Joe Yukica, who guided Dartmouth to three Ivy League championships, turns 90 today.
A onetime All-East receiver at Penn State, Yukica served as a Bob Blackman assistant from 1961-65 and then as head coach at New Hampshire for two years before Boston College hired him away to breathe new life into its struggling football program. Over his 10-year run with the Eagles Yukica posted a sterling 67-37 record, highlighted by a 14-13 win over Texas in 1976.
Yukica spent just one more season at the Heights after the upset of the seventh-ranked Longhorns before being lured back to Dartmouth, where in his initial season he tapped a senior named Buddy Teevens to be his starting quarterback. The result was a 6-1 Ivy League record and a conference championship in 1978. Yukica would go on the lead Dartmouth to Ivy titles in 1981 and '82 as well.
After Yukica suffered three losing seasons in a row under a new athletic director he was fired with a year remaining on his contract. Always a man of principle, he decided to sue for the right to fulfill the final year of his contract. The Los Angeles Times had a story about what followed under the headline, He Fought the System. . . And Won: Dartmouth Fired Joe Yukica, but Joe Yukica Fired Back and Regained Job as Football Coach. (LINK)
Among those who vouched for Yukica was Joe Paterno, a young assistant at PSU when Yukica was a Nittany Lion standout. The then-Penn State head coach flew into a tiny airport in Haverhill, N.H., in order to testify on Yukica's behalf.
For a story about Yukica that appeared on his local community website a couple of years ago, click HERE.
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Former Dartmouth reserve safety Matt Burke has been hired by the New York Jets in a “game-management” position where he will aid with “situational football and game-planning football prep work. He will not be a position coach, nor will he call plays.” (LINK)
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Former linebacker Jeff Blackburn's '91 return to Amazon makes more sense with yesterday's news about the online giant. From a Bloomberg story (LINK):
When news broke in mid-May that Jeff Blackburn was rejoining Amazon.com Inc. to run the company’s entertainment division, industry observers figured big changes were afoot. Why else would Blackburn quit his job at a Silicon Valley venture firm after just five weeks?
Then the world learned that Amazon was looking to buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company on Wednesday announced it would acquire the legendary Hollywood studio for $8.45 billion, a princely sum for a catalog that includes the James Bond, Robocop and Rocky franchises.
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One of those creepy celebrity websites takes a look at women's soccer standout Christen Press, daughter of Cody Press '80, a former Joe Yukica co-captain. (LINK)
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The Northeast Conference has released its 2021 football schedule and Sept. 25 Dartmouth opponent Sacred Heart's slate looks like this:
Sept. 24 Bucknell
Sept. 11 at Bryant
Sept. 18 Morgan State
Sept. 25 at Dartmouth
Oct. 2 at Howard
Oct. 9 Merrimack
Oct. 16 Central Connecticut
Oct. 23 Duquesne
Nov. 6 at St. Francis
Nov. 13 Wagner
Nov. 20 at LIU
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EXTRA POINT
In this space yesterday I wrote about the bald eagle I saw land along the interstate Tuesday night and and how I wasn't able to snap a picture of it.
Let's be serious. If I couldn't get a better picture than this of a porcupine waddling ahead of me on the trail this morning, how could I have gotten a shot of an eagle landing and then taking off again a couple of nights ago?
