We're b-a-a-a-c-k ;-)
New about Cirkul, the flavored water bottle company created by former Dartmouth quarterback Andy Gay '14 and defensive back Garrett Waggoner '13 went a little, uh, viral when TikTok videos that went, uh, viral to the tune of 1 billion views led to the company's valuation topping $1 billion. And with that, emailing the news this way went, uh, viral, as a bunch of you shared various links about the former teammates and their hit product.
Unfortunately, a bunch of the stories were behind paywalls, but to read one that is not, CLICK HERE. There's another HERE mentioning that Cirkul now has more than 500 employees.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Waggoner had a short career in the Canadian Football League. Gay, even before Dartmouth, had a pretty good eye for marketing. Here's a prize-winning entry he made with a couple of buddies in a Trident Layers Commercial video competition. That's Andy as the snarky driver of the car:
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Speaking of the CFL, the Calgary Sun has a story under this headline: STAMPS NOTES: Orimolade CFL's 'best-kept secret'. Orimolade is Folarin Orimolade '17, the former Ivy League defensive player of the year at linebacker for the Big Green. Find his Dartmouth bio HERE. Flo and the Stampeders play at the Hamilton Tiger-Cats this afternoon.
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This pic of Niko Lalos '20 at an OTA with the New York Giants is from the Dartmouth football Instagram account:
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Catching up on a little more news during our week off the grid, DenverBroncos.com followed up on Russell Wilson's visit to Dartmouth to give the commencement address last Sunday. From the story (LINK):
Over the weekend, Wilson delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth College, where his father and three of his uncles attended school. Wilson joked Monday that he may or may not have had the grades to get into Dartmouth, but the winter weather during a visit in eighth or ninth grade was enough to cross the school off his list.
The opportunity to return and honor his late father, though, was clearly meaningful to the Broncos' quarterback.
"It meant a lot," Wilson said. "To have my brother there, Ciara there. My mom unfortunately couldn't come but she watched live. It was just special. My sister couldn't come but she watched live too. It's just an amazing moment to be able to talk about his legacy and what he meant. The coolest part of the whole entire thing, I got there on Saturday and I had a few people come up to me and they just talked about my dad and what he meant to them and very successful people — people that were former teachers there, [Dartmouth football coach] Buddy Teevens. It really meant a lot to me, and I think that's just a blessing. And hopefully I can be a mere fraction of what my dad was to other people."
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EXTRA POINT
We had four peaceful days camping at Maidstone Lake in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. It was fun to not even know the NBA had crowned a champion until a day or two after the final. As for what's happening in our nation's capital, I had no clue, which was wonderful.
With the temperature just 52 degrees and a light rain falling up in the Kingdom I'm fine being back at our cozy and dry Vermont hillside home. I'll plop down on the couch this afternoon and root for Rory McIlroy at the U.S. Open in Brookline, Mass., and keep an eye on the weather down there. Right now it's supposed to be 59 degrees and overcast tomorrow. Maybe if it gets even chillier and rain is in the forecast tickets for the final round prices start to drop a little bit on the secondary market I'll head down with That Certain Nittany Lion '16 who made it to the collegiate golf nationals with the PSU club golf team.
Correction, if the prices start to drop a lot. Maybe snow would help. The cheapest on StubHub right now is $479. Yikes!
Here are a couple of shots from our week up north, starring Griff the Wonder Dog, who was an absolute ace:
