Lehigh Football Nation

Yes, Virginia, that picture of the large rubber check with all the zeros on it is good news about Lehigh. With a big announcement, Lehigh president Alice Gast announced the largest-ever gift to Lehigh last week: a mind-boggling 34.2 million dollar check from the estate of Donald Stabler ('30). Sports fans know him as the gentleman whose work and donations made the Athletics complex and Stabler Arena possible. According to president Gast, that will be able to "double or triple" the number of Stabler Scholars that are currently attending Lehigh, meaning that somewhere between 30 and 60 new scholarships will be able to be endowed through this gift alone. It's all good. Such scholarships don't only throw the endowment well past $1 billion dollars - it gives more and more students a chance at a Lehigh education. ******************* Two new prospectives have been linked to Lehigh University: Red Bank Catholic LB Anthony Lubischer and William Penn HS (York, PA) FB/L...

They fought hard on Sunday, but after a 7-4 throttling of Princeton, the softball team fell just short against UMass 3-1. Despite the mild disappointment of the elimination, the win over Princeton meant the trip to Amherst was a success for the Hawks with a win over their fierce Ivy League rival, and overall signified a return Lehigh softball dominance. Congratulations - and with junior P Lisa Sweeeney (pictured) returning next year, you've got to believe we've got a great chance to get back to the regionals next year. Softball's return to glory clinched one of the more important trophies for the Mountain Hawks: a win over "that school in Easton" in the President's Cup standings . Overall Lehigh finished 5th (a distant 15 points behind 4th place Army and 41 points behind trophy winners Bucknell). But Lehigh trounced that Easton school: 79.75 overall points (vs. 69.25), 37 for men's sports (vs. 31), and 42.75 for women's sports (vs. 37.75). Now al...

Stanford rode a fantastic pitching performance from lefty pitcher Missy Penna as she shut down the Mountain Hawks 4-0 yesterday. She scattered four hits, and Stanford proved that they will be an awfully tough team to beat out of the Amherst bracket. However as rain d elayed the resumption of the UMass/Princeton game (tied at 0-0 in the 1st), Lehigh got a bit of a break: they will play the last game of the afternoon (currently scheduled for 2:30) after the UMass/Princeton game and the winner's bracket game. That means that a well-rested Lehigh could be facing a Princeton or UMass team that's already played a full game. This is good news for junior P Lisa Sweeney, who will almost certainly be pitching again this afternoon. Fingers crossed. Go Lehigh! LehighSports will be again streaming the games for free . If you're in the Lehigh Valley, 91.3 WLVR will also be broadcasting the game, too. If you get CSTV All Access, you can get video of the game here.

The women's softball team travels up to Amherst, Mass, but this time they won't have the element of surprise. After beating Lafayette to take the Patriot League softball title, it's NCAA Tourney time as the Lady Hawks will be facing off against #12 Stanford, Princeton, and UMass in the Amherst Regional. They return to UMass, the scene of their last postseason appearance where they disposed of heavily-favored Texas A&M (seeded #13) and surged into the NCAA regional finals. If Lehigh can get out of this regional again - winning over the CAA champs, the Ivy League champs, and one of the best teams in the Pac 10 - it would be a fantastic story and another coup for Lehigh. Not to mention beating two of the best academic schools in the world in Stanford and Princeton. Are the seeds there for an upset once again? I won't count these Lady Hawks out, with a team batting average of .318 led by freshman C Carly Potok (.354), junior OF Alishia Gonzales (.346) and senior O...

As a guy who graduated in 1992, straddling the cusp between the eighties and nineties, I have some strange obsessions about the eighties. Before you start thinking that they're common fare like The Princess Bride and parachute pants, here they are in no particular order: * The Cars' Elliot Easton's solo album " Change No Change ". * Creepshow ("Wheeere's Myyyy Caaaaake?"). * Eddie Murphy. * Anything with an Ocean Pacific label on it. * Howard The Duck (not only did I love this movie growing up, I bought the soundtrack). * Two words: Dog Police . Aside from establishing me as some sort of obvious freak, it also might help explain my fascination for another former Lehigh student: director and actor Don Most, who has just directed a new DVD movie called ' Moola '. You probably remember Mr. Most best for his role as Ralph Malph on Happy Days . Mr. Most recently talked about his latest project, and life at Lehigh in the Allentown Morning Call...

As a regular reader of this blog, you probably don't follow the world of lacrosse too closely. (Under normal circumstances, I don't follow it at all.) But something is happening there that indirectly affects the Patriot League in terms of expansion - and it's a good introduction to the "unseen" forces in terms of conference affiliations that may even affect, say, football. Lacrosse is still (to me) a niche sport, but it has grown in leaps and bounds in popularity in the last decade on both the men's and women's sides. Until recently, most of the elite teams in the lacrosse world competed as independents in order to allow them the flexibility to make their own world-class schedules (read: this allowed them to play perennial Ivy League power Princeton and academic powerhouse Duke, among others). Notable Lax independents included Syracuse, Georgetown, and D-III Johns Hopkins (who had an exception to be D-III in all other sports, but D-I in Lacrosse). The ...

Last week, senior C John Reese was the graduating male award winner at the Lehigh Athletics Convocation . The awards go to the most outstanding athletes in Lehigh athletics and Reese, a three-time all-Patriot League first team member and all-American, certainly deserved it. In addition to the "graduating male athlete" award, he also won a Distinguished Achievement award for displaying a high level of "scholarship, athletic achievement, and beyond and demonstrated service to the institution." A DVD of the athletics convocation is available for purchase from the Lehigh Website , too. Reese will be adding this award to the award he recently got from the South Side Boosters , too. He grabbed one of their annual senior awards, as did senior FS Ernest Moore (defense) and senior FB John Piascik (special teams). Congratulations to three deserving award winners! The South Side Boosters' web site has some pictures of the event for your viewing pleasure. Makes me w...