Excellence, Indeed

Ivy league champion football players Jalen Mackie '22 and Derek Kyler '21 won two of the top honors at the college's annual Celebration of Athletic Excellence this week.

Mackie, a 6-foot-1, 240-pound senior linebacker and All-Ivy League first-team selection, was presented with the Alfred E. Watson Trophy as Dartmouth's top male student-athlete. He averaged 9.6 tackles per game last fall to lead the Ivy League. He had eight tackles for loss and one interception on the way to making the Stats Perform All-America third team.

The St. Thomas Aquinas graduate from Miramar, Fla., has opted to use his COVID-19 "super season" next fall at the University of Massachusetts.

Kyler, a 6-foot, 180-pound "super senior" quarterback from DeKalb, Ill, and finalist for the 2021 Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League's offensive player of the year, was presented the Kenneth Archibald Prize, recognized as Dartmouth's highest honor. It is presented to "the member of the graduating class who has been four years in attendance, who has been the best all-around athlete, regard also being had to moral worth and high standing in scholarship."

Kyler completed 70.7 percent of his passes last fall, second in the nation. He threw 17 touchdown passes and was intercepted just one time. He wrapped up his career as Dartmouth's all-time leader in completion percentage and passing efficiency and will long be remembered for the Hail Mary pass that gave Dartmouth a 9-6 win over Harvard in 2019.

Find the full Celebration of Athletic Excellence release HERE.

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Speaking of former Dartmouth players, Nigel Alexander '20, like Mackie a linebacker, is included as a "key addition" to the Braunschweig New Yorker Lions in a German Football League 2022 North Preview on the website American Football International. Other "imports" who get a mention come from South Dakota and Portland State among others. (LINK)

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EXTRA POINT
If you are on a mountain when you hear rolling thunder a little too close for comfort it will get your feet moving a lot faster.

When that rolling thunder becomes a sharp, explosive CRACK almost directly overhead it will turn you from a mountain hiker into a mountain runner. Trust me on that.

I was lucky enough yesterday to make it to my car before the rain turned into a gully washer and even luckier to have the car in the garage before the rain was replaced by pea-sized hail that, if it had been much bigger, might have dimpled my car like a golf ball.

I'll be checking the weather radar a little more closely the next time the weather looks threatening while I'm pulling on my hiking shoes. And you can trust me on that, too.