The Ivy League Council of Presidents has approved the opportunity for current senior student-athletes to play an additional season as graduate students next season, according to a statement sent to student-athletes on Thursday.
The statement, obtained by ESPN, makes it clear that the rule change is a one-time waiver because of the Ivy League canceling its fall and winter seasons. It won't be a permanent change.
Stories in the Ivy League school papers filled in some of the fine print. From the Harvard Crimson (LINK):
Students must be admitted as graduate students “through regular channels” at their undergraduate university to be eligible for this waiver, (Harvard Athletics Director Erin) McDermott wrote. Students must receive approval from their fifth year advisor and the Ivy League office.
From the Daily Princetonian (LINK):
The announcement also clarifies that students who choose to take advantage of the waiver and enroll as full-time students in a graduate program at their institution will still be eligible for financial aid.
From The Daily Pennsylvanian (LINK):
As of now, this exception only applies to current seniors whose seasons were suspended by the pandemic.
And . . .
Although the fate of the Ivy League’s upcoming spring season is still undetermined, this news comes after Yale men’s lacrosse reportedly opted out of any potential spring competition due to an insufficient number of athletes enrolled. At Princeton, 19 members of the women's lacrosse team took leave for the remainder of the year amid COVID-19 uncertainty.
From the Yale Daily News (LINK):
It remains unclear how many graduating seniors will be able to take advantage of the waiver. According to the admissions page for Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, deadlines for more than 50 programs — from chemistry and nursing to architecture and global affairs — passed in either December or January. Yale Law School, which has rolling admissions, lists Feb. 15 as its final application deadline.
“I think it’s great that they’re reevaluating their rules/policies given the circumstances,” senior men’s basketball forward Wyatt Yess ’21 told the News. “But it does seem a bit unfair to student athletes that either took the year off, made alternative plans or missed Yale graduate school application deadlines given how late this decision has been made.”
The local Valley News has a story that centers on a Dartmouth golfer who plans to compete as a grad student for a team that didn't exist two weeks ago that doesn't have the home course it had when he started his college career. (LINK)
Green Alert Take: The Ivy League has done the right thing at the wrong time. Here's a little of what I shared in an email exchange with a friend whose opinions I greatly value:
I cannot believe the Ivy League is announcing this “one-time” exception so late in the game. A good many Ivy student-athletes have already punted their quarter/semester to preserve eligibility next year as seniors, made grad transfer decisions, or in some cases accepted jobs for next year.
And it's going to get ugly if a kid graduates from Dartmouth or Princeton, makes public his plans to return and is then rejected for grad school at his own institution.
While this was well intended, I wonder if the Ivy League thought through the unintended consequences of such a decision.
Green Alert Take II: If you are wondering what former Dartmouth receiver Drew Estrada is thinking this morning after signing with Baylor as a grad transfer, you are probably not alone. Nor are you alone if you are thinking about sharpshooting guard Brendan Barry, a transfer to Temple, or Chris Knight, the forward who signed with Loyola.
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Our local daily has a story under the headline, Dartmouth begins search for next athletic director. From the story (LINK):
How alluring the job may be is up for debate. Taking over a department reeling from controversy with a president who’s voiced limited support for athletics doesn’t help. Plus, the job pool shrinks when asking qualified candidates to move to Hanover.
The story names two "favorites:"
The dream candidate for the Big Green will be Brian Mann. A two-time Dartmouth graduate — he earned his bachelor’s degree in history in 2002 and a master’s degree in liberal studies in 2013 — he played quarterback and set the school record for passing yards in a season with 2,913 in 2002. He’s currently the associate athletic director for development and chief development officer for University of California athletics.
And . . .
Lafayette athletic director Sherryta Freeman, a Dartmouth alumna, has vast experience in the world of Division I athletics. Her first job out of college was as a public information assistant in the Ivy League office before serving as the assistant AD for compliance at her alma mater from January 2004 to August 2005. She’s spent time as a senior administrator at Penn and Temple, too.
The story suggests that interim AD Peter Roby, another Dartmouth alum, might be someone to consider along with Trinity AD Drew Galbraith, a longtime Dartmouth staff member, and several others. The piece finishes this way:
Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens has always been rumored to be interested in the job. With more than 20 years of experience leading the Big Green on the gridiron, he also has had stints at Tulane and Stanford. Other schools across the country have promoted football coaches to athletic directors, such as Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin.
The widely-read D1.Ticker college athletics site took the local story national with a paragraph about the Valley News ' list of early candidates and a link to the story HERE.
Green Alert Take: I'm reminded about the time while I was at the newspaper when a much larger paper called our sports department to ask if we had the names of any potential candidates for the then-open Dartmouth football head coaching position. Annoyed that they thought we would share breaking news before it appeared on our pages, another sportswriter reeled off a handful of random names belonging to people who would never have an interest in the job or would never be considered. We were incredulous the next day to see those names in the larger paper. The moral of the story: Don't believe everything you read ;-)
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The website Revolt, part of the digital TV network of the same name, has a long and detailed look at former Dartmouth assistant Jennifer King's rise to NFL assistant HERE.
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Another Sign of the Apocalypse. Oops. Make that Another Sign of the Pandemic (LINK):
The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) has suspended the spring 2021 football season, scheduled to start on Saturday, Feb. 20 through April 17.
Six of the MEAC’s nine football-playing institutions opted out of the spring 2021 season. Conference policy states if 50% or more institutions cannot participate in any championship, the championship for that sport will be suspended.
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ESPN writes about Sept. 18 Dartmouth football opponent Valparaiso dropping the Crusaders nickname (LINK):
"The negative connotation and violence associated with the Crusader imagery are not reflective of Valpo's mission and values, which promote a welcoming and inclusive community," interim president Colette Irwin-Knott said. "This is the decision that best reflects our values and community."
Green Alert Take: I hereby offer up the nickname, The Brown and Gold. What's that you say? Colors make for a stupid nickname? You know what they say about people who live in glass houses Dartmouth, Cornell and Harvard fans.
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Charged with broadening the scope of the sports pages when I worked at the newspaper, we sent a photographer out on a holiday weekend to shoot a raft parade on Woodstock, Vt.'s Ottauquechee River. Stopping at a bridge over the river to shoot down on the festivities, our photog had camera in hand when someone fell off a raft and boy scouts, in uniform no less, jumped in the river to prevent a drowning. In these days before digital cameras our photographer had to make a snap decision about exposure and ultimately "push" processing the film. To get the near-drowning pictures would mean losing all of the shots she had taken earlier. Fortunately, she made the right decision and documented the drama unfolding in front of her.
Boy scouts coming to the rescue, a Huck Finn-like raft and "the perfect New England town" added up to award winning photos that went viral before anyone knew what that meant. They showed up on the front pages of newspapers around the world, winning all kinds of awards. The photographer even landed on the John Davidson "It's Incredible" TV show, and if I remember correctly, collected a handsome check.
I found myself thinking about that this morning as I clicked on the website of the British tabloid The Daily Mail to watch an Upper Valley video that went viral. Find the Daily Mail story about a Houdini-with-hooves defeating an electric fence HERE, the story in our local paper HERE, and the video below:
