Courtesy: David Silverman(DSPics.com)

The call came from Bret Bielema, head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers.
    Growing up in neighboring Minnesota, Tony Pastoors knew all about Big Ten football. 
And here was Bielema offering him not just a spot on the Wisconsin team, but a 
scholarship to play in the Big Ten. The Totino Grace senior was living every high 
school football player's dream.
    Pastoors had been told he was high on the Wisconsin recruiting list at safety 
and it was after one of the players ahead of him jumped ship for Michigan, that 
his phone had rung. "I was home alone and I remember looking at the area code 
and wondering if it was one of my buddies messing with me," Pastoors said with 
a laugh.
    Pastoors played his high school football in a powerhouse TG program that he describes 
as, "a program built on brotherhood." Loyalty and trust are clearly important 
to him and so, while he was flattered by the call from Bielema dangling the scholarship, 
he followed his instincts.
    He told the Wisconsin coach, "I appreciate it, it's really awesome, but I've 
made a commitment to Buddy Teevens and the Dartmouth program. That's where my 
heart is and it's where I want to be.
    "With a lot of coaches," Pastoors said, "when you tell them you are going here 
or there  it's 'click.' But (Bielema) asked a couple questions about Dartmouth 
and what drew me there. He said if things don't pan out, you've got the number. 
But I knew I was going to get a world-class education no matter what happened 
at Dartmouth."
    Pastoors will admit his resolve was tested when he was home on Christmas break 
and tuned in to Wisconsin's Outback Bowl game in Florida. "I'm sitting there with 
my dad looking at him and wondering if I made the right decision," he said. "And 
I can say now I did. As hard as it was to swallow at the beginning with a 2-8 
record, and believe me, losing does not get any easier, I know I made the right 
decision.
    "It would have been cool to play at Camp Randall and Ohio State and Minnesota, 
but I'm definitely glad I'm on the Green."
    Not that it has been easy.
    After playing with the junior varsity as a freshman, Pastoors lost his entire 
sophomore season and the first couple of games as a junior after undergoing surgery 
to repair a hip problem.
    "It was something I had always lived with," he said. "I was a high school 400 
runner and (the hip) clicked. Just a little click. I always kind of felt it, but 
they said it was just tendons snapping or something and it really wasn't painful."
    That changed in the winter of his freshman year when the condition worsened, 
eventually getting to the point where he had trouble making it up the stairs to 
his dorm room. He would eventually see orthopaedic surgeon Chris Larson, a team 
physician for the Minnesota Vikings, who discovered a point on Pastoors' femur 
that had been grinding away on his labrum.
    As he did with former Vikings' (and Harvard) lineman Matt Birk, the doctor smoothed 
out the head of the femur, stitched up the labrum and instructed Pastoors to shut 
it down. "So it was three months of don't jump, don't run, don't try anything 
stupid," the 6-foot-2, 195 pound senior said. Full recovery was projected to take 
up to 15 months.
    "It threw my sophomore year away and lingered a little bit junior year," Pastoors 
said. "Toward the end of my junior season it became a non-issue. It was one of 
those things where it was, 'Wow, this is what it feels like to run around.' It 
didn't click. There was no more soreness or pain. I've had nothing since. It's 
been phenomenal."
    After getting most of his time on special teams last year, Pastoors earned a 
starting role this fall and made up for lost time with a 16-tackle effort against 
Colgate. He followed that up with 12 stops against New Hampshire before developing 
flu-like symptoms the next week. Only it wasn't the flu.
    It was pneumonia, something he's had before and is susceptible to, and it sidelined 
him the last two weeks.
    "Sometimes you wonder, is life fair?" said Buddy Teevens with a shake of his 
head. "A guy that worked so hard. He had the hip repair, he doesn't know if he 
can play at all, and then he comes back and it's going so well and all of a sudden 
it's pneumonia. Where did that come from? But he's dealing with it. He's a pretty 
even-keel guy."
    And he's something else according to his coach: a quiet leader.
    "He worked really hard in the offseason to come back when he couldn't even walk," 
Teevens said. "Never mind run. Never mind play. And he worked himself back into 
a starting situation. People really respect him, and it's all action."
    Pastoors' leadership skills go well beyond the football field. Elected a member 
of the Hill Winds Society – a group of students who serve as ambassadors to 
the alumni body – Pastoors also serves as president of Beta Alpha Omega, formerly 
Beta Theta Pi.
    "Beta had a very rich tradition on the Dartmouth campus and it was a shame to 
see them go but they did things the wrong way," said Pastoors, who hopes one day 
to be the general manager of a pro sports franchise. "Coming back last year, one 
of the things all the alums stressed is doing it the right way and we feel like 
we are. We are interested in character guys."
    If the Beta president who was as good as his word when the Big Ten came calling 
four years ago is any indication, it's safe to say they are off to a good start 
with a character guy at the top. (Bruce Wood)

Tony Pastoor's recruiting trip to Dartmouth was made possible by the generosity 
of the Class of 1950 and  David D. Dowd III '79 through the Athletic Sponsors 
Program.