Dartmouth football will have two graduate students on the field this fall with news that 6-foot-1, 205-pound senior corner DeWayne "DJ" Terry Jr., has been accepted into the school's Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program. (CLICK HERE to learn more about the MALS program.)
Terry, who started all 10 games at corner as a junior and four games the next season, joins Dartmouth wide receiver Masaki Aerts in taking advantage of the Ivy League's one-year rule allowing athletes to compete as grad students at their own school. (LINK)
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Taken yesterday, this picture illustrates another way Dartmouth football is keeping its players safe. With the locker room closed because of social distancing protocols, the players are dressing outside, under the visiting grandstand, where they leave their bags while on the field.
Players are picking up their helmets outside the stands:
Division I Football Oversight Committee recommends preseason changes; Council to consider measures May 19 to reduce contact and allow for proper preparation
Here are the changes listed by the NCAA:
• Prohibiting drills that create unneeded contact, particularly straight-line contact that is not common to the game.
• Reducing the maximum number of contact practices from 21 to 18, requiring at least seven helmet-only days (with optional spider pads) and restricting full-pads days to nine.
* Increasing the acclimatization period from five to seven days.
* Additional limits on full-contact practices, including no more than two consecutive full-contact practices, a total of no more than 75 minutes of full contact within any practice session and no more than two scrimmages in the preseason.’
Green Alert Take: While a good deal of that has already been adopted around the NCAA, the regulations would bring even more schools in line with what the Ivy League – and Dartmouth in particular – is already doing.
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A story on the SI website about the hiring of an FCS head coach wouldn't normally be of much interest but this hiring will be worth watching. Here's the lede to the story (LINK):
Kevin Kelley has made a name for himself as the high school football coach who never punts and almost always attempts onside kicks. According to Kyle Deckelbaum of KATV in Little Rock, Ark., the longtime high school coach will take his out-of-the-box philosophy to FCS Presbyterian College as the next head coach of the Blue Hose.
Green Alert Take: With the Ivy League beginning to schedule more games against teams from the Pioneer Football League – which welcomes the Blue Hose this year – there's a chance a team from the Ancient Eight may find itself one day in the future across the field wondering about an onside kick or watching the opponent go for it on fourth-and-10 at its own 20 early in the game. Then again, Kelley said he may adapt his philosophy at the college level. (LINK)
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Interesting news out of Connecticut where the University of Hartford, a school Dartmouth regularly plays in a number of sport including men's and women's basketball (but which does not have a football team), is moving from Division I down to Division III. (LINK)
Meanwhile, 45 miles to the south, the University of New Haven, a Division II school that was an emergency fill-in on the Dartmouth football schedule for the ill-fated 2020 season, is taking steps to move up to Division I. From a story in the Middletown Press (LINK):
“I just know that the University of New Haven, from the day I was recruited here and agreed to come, it was under the auspices of moving to Division I, FCS,” said (athletic director Sheahon) Zenger, hired in September 2019. “It's very doable. Under President (Steven) Kaplan’s leadership the past 17 years you've seen the growth. This place has just exploded — academically, residential life, community outreach, donor outreach. This is the last piece.”
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Headline in The Dartmouth (LINK):
570 vaccinations administered at on-campus clinic; Day one was cut short after four Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients experienced anxiety symptoms and at least one fainted.
One interesting explanation from the story:
(College spokesperson Diana) Lawrence wrote that anxiety symptoms — such as fainting — are “seen more frequently” after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, “very possibly because people with a needle aversion choose the single-dose option.”
Among those who got the shot was a 6-foot-5, 260-pound offensive lineman out of Nashville. From the story:
Ethan Sipe ’24 signed up for the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine shortly after the College sent an email to students on April 23 announcing the on-campus vaccination clinics. He said he waited to get vaccinated on-campus by the College because he was worried he would be turned away by state-run clinics. He added that although he was happy to receive his vaccine on campus, he expected the College to offer vaccines to students earlier.
“I thought (it) was going to happen a lot earlier because Dartmouth, I think, likes to protect their students and gives us the best chance of having fun on campus,” Sipe said. “So this is a step in the right direction.”
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A headline in the Daily Princetonian was an eye-opener in light of the Ivy League saying it was limiting athletics to "local" competition this spring (LINK):
Despite late start, Princeton rowing teams eye national championship
Green Alert Take: Princeton likes its national champions. The rowing teams got the OK to travel on Wednesday.
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Another story, this one in the Yale Daily News, will have friends of the late and lamented Hanover Country Club grinding their teeth. The headline: Proposal in the works for a Yale Golf Course restoration (LINK)
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And finally, one more story from a college newspaper had a line about the return to action that I found amusing. From the Brown Daily Herald (LINK):
"I’ll be completely honest, I felt that (a return to competition) was going to be the outcome anyways because of how everything was trending,” (men’s and women’s water polo coach Felix) Mercado said. “But it was definitely a relief to hear it from Vice President Calhoun.”
Green Alert Take: Yes, onetime Dartmouth administrator Grace Calhoun's official title at Brown after leaving her role as AD at Penn is "Vice President of Athletics," but seriously, did anyone think she would be referred to, or addressed as, Vice President Calhoun?
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EXTRA POINT
With the start of football practice bringing me back to Hanover for the first time in more than a year I took advantage of a beautiful Thursday to visit my old hiking trail on Moose Mountain. It was a reminder about how special it was to walk right out our back door and be able to walk through the woods to get on the Appalachian Trail.
A view of Goose Pond from South Peak
