Going The Distance

Today's dip into the Ivy League record book . . .

TOP 10 LONGEST RUNS SINCE 1956

Yds	Player	School	Yr	Opponent
97	David Clark	Dartmouth	1988	Harvard
97	David Clark	Dartmouth	1988	Princeton
96	Charlie Volker	Princeton	2017	Brown
95	John McNiff	Cornell	1990	Columbia
95	Mark Kachmer	Brown	2011	Yale
94	Bob Flanders	Brown	1968	Yale
94	Kahlil Keys	Yale	2013	Columbia
94	EJ Perry	Brown	2019	Bryant
94	John Spooney	Brown	2013	Penn
93	Denny McGill	Yale	1956	Dartmouth
93	J.R. Clearfield	Columbia	1989	Bucknell
93	John Spooney	Brown	2013	Penn

Interestingly, Harvard is the only Ivy team not to have a 90-yard run since the start of formal Ivy League play. A visit to the Crimson record book does not reveal the longest run since 1956, but does have the longest scoring run (probably the same thing). It is 86 yards by Ted DeMars, who had covered that distance in a touchdown run against Yale in 1972.

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With spring football at Dartmouth beginning next week a couple of photos have shown up in the Big Green social media account that remind us it's time for "mat drills." What are those?

This is from a long-ago BGA Daily posting:

"They are called mat drills because originally they were conducted on old wrestling mats in the weeks leading up to spring football. Lou Holtz and Bobby Bowden are considered the founding fathers of workouts like these that get players ready for action, and help in team-building."

The origin of mat drills might date to the winter of 1973 when Bowden was at West Virginia and disappointed in his team after a loss to North Carolina State in the Peach Bowl. From an Orlando Sentinel story recalling Bowden ordering his team into a room with an unrolled wrestling mat (LINK):

Inside that room, atop those mats, West Virginia players exhausted themselves at the invective-laden direction of their coaches.

The players performed various agility and movement drills, all designed to build stamina and to test intangibles they carried in their minds and souls.

They called them “mat drills,” and Bowden carried them with him to Florida State.

And . . .

During the glory years — FSU finished ranked among the top 4 every year from 1987 through 2000 — coaches and players credited mat drills for their success.

As a result, other schools began to copy the Florida State way.

With the advent of winter conditioning and indoor facilities – like the Dartmouth Green House – mats have given way to other means of "building stamina and testing intangibles," as this photo from Dartmouth posted this morning shows:

Courtesy Dartmouth football

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EXTRA POINT
In 1990 Sports Illustrated ran a story about Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk that referred to his "hard-edged New England work ethic." From the story:

Among Pudge's many jobs as a kid was a paper route. "We used to have to lay that paper between the storm door and the front door no matter how hard it snowed," he says. "Last fall the kid who delivers our paper tossed it at the end of the driveway. The next morning I was waiting for him. I told him, 'Do it right, or don't deliver it again.' "

That story resonated with me. I would never claim to have a "hard-edged New England work ethic," but I believe in doing things the right way.

Since I was a kid shoveling the neighbor's sidewalk for $5 I've always cleared not just a path through the snow but a couple of inches onto the lawn. That Certain Nittany Lion '16 will gladly tell you how obnoxious I was about that when he was younger and wanted to help by shoveling the deck at our house on the shoulder of Moose Mountain. Do it right, or I'll do it.

So what's going on here? I believe in working hard, but I also believe in working smart. It's supposed to reach 60 degrees here my midweek, so after shoveling out in front of the garage yesterday morning I decided to let Mother Nature finish the job for once – although I have to admit I'm itching at getting back out there with the shovel. ;-)