Ivy League tour: Dalton High's Phelan visits prestigious schools in weeklong recruiting trip

Jul. 14—Dalton High School senior Bannon Phelan has two very important items on his checklist as he goes through the college football recruiting process.

"I most likely will play college football as long as I get the right offer," the tight end and defensive end said. "But any place that I go, I want to have the mix between a good football culture and good academics that will give me a degree that will set me up for 40 years in the future."

The schools that Phelan has recently visited certainly check that second box.

In a recent weeklong trip, Phelan and his family visited five schools in the Ivy League.

"I started getting emails and texts and different messages from different Ivy League schools early on," said Phelan, who holds a 4.4 grade point average heading into his senior year. "And then we had finally decided around probably around April to be able to try and go up and make a trip to see all the Ivy Leagues that have reached out and just try and get that done in one fell swoop."

First was Columbia University on June 23. Phelan, who is being recruited as a tight end, received a scholarship offer from Columbia in April. From New York City, Phelan and family traveled to Princeton University On June 24, hit New Haven, Connecticut, and Yale on June 25 and made it to Providence, Rhode Island, for a scheduled visit with Brown University on June 26. The Ivy League tour closed out with a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Harvard University on June 28.

The academic side of the five schools didn't need much of an introduction for Phelan, but the senior spent the week viewing football facilities, famous campuses and the cities that house them.

"I've never been to New York, so that was a really cool experience to be out in the Upper West Side and then go up in North Harlem to the athletic facilities," Phelan said of Columbia. "And then Princeton, the architecture was just insane. The old buildings with all the different meaning. It was just a beautiful campus. Yale is just historic. I mean, everybody knows what Yale is. and the city of New Haven was just great, like a college town. Brown was nice. Providence is a beautiful city with great food."

A weeklong tour of some of the country's oldest institutions didn't mean Phelan could shirk his workout routine for the upcoming Dalton season. Five workouts, placed strategically between times of travel, meant Phelan couldn't go full-on tourist, but he got to hit some highlights and try some new foods — including trying lobster for the first time.

Columbia is the only offer Phelan holds currently as he heads into his senior season.

"But so far as recruiting, I'm not 100% set that I want to go to an Ivy League yet," Phelan said.

Phelan isn't completely set on an area of study yet either, but leans toward a major of international business.

"I think that's something that would interest me a lot, especially because about a week before we left for our trip, I spent two weeks in Germany," Phelan said. "So being able to experience different cultures, I realized that I like to do that and I like to travel. The plane ride was not my favorite, the 12-hour plane ride. But I did I did have a great time over in Germany. So I think being able to travel internationally for work would be fantastic."

Before he moves on to life after Dalton High though, Phelan is focused on helping the Catamounts compete this fall.

Dalton made a return to the state playoffs last year after the Cats finished with a losing record in 2020 and 2021.

"After going through spring practice and a month of workouts so far in the summer, I think our offense right now is looking fantastic. Our defense is way better than I think we were last year. I think the big thing that's different from last year's team to this year's team is just our chemistry because we went to a seven-on-seven tournament at UTC and we just dominated," he said. "Individually, I don't have a set goal of how many yards or touchdowns. I just want to play the best of my ability to help our team win and get us as far as we can in the playoffs."

Phelan makes up half of a strong bookend of tight ends for Dalton. On the other end of the line of scrimmage is Jeffson Locke, another senior who was also offered by Columbia on the same day as Phelan in April. Locke announced his commitment to West Point last week.

"Working with Jeffson has just made me ten times of a better player," Phelan said. "I think we push each other to be better vocally and on the field. We push each other at practice. We hold each other accountable and responsible for each other."