If last week 1-2 never felt so good, then 1-3 this week feels much worse. After beating Penn for the first time in 11 years a week ago, Dartmouth football was on the wrong end of a 50-10 thrashing that was broadcast all throughout New England. While the Big Green must be disappointed, losing to Yale is nothing to be ashamed of. Yale features a Walter Payton Award Finalist in Mike McLeod, the star senior running back who appears unstoppable this season, and Yale is nationally ranked in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), or as I like to call it, the Division formerly known as 1-AA. Make no mistake: This is a good Dartmouth football team, the best I have seen in my four years here, but they have yet to join the Ivy League elite. But they are well on their way.
With a little digging, I was able to find out that there are in fact Dartmouth fall athletic teams with winning records. Men's soccer is 6-2-2, including a tie against #10 Northwestern at the Yale Tournament. The Big Green are doing it with a stout defense, allowing just 0.48 goals per game, while goalkeeper Sean Milligan '09 has made 36 saves out of 41 shots against, an excellent percentage for any goalie. Dartmouth's scoring has not been particularly potent, but with 10 goals, they have twice as many as their opposition (though still less than one per game). Craig Henderson '09 and Andrew Olsen '11 lead the offense with four goals each, while Mike Ordonez '08 and Matt Carroll '09 each contribute with three assists to set up the goal scorers up front.
If you guessed that the final Dartmouth team with a winning record would be volleyball, you would probably be one of the biggest Dartmouth sports boosters out there (or just an avid reader of the "Athletics -- Varsity Results" BlitzMail bulletin like your beloved sports columnist).
This always-entertaining Big Green squad has pummeled opponents en route to an 11-3 record, including a 4-0 mark in Ivy League pla; they have yet to drop a game against Ivy League opponents (note: to the volleyball-illiterate, including yours truly, a game is the same as a set in tennis), sweeping Harvard (twice), Yale and Brown in three straight games.
Though the rest of Dartmouth's athletic teams either have losing records or do not really have records (I'm watching you, golf teams), cheer up. All is not bleak in Dartmouth Sports Nation. Men's and women's hockey and basketball are right around the corner.
Now I hate to beat a dead horse but when someone continually insists on riding said horse, I need to make sure to send it into exile. I am, of course, referring to my perpetual archenemy, the Dartmoose. For a few blissful months, I believed that the Dartmoose had disappeared off into the sunset with ill-fated mascots of years past but it appears the anthropomorphic creature is back to take his rightful place along with Wally the Green Monster on the pantheon of mascots that just did not need to happen. Please, Student Assembly, I beg of you, leave me my sanity.
At least we were informed by the fine caption writers at The Dartmouth (in complete seriousness ... I love their captions) that "The Dartmoose ... experienced difficulty seeing and had to be escorted up and down the stairs." It is hard for me to see a positive outcome with a mascot who cannot see, since raising student support could be slightly difficult if the Dartmoose is being escorted around to avoid falling. Not to mention the crazy, demonic grin on the face of the Dartmoose costume featured to Student Assembly members. At this point, the only way I could be led to support the Dartmouth Moose (I will never support the Dartmoose) would be if the mascot was Bullwinkle J. Moose, and was accompanied by Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
Thankfully I have the Red Sox and the Patriots to prevent me from going into full-blown Dartmoose paranoia but I only hope that once I leave this fine institution, there comes another sports columnist ready to fight the good fight and see to it that the Dartmoose, in all its historic mediocrity, never again makes an appearance at a place creative enough to come up with an alternative mascot. I may not be in love with it, but at least the Lumberjack is fun. Please submit any alternative suggestions to USA@dartmouth.edu. I need a cause.