Ivy League Football Teams to Wear BT Decal on Helmets

HANOVER, N.H. — As Buddy Teevens, the Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coach at Dartmouth, continues to recover from injuries sustained in a bicycle accident in March, the eight schools in the Ivy League have banded together to wear a decal with his initials on their football helmets this fall to demonstrate their continued support of Coach Teevens, his family and the Dartmouth community.

The Ivy League schools also will read a public address announcement during all conference games to explain the decal on the helmets and express their support.

"The Ivy League truly embodies collegial respect, and we are grateful for the support the entire conference has shown," said Mike Harrity, the Haldeman Family Director of Athletics and Recreation at Dartmouth. "We compete fiercely on the field, and we are all members of a truly special group that comes together to support each other in difficult times."

Teevens, 66, has been a fixture in the league for the past 18 years in his second stint at the helm of the Big Green football program. He also spent five years as the team's head coach from 1987-91 and owns a career record of 117-101-2 at Dartmouth with five Ivy League titles to his credit. In both 2015 and 2019, he was named the AFCA Region I Coach of the Year as well as the New England Coach of the Year by the New England Football Writers, and his conference peers chose him as the Ivy League Coach of the Year in 2019 and 2021. The Gridiron Club of Boston pegged him as its New England Coach of the Year in 1990 and again in 2015.

The 1979 Dartmouth graduate also led the Big Green to an Ancient Eight crown as the quarterback on the 1978 squad, making him one of just three people to win an Ivy League football championship as a player and a head coach. He was selected as the Bushnell Cup winner as the league's MVP that year as well.

Known throughout the football community as a staunch advocate for making the game safer for players, Teevens eliminated live tackling in all Dartmouth practices a dozen years ago and saw a precipitous decline in practice-related injuries, particularly concussions. His vision also led to the development of the Mobile Virtual Player (MVP), a robotic tackling dummy, invented by staff and students of Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. The MVP is now in use at numerous NFL and college practices to help cut down on the number of player-on-player hits and reduce injuries. In addition, he serves on the NCAA committee on competitive safeguards and medical aspects of sports.

Teevens has been an integral part of the famed Manning Passing Academy since its inception more than a quarter century ago and has been singled out as one of the driving forces behind the camp's success. Unable to participate this summer, Archie Manning and the staff wore baseball caps with the event logo on the front and "BT STRONG" above the left ear.

In 2018, he organized the camp's first clinic for women coached by women in 2018, then hired one of the coaches to become the first full-time female Division I coach that fall in Callie Brownson. The next year he hired Jennifer King to his staff, and both Brownson and King have gone on to become coaches in the NFL.

At the start of the 2023 NFL Draft, commissioner Roger Goodell delivered this message about Teevens to a national audience: "His impact both on college football and the NFL has been enormous. He has been a leader in making our game safer through breakthrough innovations. He is a pioneer in hiring female coaches, two of whom are currently coaching in the NFL. I know Buddy and his wife, Kirsten, are watching the draft tonight, and we send our love and best wishes to both of them. Thank you, Coach. Thank you for all you do for the game of football. We look forward to seeing you back at Dartmouth."

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