On another slow Sunday we dip into the archives to follow up on Thursday's BGA post linking to former Dartmouth safety Quinten Arello's Pro Day results. Should they be a surprise?
Maybe to some people, but not to former Dartmouth coach Kyle Cavanaugh '09, a Big Green football/baseball player as an undergrad and the person who had a hunch about Arello without seeing him on the football field.
And those Pro Day numbers are probably not a surprise to the coaches at Yale, who lost a recruiting battle for him.
From a story I wrote about Arello for the final series of Dartmouth football programs in 2022:
When Joe Paterno was deciding whether to recruit running back Curt Warner to Penn State he famously traveled to West Virginia to see him play basketball, not football.
"You can check out a kid's quickness, his balance, reactions, coordination, everything," explained Paterno, who would see Warner graduate as the Nittany Lions' all-time rushing leader and be chosen third overall in the NFL Draft.
Watching an athlete run up and down the court, jump and cut makes sense, even if he can't shoot worth a lick. Making a decision about a high school football player you saw in person only on a baseball diamond is a little riskier, but it certainly worked out for Dartmouth in the case of free safety Quinten Arello.
Find the full story about the former two-time Big Green captain HERE.
Green Alert Take: I'm reminded how much I miss those Dartmouth game programs and how much I enjoyed writing for them.
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Dartmouth Alumni Magazine has a capsule look at former defensive lineman and captain Mike Rabil '06, co-founder and CEO of the Premier Lacrosse League. Rabil helped start the PLL with his brother Paul, a lax legend at Johns Hopkins. Find the story HERE.
For a little more detailed background on Rabil and the PLL, check out the Jon Schultz Podcast with him HERE.
The ESPNPlus film Fate of a Sport features Mike Rabil explaining how PLL became what it is today. Here's a trailer from the film. That's Paul Rabil in the thumbnail.
Green Alert Take: I got to know Mike a bit in the early days of BGA Premium and it doesn't surprise me that he's an entrepreneur. What does surprise me is the direction he has taken. Back when he was a Dartmouth senior he old me his dream was . . . to open a Lebanese restaurant. ;-)
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A story out of the FBS ranks headlined Five Transfers Who Are Shining in Spring Practice reminds us that the quarterback Dartmouth faced in the Granite Bowl the last couple of years could play a little bit. From the story (LINK):
QB Max Brosmer – Minnesota (New Hampshire)
The skinny: When a incoming transfer gets named as a team captain after only a couple of months on campus, it has to be considered a positive. There are always some concerns with an FCS quarterback taking over an offense at the P4 level, but Brosmer has passed initial tests with flying colors as he already has a grasp of the offense and has quickly gained the respect of his new teammates.
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EXTRA POINT
A few thoughts about those ubiquitous commercials during the NCAA Tournament featuring Charles Barkley, Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, Jennifer Garner and Jim Nance.
First, I'm more than a little sick of them.
Second, with apologies to Happy Days, the commercials have jumped the shark. They were kind of amusing the first year or two but they've clearly run out of ideas. To call this year's spots sophomoric is to praise them. They are more grammar school-ic.
Third, and most damning, the spots are on so much that I just tune them out. It's kind of like when you repeat a word over and over and over until you get to a point when the word makes no sense and just sounds like a noise. That's the case with those commercials. Honestly, when I thought about them yesterday I couldn't even remember what they were for. Enough already.
