From The History Books (Or Websites ;-)

Another slow day, another dip into the record books.

Today, how Dartmouth has fared historically against teams from FBS conferences:

CONFERENCE	W	L	T	PCT.	PF	PA
American Athletic	1	5	1	.214	79	179
Atlantic Coast	10	4	1	.700	274	130
Big 12	1	0	1	.750	13	9
Big Ten	3	3	0	.500	78	108
Mid-American	22	3	1	.865	598	81
Pacific-12	1	4	0	.200	57	90
Southeastern	2	1	0	.667	21	38
Division I-A Independent	1	8	0	.111	55	261

(Records using Conference Alignment at time of Game)

Source: College Football Data Warehouse.

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As long as the subject is history, check out the American Football Database (LINK) for some interesting background on the Ivy League.

One entry notes that while sportswriter Stanley Woodward is often credited with being the first to use the expression "Ivy League" in 1933 that might not be accurate. From this account:

According to the book Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (1988), author William Morris writes that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow New York Tribune sportswriter Caswell Adams. Morris writes that during the 1930s, the Fordham University football team was running roughshod over all its opponents. One day in the sports room at the Tribune, the merits of Fordham's football team were being compared to those of Princeton and Columbia. Adams remarked disparagingly of the latter two, saying they were "only Ivy League." Woodward, the sports editor of the Tribune, picked up the term and printed (it) the next day.

Note though that in the above quote Woodward used the term ivy college, not ivy league as Adams is said to have used, so there is a discrepancy in this theory, although it seems certain the term ivy college and shortly later Ivy League acquired its name from the sports world

The first known instance of the term Ivy League being used appeared in The Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935. Several sportswriters and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the colonial era, together with the United States Military Academy (West Point), the United States Naval Academy, and a few others. These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities. However, at this time, none of these institutions made efforts to form an athletic league.

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Headline from a story in today's issue of The Dartmouth: Faculty vote 89-4 to pause new housing on Lyme Road. (LINK)

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EXTRA POINT
Some people run on a treadmill. Others pay to join a gym. My exercise of choice is a brisk hike each day, usually a loop up to the top of nearby Wright's Mountain, which is five minutes away and visible from our house. Every day before I continue to the back of the loop I do my Rocky Balboa impression and celebrate at the top of the mountain. It's only 1,822 feet in elevation but the view is pretty good. Here's what it looked like yesterday, panning to the southwest and finishing at the shell of a cabin propped up on rocks looking out over the vista.

Rain has diminished the snow but we're expecting five-to-eight inches tonight.