Lehigh Football Nation

You probably didn't notice it this week - heck, I didn't - but Lehigh posted their game times for the 2011 season. All six home games will have a 12:30 kickoff time. No word, though, as to when the parking lots open and when they'll be open to pre-game tailgating. (more)

In retrospect, Jim Tressel was just an actor. Just like Bill Cosby , or Randy "Macho Man" Savage - an actor, playing a part. Wrestlers, of course, create bigger than life personas inside the ring of simplistic good-or-evil characters, often designed to deflect, like an illusionist, the reality behind what people were seeing.  That's the lot of the wrestler - and the actor. And Tressel - seen here, back in his days as a I-AA national championship winner with some of his dominating teams at Youngstown State - was no different from those who make their living making it seem like they're someone else. Whereas Macho Man wore crazy getups to make one doubt his sanity (in the ring), Tressel played the role of dad. A good, Christian dad, wearing suits and ties to games. Looking like a cross between Woody Hayes and Pat Riley . At once looking like a clean, quasi-militaristic vintage 1960's coach, exuding control.  He looked almost too much like the part of...

Say this about Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany - he knows how to get an audience.   Yesterday, Delany put himself front and center once again after picking up a topic that two NCAA commissioners, the late Myles Brand and Mark Emmert , had floated but never pushed - the idea that scholarships to play collegiate sports should include the "full cost of attendance". Currently, the "full cost of attendance" of an athletic scholarship includes tuition, dorms, classroom materials and other expenses. But Delany's endorsement of the proposal to include transportation and a stipend for personal expenses as scholarship money turned a whole lot of heads for a lot of different reasons. (more)

It's never news that Patriot League teams receive awards about their Academic Progress Rate from the NCAA. Since instituting the measure in 2005 to track athletes' progress in reaching graduation, Patriot League schools have consistently, alongside the Ivy League, been honored for the number of teams that have scored a 977 or above. (Broadly, it means that 97.7% of the the team has made academic progress towards their degree.) That Patriot League schools are consistently at the top or near the top of their institutional peers in APR rates is not news. Buried in the numbers, however, are two items that should not be ignored - a subtle change that has robbed the Patriot League of some national recognition, and a case for football scholarships that you might have missed. (more)

Picture this: it's November 22nd, 2014, the day when Lehigh and Lafayette face off for a historic 150th time on the gridiron. But instead of heading over to Fisher Field in Easton or Murray Goodman stadium in Bethlehem - you're going somewhere else. You're taking your mimosas and fried turkeys and heading to Citizens Bank Park - home of the Phillies - for a fantastic, full day of tailgating, events - and, obviously, bitter hatred of the Leopards or Mountain Hawks. The idea of bringing "The Rivalry" to a neutral location is still in its infancy, but is still a very intriguing prospect that could bring with it a lot of new fans, TV exposure... and fun. (more)

(Note: This blog posting has been cross-posted at Technorati , and can also be found in its entirety there .) In January, the University of Delaware issued a press release that has unfortunately, been all too common at smaller schools all over the country. They announced they were cutting a non-revenue men's athletics program - in this case, men's cross country and track and field - due to fiscal and Title IX compliance concerns. What was different this time was that the co-captain of the hundred year-old team, Corey Wall, decided to file a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights. It cited reverse gender discrimination , and suggested that the enforcement of Title IX was, in reality, taking them away from men "against the spirit of Title IX." Truer words have never been spoken. (more)

(Photo Credit: Dave Burbank/The Ithaca Journal ) When it comes to Ivy League double standards, you can't do much better than comparing football and lacrosse. In football, there is a ban on playing postseason football in the FCS playoffs. Aside from language in the original Ivy Agreement intimating a ban on postseason play, "interference with final exams" is one of many popular rationales for maintaining the ban that has been repeated over the years. Such restrictions might be fine - if they were applied consistently to all Ivy League sports. But they're not. And all you need to do is look at the sport of Lacrosse to see why the Ivy League holds true to ideology... unless it benefits the bottom line. (more)