Sunday, June 28, 2015

Ouch

A second incoming freshman will miss his first season with the Dartmouth football team according to his local paper.

Northjersey.com has a story reporting that Harrison Farber, an athletic 6-foot-2, 208 linebacker from Cresskill, N.J., will be sidelined recovering from a repair of his second torn labrum. From the story:
Farber had surgery on his left shoulder in mid-December, and his right shoulder was surgically repaired in April. He said his left shoulder is close to 100 percent, but he continues undergoing physical therapy for his right.
Farber will be joined on the sidelines by David Chalmers, a 6-3, 260 defensive end from Leesburg, Va., and Tuscarora High School who coach Buddy Teevens said earlier this spring would likely be out this fall as a result of knee surgery.

Both players will be able to petition for medical redshirts after their senior year – as long as the Ivy League continues to grant them.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a first-person story by Karen Zingle Zegel about the football life and death of her son Patrick Risha '05, who an autopsy showed had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. She writes:
We didn’t know then what we know now — that repetitive blows to the head cause this horrible disease. Now, in an effort to save other young men from Patrick’s fate, we have started a nonprofit organization and website, StopCTE.org, to bring awareness to this inherent problem in tackle football.
Patrick Risha did not play for Buddy Teevens, but the Dartmouth coach is well aware of the dangers of CTE. It's one of the reasons he's on the vanguard of the no-tackling-in-practice movement. A story in Arkansas' Log Cabin Democrat about the Practice Like Pros initiative includes this:
Dartmouth College coach Buddy Teevens decided to find ways to practice without contact.
Teevens’ teams tackle 10 days out of the year, which are its 10 gamedays.
This has caused a 50 percent drop in missed tackles for Dartmouth and a better record because it keeps players fresher throughout the season.
Roger Pezzuti '66, a star running back at Wayne Valley HS in New Jersey before continuing his career at Dartmouth, is a member of the 2015 Wayne Valley Hall of Fame. He gets a mention in this STORY.

An eBay sale lists a Harvard-Dartmouth freshman game ticket for Nov. 6, 1948 as costing $15. Interestingly, it's also a season ticket for seven games. Times have changed. There aren't seven freshman games anymore. In fact, there aren't even freshman teams. And the idea of charging for a season's worth of games to get into one wouldn't work on any level.

Find the ticket for sale HERE.
An opinion piece in the Daily Pennsylvanian calls on the football team to be the lynchpin of a resurrection of the school's slumping athletic fortunes. Find the piece HERE.