How It Happened

After learning that Isiah Swann '20 had signed with the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League I reached out to him via email and the former All-America corner was kind enough to share a little background explaining how it came about, starting during his senior year with the Big Green.

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Isiah Swann, who would graduate as the Dartmouth career record-holder with 17 interceptions – including four returned for touchdowns – came into the 2019 season highly regarded by NFL scouts after leading the nation in interceptions as a junior with nine. Although he hurt his knee during a one-on-one drill in practice early in his senior year, the team co-captain vetoed the idea of redshirting, in part because he felt the Big Green had a good shot at the Ivy League title.

Fittingly, his dramatic interception in the end zone at the end of the final game of the 2019 season clinched a win over Brown and sealed Dartmouth's 19th Ivy League championship.

Despite playing on a knee that would eventually require surgery he finished the season with four interceptions in seven games, with two touchdowns and 21 tackles.

Swann went on to play in the East-West Shrine game before finally having surgery to repair and clean up his knee.

Although he signed with the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent he hadn't yet played on the surgically repaired knee and so, after viewing his X-ray/MRI, the NFL team released him even before camp opened.

Swann picks up the story, writing, "Currently I am in a good place. No other NFL teams were interested, and the main feedback was they wanted to see some film of me moving on my knee first. So my agent started working his CFL connections and got me a spot with the BC Lions, and I have been training for that opportunity ever since. Camp is supposed to start in July and I’m very excited to show what I can do."

In the meantime, former Dartmouth teammate Jimmy McHugh helped Swann land a job as an analyst for Russell Reynolds, an executive search firm. "The position is flexible," he explained, "and will allow me to go to Canada when that time comes to play the season, and come back if no NFL opportunities arise after the season. So I get the best of both worlds."

It would be easy for Swann to hang his head about the failed Bengals physical and having to go north to restart his football career, but that's not in his nature or in his background. He's regained the muscle in his injured leg, he's moving well and is looking forward to what lies ahead. He wrote:

"It’s been a roller coaster 18 months for me, but as Coach (Teevens) would say, 'You just have to A&I,' (adjust and improvise). I have no regrets on how things played out because I know I gave it everything I had to make it.

"And I am super excited about the opportunities ahead because I know I’m doing everything I can to capitalize on them. I’m not done yet! 

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You'll need a subscription to read it, but The Athletic has the definitive story about Callie Brownson, the Cleveland Browns chief of staff whose big break might have come when Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens brought her from the Manning Passing Academy to Hanover for an internship and eventually hired her full time. Find the story in The Athletic HERE.

A couple of outtakes from the story:

Teevens was so impressed by Brownson’s preparation, skill set, dedication and attention to detail during the camp that he wanted to keep working with her. He called Dartmouth and asked if it would be possible to create an internship program for women. (Forward thinking is not out of the ordinary for Teevens. In 2011, after reading up on injury statistics and the dangers of CTE, he decided to stop his team from tackling in practice. The results have been positive — fewer injuries, better tackling and NFL teams adopting the same policy.)

And ...

 Teevens told (his assistant coaches), “Look, I don’t know how this is gonna go. But we’re gonna learn something as coaches, our players are going to learn something and we’re gonna be better.”

And a couple of Tweets that accompanied the story: 

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EXTRA POINT
After watching the network news and then Jeopardy last night, Mrs. BGA and I repaired to the sun room for what ended up being a couple of games of Scrabble.

In the second game I won the draw and with few other options, I opened with the word GEESE. That was my first mistake.

A true confession before I go on. I'm an obnoxious Scrabble player. I almost never set the table for an opponent to get a "triple word" score. And if I can't do any better I'll use a blank and put down a three-point word to make sure whoever I'm playing can't capitalize on the triple-word spot. Mrs. BGA? She was always way to generous in that regard until she got tired of watching me spoil her high-point opportunities and started to play a little more cutthroat herself. That's not in her nature so you can blame me.

Now back to last night's game. We were maybe two-thirds of the way through the game when a triple-word chance came into play. I didn't bother to spoil it because I couldn't see any way for either one of us to take advantage of it. But  then I looked at my rack again and voilá, I was one letter away from a 72-point word.

The only letter that I needed was an E, which I didn't have. But there are 12 in the game and neither blank had been played so I knew my chances of finding one were good.

And so, when my turn came I exchanged the letters I wouldn't need for the "triple word" score, with hope of picking up an E. No luck.

Next turn I played a two-letter word just for the chance to get an E. No luck.

Then another dump. Zippo. And lucky me, I picked up the Z late in the game. Not good.

On my next turn I could have played the Z but I would have had to sacrifice letters I needed for my 72-point word.

It would be a few more minutes before the last tiles were picked. I never did get that elusive E and got stuck with the Z.

Before we put the board away I found myself staring at the first word I had played and had to laugh: gEEsE.