Phil) Hanlon, and Dartmouth Board of Trustees members Laurel J. Richie and Elizabeth Mahoney Loughlin met with a handful of alumni last Friday morning for a 30-minute Zoom call before the reinstatement announcement was made.
The conversation included a question-and-answer portion where Hanlon made clear that Dartmouth will still reduce admissions spots set aside for athletes by about 10%, but will need to be equitable across all sports.
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Alabama was crowned national champion early last month, the Super Bowl will be Sunday night and New Hampshire and much of the FCS will commence play later this month. Out of the spotlight there's even more football as an AP story headlined Minus fanfare, small college football getting underway informs us. From the story (LINK):
For all the attention lavished on the Power 5 conferences as they tried to take the field last fall, it won’t be the only college football being played during the 2020-21 school year.
The next wave arrives Saturday when a handful of NCAA Division III and NAIA programs begin some form of delayed season.
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Of course, while small-college football is starting up, other sports are folding their tents. Find the story above HERE.
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When legendary quarterback Tom Brady reached out in a text last March to introduce himself to Cameron Brate, one of his new Tampa Bay Buccaneers' teammates, Brate first worried he was falling victim to a prank on the other end of the unknown cell number.
Before responding to the text, the former Harvard tight end consulted with teammate Chris Godwin about its validity.
The text was real, of course, and nearly a year later, the Super Bowl LV scenario is quite mind-blowing, especially for a player like Brate who came from FCS college football - the perceived "small school" lower half of Division I that has filled the NFL with top talents, even if the recognition hasn't always matched that fact.
Brate is joined on the Bucs' active roster by receiver Justin Watson of Penn.
And finally, when Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens brought Callie Brownson to Hanover in a quality control position he also welcomed for a week or so an observer named Lori Locust. She'll be in Tampa Sunday as the Bucs' assistant defensive line coach.
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EXTRA POINT
At our old house on Moose Mountain I had to cross the road to grab scenic pictures of the mountains in the distance. Not so here on our hill in Vermont.
As I was sitting down for my bowl of cornflakes this morning I peered out our window to see Mother Nature putting on a show over Mount Moosilauke.
