It's not on his Twitter as of this writing, but 5-foot-9, 185-pound running back/athlete DJ Crowther of Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento, is headed to Dartmouth. His high school website listed him as headed to, uh, Dartmouth University (LINK), and then there's this:
His league's offensive player of the year, Crowther reportedly chose Dartmouth over offers from Army, Eastern Washington, New Mexico, Tennessee State, Idaho, Idaho State and Cal Poly. Find a story headlined, DJ Crowther: Humble & Hungry For Success in his school paper HERE.
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With Crowther in the fold here's the class as we (think we) know it. You know the rest: Additions, corrections and clarifications not only welcomed but encouraged.
Michael Betsy, 6-4, 280, OL, Don Bosco/Upper Saddle River, N.J.
Patrick Campbell, 6-0, 190, S, Brookwood HS/Snellville, Ga.
Jamal Cooper, 5-11, 195, DB/ATH, Montgomery Academy/Montgomery, Ala.
Chris Corbo, 6-5, 215, TE/WR, West Essex/North Caldwell, N.J.
Darius “DJ” Crowther, 5-9, 185, TB/ATH, Christian Brothers/Sacramento, Calif.
Zyion Freer-Brown, 6-1, 230, LB, St. Edwards/Lorain, Ohio
Teddy Gianaris, 6-2, 230, DL, Maine South/Park Ridge Ill.
Tyson Grimm, 6-2, 200, S, Archbishop Hoban/Akron, Ohio
Daniel Haughton, 6-1, 190, WR, Charlotte Latin/Charlotte, N.C.
Ivan Hoyt, 6-0, 188, WR, Cornerstone/Boerne, Texas
Desmin Jackson, 5-10, 175 TB, Orange Lutheran/Orange, Calif.
Jabari Johnson, 6-4, 230, DE, University Lab/Baton Rouge, La.
Logan Klitsch, 6-3, 190, QB/ATH, Conrad Weiser/Robesonia, Pa.
Delby Lemieux, 6-4, 260, OL/DL, Duxbury/Duxbury, Mass.
Grayson O’Bara, 6-1, 188, WR, Guyer/Denton, Texas
Joe Onuwabhagbe, 6-2 1/2, 260, DL, Hebron/Carrollton, Texas
Dakota Quinonez, 6-1, 280, DL, Byrnes/Duncan, S.C.
Nico Schwikal, 6-3, 230, LB, Taft School/Berlin, Germany
Vasean Washington, 6-5, 280, OL, Springfield HS/Springfield, Ohio
Max Wentz, 6-4, 285, OL, Huntington/Huntington, W. Va.
Sean Williams, 5-11, 180, ATH, Battle Ground Academy/Franklin, Tenn.
Green Alert Take: It's an unusual year when I'm not yet able to dig up the entire class. There are likely 5-6 more recruits I haven't been able yet to uncover, who haven't gone public, or possibly are still making up their minds. Stay tuned.
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If you think a woman coach is a pushover or just good PR, I encourage you to check out this clip with Dartmouth quality control coach Mickey Grace from the NFL series Earnin' It, now available on Peacock:
Don't play with @CoachMickeyG!
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) February 10, 2022
The energy she brings to @DartFootball is unmatched 😤#EarninIt is streaming now on @Peacock pic.twitter.com/1LuaMxRSVi
Green Alert Take: Defensive lineman Seth Walter sums Coach Mickey up perfectly ;-)
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Patrick Graham, who played for Dartmouth assistant Duane Brooks at Yale, is the new defensive coordinator of the Las Vegas Raiders. The author of a story about Graham sprinkled comments from the Big Green's defensive line coach throughout this piece (LINK):
Brooks on why Graham took up coaching:
“He finally got tired of selling vacuum cleaners or whatever he was doing in Cincinnati, chasing that girl."
What Brooks told Graham when he recommended his former player take a grad assistant job:
“Give it two years, get your master’s, and if you don’t like coaching, you can go on to the CIA. . . . He always thought he was Jason Bourne. He was going to be one of those undercover dudes."
On whether Graham should take a grad assistant job under Charlie Weiss at Notre Dame after having been a full-time assistant at Richmond:
“I told Patrick he had to take it, because usually Charlie swears at you before he says anything nice. He must really like you.’ "
Brooks also played a role in this anecdote regarding Graham's NFL break. From the story:
Graham got a phone call from Belichick, Weis’ former boss in New England. He did what anyone would do. Graham hung up on Belichick, convinced it was a prank call.
Then Graham called Brooks, probably for reassurance that it must have been a friend messing with him.
There aren’t enough cuss words to capture Brooks’ reaction. Suffice to say, Graham called Belichick back, and he wound up leaving Toledo after only a week and becoming a quality control coach with the Patriots.
“Basically, I’m Patrick’s conscience,” Brooks said.
Green Alert Take: Graham had been defensive coordinator for the New York Giants until the recent regime change and he believed in Brooks when the Dartmouth coach told him he had a player who deserved a chance. He was instrumental in bringing Niko Lalos to the Jints and it will be interesting to see if the former Dartmouth standout happens to land in Las Vegas after spending all of last season on New York's practice squad.
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EXTRA POINT
The sun is shining here in the Upper Valley for the third time this week and that has me wondering how many sunny days we actually get each year in these parts.
The website bestplaces.net doesn't really define what a "sunny" day entails, but it lists Hanover with 194 per year. That's 53 percent of the time. It's not exactly San Diego with 266 sunny days (73 percent), but then again, neither is it Ithaca with 155 sunny days (42 percent).
Out of curiosity I checked the number of sunny days in Gunnison, Colo., where That Certain Dartmouth '14 hangs her Smoky Bear hat. Turns out bestplaces.net lists Gunnison, known as the coldest place in Colorado, with 266 days of sun a year, Yup, that's the exact same number of sunny days they have in San Diego. It's just a little, shall we say, brisker at this time of year ;-)
