In The Starting Gate

 

Rain in the run-up to today's official start of spring practice chased the Dartmouth football team inside but no one was complaining. The defending Ivy League champions are making good use of The Green House, the school's new indoor practice facility.

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With the official start of Dartmouth's spring practice this morning the long-dormant Big Green Alert Premium site will come back to life tonight. As a bonus and a welcome back, coverage of spring football this year will be available to everyone. 

CLICK HERE to access BGA Premium and read about practice after every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday session.

A reminder that once the preseason begins in August there will be stories on the site every day, seven days a week from the start of camp until the final game at Brown on Nov. 10. Signups will begin July 15 (or at some point after that if there are still questions about the viability of the season).

One more thing to you should know if you are in town. Pandemic protocols require that practice is closed to the general public.

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Working my way around the record book for BGA Daily material I compiled a listing of every game Dartmouth has played in front of a crowd of 10,000 or more fans since the year 2000. The only year that it didn't happen being 2016. Here's the list:

• Nov. 18, 2000  at Princeton, 18,667 (Won 42-37)

• Oct. 7, 2001 at Yale, 19,996 (Won 32-27)

• Oct. 27, 2001 at Harvard, 12,324 (Lost 31-21)

• Nov. 23, 2002 at Princeton, 11,597 (Lost 38-30)

• Oct. 11, 2003 at Yale, 20,981 (Lost 40-17)

• Nov. 1, 2003 at Harvard, 12,186 (Won 30-16)

• Nov. 20, 2004 at Princeton, 13,852 (Lost 17-10)

• Oct. 29, 2005 at Harvard, 12,661 (Lost 42-14)

• Nov. 18, 2006 at Princeton, 12,004 (Lost 27-17)

• Oct. 6, 2007 at Yale, 24,237(Lost 50-10)

• Oct. 27, 2007 at Harvard, 11,005 (Lost 28-21)

• Oct. 4, 2008 at Penn, 12,433 (Lost 23-10)

• Oct. 10, 2009 at Yale, 15,773 (Lost 38-7)

• Oct. 2, 2010 at Penn, 10,407 (Lost 35-28)

• Oct. 23, 2010 at Columbia, 10,904 (Won 24-21)

• Oct. 8, 2011 at Yale, 17,786 (Lost 30-0)

• Oct. 6, 2012 at Yale, 11,235 (Won 34-14)

• Oct. 20, 2012 at Columbia, 11,127 (Won 21-16)

• Oct. 27, 2012 vs. Harvard, 10,138 (Lost 31-14)

• Oct. 5, 2013 at Penn, 12,017 (Lost 37-31)

• Oct. 12, 2013 vs. Yale, 10,983 (Won 20-13)

• Nov. 2, 2013 at Harvard, 13,470 (Lost 24-21)

• Sept. 27, 2014 at New Hampshire, 10,133 (Lost 52-19)

• Oct 25, 2014 at Columbia, 11,202 (Won 27-7)

• Oct. 10, 2015 vs. Yale, 11,086 (Won 35-3)

• Oct. 30, 2015 at Harvard, 13,058 (Lost 14-13)

• Oct. 28, 2017 at Harvard, 11,143 (Lost 25-22)

• Nov. 10, 2017 vs. Brown (Fenway Park), 12,297 (Won 33-10)

• Oct. 5, 2018 at Yale, 10,176 (Won 41-18)

• Oct. 20, 2018 at Columbia, 12,506 (Won 28-12)

• Nov. 2, 2019 at Harvard, 20,112 (Won 9-6)

• Nov. 9, 2019 vs. Princeton (Yankee Stadium) 21,506 (Won 27-10)

A few notes . . .

• Dartmouth has surpassed 10,000 fans for a game 32 times since the year 2000, missing that mark only in 2016, when it came tantalizingly close twice: at Holy Cross, 9,876 (Won 35-10), and at Yale, 9,293 (Lost 21-13). 

• The Big Green’s record in 10,000-plus games since 2000 is 14-18, with wins in the last five contests and a 7-2 record over the last nine.

• Here are the opponents in the 32 games:
Harvard 9
Yale 9
Princeton 5
Columbia 4
Penn 3
Brown 1
New Hampshire 1 

And a sampling of 10,000-plus games over time:

• 1940: Of the six games where attendance records are available, all but one reached 10,000 topped by 35,000 at Yale (Lost 13-7) and at Harvard (Won 7-6).

• 1950: All nine over 10,000, led by 74,903 at Michigan (Lost 27-7) and 38,000 at Penn (Lost 42-26).

• 1960: Six of nine over 10,000, led by 40,770 at Yale (Lost 29-0) and 32,000 at Princeton (Lost 7-0).

• 1970: All nine over 10,000, led by 62,820 at Yale (Won 10-0), and 42,329 at Penn (Won 28-0)

• 1980: Six of 10 surpassed 10,000, led by 20,000 vs. Harvard on Memorial Field (Won 30-12).

• 1990: Three of 10 top 10,000, led by 13,211 at Holy Cross (Lost 21-10).

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It's Derby Day in Louisville and once again I commend to you William Nack's longform tour de force, Pure Heart, the touching story he penned about his love affair with Triple Crown champion Secretariat. You'll have time today before the race and before tonight's BGA posting, so do check it out HERE. It may bring a tear to your eye.

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EXTRA POINT
I teased you a little yesterday about the great quote I elicited from former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier when I interviewed him for the newspaper. First, a little background.

I wrote my masters in journalism on how newspaper coverage of Muhammad Ali – who once famously said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong" – changed as the Vietnam War came to be more in disfavor. I landed on that topic not because I had any thoughts about become a sportswriter but largely because I was a huge Ali fan.

That being the case, when I sat down with Frazier, who had endured epic battles with the Louisville Lip, I asked him point blank, "Are you and Ali friends?"

His epic response: "Yes, but he's not the kind of friend you eat with, and sleep with. He's the kind of friend you have to watch."

Well said, Smokin' Joe. Well said.

While I'm at it, the Frazier quote was one of the "five things" I wrote that I would share with the folks at Jeopardy if I were on the show. I warned that the list I offered yesterday might change if something else occurred to me. Well, it did, and here it is:

Two years before Mrs. BGA and I met, she was working in Boston, and I was working at Dartmouth. At some point we came to realize that we were both in the same movie theater in New Jersey, on the same day, for the showing of the same movie. And that movie?

Back to the Future.

You can't make this stuff up.