See You Tomorrow!

Senior linebacker Tanner Cross is the subject of a story in the Dartmouth Peak Performance magazine in which he discusses the decision he and his classmates had to make about whether or not to return for a fifth year with the Big Green. From the story (LINK):

For Cross and his fellow seniors, there was an added layer to the process and one important question which needed to be answered: Was it time to move on from Dartmouth and college football or should they come back for a fifth year?

 

For Cross, the decision was easy, and the process was certainly worth the effort.

  

"After talking to the coaches about the possibility, it was reassuring to know they wanted me to come back," said Cross. "It just felt right to finish what I started."

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Running back Zack Bair tells The Dartmouth in a story headlined NCAA ratifies new one-time transfer rule that he doesn’t expect the change to have much of an effect on either Dartmouth or the Ivy League. (LINK)

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The Boston Globe nails the lede in a story about former Brown football teammates from the class of 2015 chipping in to buy a share of Hot Rod Charlie, a horse that ended up in the Kentucky Derby field. (LINK):

The story behind Chuck is a movie-in-waiting tale of five college friends, all former football players at Brown, who formed Boat Racing LLC and decided to make horse racing their next competitive adventure.

The Los Angeles Times does a terrific job filling in the blanks and has a pretty fair lede as well (LINK):

As the private planes of horse owners started to stack up at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in advance of the Kentucky Derby, five members of the Hot Rod Charlie ownership group took a Sunday morning Southwest Airlines flight from Raleigh, N.C., connected through Atlanta, before landing some four miles from Churchill Downs.

Only two of them paid the extra $20 for early boarding.

Meet the racing syndicate made up of five former Brown University football players calling themselves Boat Racing, named for a college beer drinking game. They own 25% of Hot Rod Charlie, second-place finisher in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and winner of the Louisiana Derby.

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Hard as it is for me to believe, I haven't set foot on the Dartmouth campus in more than a year. I'm thrilled to be able to tell you that will change tomorrow.

Fully vaccinated a while back, masked and observing social distancing I'll be at the Big Green's first of 12 official spring practices. Be sure to visit BGA Premium Saturday night as we kick off the 16th season of Big Green Alert.

As a way of celebrating the return of Dartmouth football, the paywall will be down this spring and everyone is invited to read about spring practice after each session. CLICK HERE to visit BGA Premium and be sure to bookmark the site!

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EXTRA POINT
I recently read a "behind-the-scenes" story about Jeopardy that explained how contestants were asked to list five possible "conversation starters" for the host when the game show returns from its first commercial break. (LINK)

That got me thinking about what my five notes might be if I were going to be on the show, which I'm not. (I believe Mark Twain got it right when he wrote, "It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.")

All that said, here are my five things, subject to change as I remember something else!

• Bicycled twice across the United States –  the first time in 32 days – camping the entire way.

• Appeared on The Today Show.

• Has been to all 50 states with Kansas, smack dab in the middle of the country, somehow being the last one.

• Believes he scored one of the best Joe Frazier quotes ever by asking him if he and Muhammed Ali were friends. (That's a tease. I'll post the quote in this space tomorrow.) 

• Started a website offering the most comprehensive coverage of any FCS football team in the nation, covering every game, attending every full practice, and writing at least one story seven days a week from the start of preseason through the last game over a 15-year span, all without ever missing a single day.

Editor's note: Apologies for that last one but I couldn't help myself ;-)