Hanover
Hoots and excitement greeted the snow showers on Memorial Field. Some of the freshmen hail from sunshine states such as South Carolina, California, Georgia, Arizona and Louisiana. Tyler Addison, a defensive back from the latter locale, told coach Buddy Teevens he had never had snow fall on him before and planned to call his mother as soon as the team headed back inside.
“Your eyes light up because a day like today is something that’s special about this place,” Teevens said. “The players always claim we didn’t tell them about the snow during the recruiting process and we act like we forgot to mention it.”
Dynamic Duo: Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team opened play Friday at Rhode Island, and sophomore standout Evan Boudreaux is again expected to play a big role. There’s no one among the current student body who knows the big man’s moves better than sophomore linebacker Jack Traynor, who played three varsity hoops campaigns with him at Lake Forest (Ill.) High, north of Chicago.
Traynor was the Scouts’ point guard and laughingly said the job mostly entailed “bringing the ball up, finding Evan and letting him make it work.” Lake Forest won a regional championship during the pair’s senior year, and Boudreaux was last winter’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year.
“We had some great seasons,” said Traynor, who’s started much of this season after missing most of last fall with an ankle injury. “He was such a hard worker and that’s what he’s known for back in Chicago. It’s great to see he’s done great things in the Ivy League already.”
Traynor, at 6 feet and 230 pounds, must have been a formidable opponent on the hardwood. He said basketball helped his agility, and he went on to become the Illinois high school career leader with 378 tackles. He’s tied for third on the Big Green with 41 stops.
“Basketball was one of my first loves but I realized in high school that my path to a great school like Dartmouth was going to be with football,” he said. “I was always going against guards who were quicker than me, so I had to get my foot speed up so I could react and change direction with them.”
Free Publicity: Teevens and the Dartmouth program have received repeated doses of national exposure during recent NFL telecasts, which featured a short piece on the Big Green’s use of the Mobile Virtual Player robotic tackling dummy. The league aired them as part of a push to show how football can be made safer.
The coach said the MVP’s website received 1,500 hits Sunday. The CBS internet series “Engineering the Perfect Season” and the Chicago Tribune have also recently featured the dummies, several of which are regularly used during Dartmouth practices.
“How cool was that?” Teevens said of the robots’ showing on the telecasts. “Friends of mine were texting and calling from all over the country. Old alums and a lot of folks that are not affiliated with football made comments.
“It’s pretty cool for the institution, the Thayer School of Engineering and certainly our football program and our recruiting.”
That’s not to say that Teevens has been watching the spot on repeat.
“I’m the most self-critical guy you know, so I saw it once and I haven’t watched it since,” he said, wincing. “It’s embarrassing.”
Notes: Teevens was limping noticeably Friday, the result of a Thursday practice collision with a running player during a passing drill. “I got clipped in the knee and went down, but I got right back up,” the coach said with a grimace. … Watching from the sidelines in cowboy boots Friday was Teevens’ former Dartmouth teammate, Jim Eden, a onetime Navy pilot who now flies international passenger routes all over the world. … Another attendee was D.J. Terry, a senior receiver and defensive back from Gulliver Prep, a high school in the Miami area. Terry is slated to also visit Minnesota, Louisville and Western Kentucky and holds offers from Army and Navy. … Victories in the last two games of the season would allow this season’s senior class to finish with the same 29-11 record as did last year’s seniors. … Dartmouth has won its last three games with Brown and four of the last five. … Ben Kepley’s two punts at Cornell averaged 38 yards, pushing him past 7,000 yards in his four-year career and making him just the second punter in program history to pass that mark. … Brown leads the Ivies in fewest yards allowed, tackles for loss (70) and sacks (23) and still has yet to surrender fewer than 21 points during a game. … Bears coach Phil Estes is in his 19th year at Brown and is a Laconia (N.H.) High graduate who was once a University of New Hampshire player and assistant. … Each of Dartmouth’s last five games has been decided by fewer than 10 points. … Big Green linebacker Folarin Orimolade leads the Ivies in sacks (8) and forced fumbles (4) and is second in tackles for loss (12.5). The senior’s 63 tackles lead his team and he’s garnering NFL attention. … The Big Green will wear black helmets and jerseys and white pants for today’s game.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.