TWENTY years! Harry Hillman, coach of the Dartmouth track team, will laugh out loud if anyone mentions twenty years to him now, for ever since he started work in his anniversary year, he has been the subject of innumerable pleasantries and quips regarding his long service at Dartmouth. Fellow coaches present him with a cane, suggest that a fund be taken up for a wheel chair, and few even dare mention "one-fifth of a century" to his face, but still down deep in their hearts they all marvel that a man of Hillman's youthful appearance could really have been around so long!
Harry Hillman is a Dartmouth institution. President Hopkins said as much in commenting upon his long span of service to the athletic branch of the Dartmouth curriculum. In the college catalogue the reader will find, listed with the academic faculty, "Harry Livingstone Hillman, assistant professor of physical education," but to those who know Harry and who have worked with him, a far more intimate tale than the cold type of the catalogue is revealed.
They can remember many Harvard-Dartmouth football games, when, in the heat of battle, a man is injured. He lies flat on the ground, with a group of teammates over him. The white-shirted referee looks into the group and motions to the sidelines. There is a commotion on the Dartmouth bench, and a player hands a small black satchel to a man who has hitherto sat huddled on the end of the bench. The man, wearing a battered brown hat, rushes out to the injured player, and soon fast hands have alleviated the injury and play again resumes. That is one picture of Harry Hillman. Another comes to mind when the football players are going through their daily drill in Hanover.
The casual observer will see perhaps a hundred men, scattered over the field, working singly or in organized groups. This group will be tackling the dummy, another will be working on the bucking machine, and several more will be trying their toes out on long punts. But while this veritable three-ring circus is in progress, there will be one man present whose duty it is to watch everything. He stands on the sidelines, hands deep in his pockets and one foot forward—a characteristic pose. They say that Harry, when he stands in this manner, looks as though he is about to lead the first steps of a Virginia Reel, but never leaves the statuesque pose of the first step.
But suddenly he is alert. A player in a distant group has caught his eye, and Hillman is by his side questioning him about his knee. A trivial thing, but a quick inspection reveals some trouble, and the player receives a summons to the dressing room. Another player in a far group has a kink in his arm, which causes him to pass unnaturally. Hillman will spot his trouble immediately.
That is why the services of Harry Hillman are valued so highly in football circles.
Now THAT THE PIPE IS LIGHTED
But twenty years seems a long time, and in the seclusion of his fine home on Park Street one evening, Harry Hillman was given to introspection and retrospection on Dartmouth as it was in 1910, and the changes time has wrought in twenty years.
Lighting his pipe and sinking into a Morris chair, Harry called up to memory Dartmouth as it was when he first received his appointment as track coach.
Dartmouth, with barely 1000 students in 1910, was just on the brink of the changes which transformed it into one of the large Eastern colleges. "Athletics were then just in the growing stage," said Hillman, "why, the only facilities we had were old Bissell Hall, a board track and a football field made of clay, which rendered work on a rainy day impossible. The whole physical training department consisted of Dr. John Bowler, Tom Keady and myself, and only one man was needed to take care of the whole equipment, inside and outside."
In those days of football stars such as Jess Hawley, Clark Tobin and Jack Ingersoll, Dartmouth, like most colleges, was still in a "primitive state" regarding athletics. The football coach was Bill Randall, who has since passed away, and he was assisted by Keady, who is now the well-known mentor of the Quantico Marines. Today only Dr. John Bowler and Hillman himself remain of the old regime, Dr. Bowler being the physical director of the college.
We asked Hillman about the student body itself of those days, and just how the group compared with the present undergraduates at Dartmouth. He chuckled, and answered, "Well, of course in those days everyone wore sweat shirts and corduroy pants, and they were a rough and ready group. Today they are not so rough, but mostly of the same type. They still retain the famous Dartmouth spirit, but I don't think quite as much as they did in the old days."
"Nowadays they do not take athletics so seriously," added Hillman, "for there are so many other outside interests. Take the movies, and the weekends, what the student calls his 'peerades,' for instance. In the days of 1910, if an athlete broke his training, he would have been ridden unmercifully, so seriously did they take their sports."
The subject turned to football, which is familiar ground to Hillman, who has been in a position to see the changes more so than any other man at Dartmouth, unless it be Dr. Bowler himself. Where football coaches have come and gone, Hillman's advice has been sought continually in football matters.
FOOTBALL SINCE THE WAR
"The Great War divided Dartmouth football into two distinct eras," said Hillman, "before the war, the teams were coached by Randall and Major Frank Cavanaugh, now of Fordham, and the facilities made it a constant struggle for both teams and coaches. The alumni gymnasium was just under the process of being constructed when I came to Dartmouth, and up to the point where it was finally finished, we had to get along as best we could."
Men such as President Hopkins, who was graduate manager of athletics, Charlie Proctor, Charles Bolser, Clarence McDavitt and E. K. Hall, all old-time members of the athletic council, did great work in solving the problems of the day as far as the finances went. The writer received a letter from Clarence McDavitt of Boston not so long ago when the news dispatches were carrying the stories on Hillman's remarkable tenure of service, in which Mr. McDavitt pointed with pride to the fact that he had been sent out by the athletic council in 1910 to engage a track coach. Harry Hillman was the man he found.
"Some wonderful athletes were killed in the war," said Hillman. "There was Chuck Pudrith, football player and hammer thrower; Warren Hobbs, who beat Earl Thomson in a hurdle race and who was one of the best all-round athletes ever to enter Dartmouth; Charlie Hopkins, a real end and track man, and of course Spuddy Pishon, the quarterback."
"One of the most pathetic letters I ever received," mused Hillman, "came from Charlie Hopkins. He was killed in aviation training in France, and one month later I received a letter from him stating that when the war was over, and if he survived, how glad he would be to get back to Dartmouth and play on the old Green football team and run under me on the track team. The letter was delayed in transit, and it was sure a tough thing to read the contents knowing that the boy at that time was buried somewhere in France."
Coming back to football, we asked Harry to name a representative team at Dartmouth in the years 1910-1930 inclusive. He thought a long while, refilled his pipe and started figuring on a piece of paper. What he finally wrote is this: Ends, George Tully '26 and Eddie Daly '12; tackles, Gus Sonnenberg '19 and Nate Parker '25; guards, Fat Spears '17 and Swede Youngstrom '19; center, Josh Davis '27; quarterback, Jackson Cannell '20; halfbacks, Larry Whitney '15 and A 1 Marsters '30; fullback, Jim Robertson '21.
"That's not such a bad team at that," beamed Hillman. "With such a powerful line and a smart quarterback; Marsters with his open field running, Whitney with his line bucks, and Robertson with his wonderful punting and dropkicking, it shapes as a formidable organization."
"What about Oberlander?" we ventured to ask. "I knew that would come up," said Hillman. "Oberlander was a pippin his senior year, but Whitney went big his whole four years; but at that, Obie could take either halfback position and the team would not be exactly weakened."
Talk again veered to the Great War, and Hillman recalled the feverish days on the Dartmouth campus during those two years. The entrance of the United States into the war practically reduced Dartmouth, as it did other colleges, to a mere skeleton. During the early stages, the students were forced to drill most of the day, and intercollegiate athletics were temporarily dropped. Hillman recalled the sham battles which were staged all over the New Hampshire countryside, and the miles of trenches dug under the instruction of a Canadian captain. Often the entire student body was forced to march in formation from Hanover to Lebanon, to White River Junction, a distance of some 15 miles.
SOME FAMOUS COACHES
Immediately following the war, Clarence "Fat" Spears returned to Hanover in the role of head football coach. Spears, appointed this year to the head coachship of Oregon, was a visitor at Atlantic City last fall when the Dartmouth training camp for the Navy game was pitched there, and he and Hillman talked over many of the old days at Dartmouth.
Regarding coaches in general, Hillman said, "Dartmouth is no place for a coach of the alibi type or the crabbing kind. As long as I can remember, we have been a fun loving, congenial bunch, and in fact there is so much kidding between us that we do not know when to believe each other even when serious things have arisen."
To those visitors to the Dartmouth gymnasium during the midweek practice period of the track team, the truth of Hillman's statement will be revealed. They might see a sham gun duel between Hillman and Harvey Cohn, the freshman coach, or they might see a faked-up unpaid gas bill made out to Hillman on the official bulletin board, and no hour elapses but what something happens. There was the story of Hillman's battered brown hat, which news dispatches said one day he had worn continuously for 15 years.
But one day he appeared in a French blue beret. It seemed that he and Jess Hawley had been involved in a mysterious swapping deal, the facts of which never came out, although many suspected that Harry's famous hat had been pilfered. At first the players and coaches were in an uproar, but Hillman became attached to the beret, and now it serves as an identifying mark to all strangers entering the gymnasium.
Hillman recalled that the 1920 season of Dartmouth football was one of the best. In that year Dartmouth made a trip to the Pacific coast, where they dedicated the University of Washington's stadium by a decisive victory.
"That was quite a team," Hillman recalled, "most of the players were ex-service men who had been in France, and the war had hardened them when they arrived back at Dartmouth. Some of these boys were naturally a bit old when they came back, not from age but from their experiences. I remember that Capt. Jim Robertson never took his headgear off, even in rest periods, because of his bald head.
"Bill Cunningham was a rather breezy native of Texas, and he startled the spectators on several occasions when the game was held up with an injury to a player in the Washington game by saying, 'Mr. Referee, hold up the game a minute until they carry off their dead.'
"This team represented more of the present professional football teams in spirit, after they had seen so much of the war. Football to them was child's play, and you simply couldn't discipline them. About all we could do was to kid them along, and even then they would look at you with a wise look in their eyes."
TRACK TEAMS
Of course the conversation drifted to track, for that is Hillman's specialty
Since his arrival at Dartmouth, every college track record has been broken, and this performance alone conjured to his mind several star men he had developed.
"Harry Worthington, I think, was the best all-round track man ever to wear the Green," said Hillman. "I remember that he was also a star hockey player, al- though he never found time to go out for the varsity, and he could have made the infield on the baseball team had he chosen that sport. As it was, he never lost a broad „ump competition while he represented Dart- mouth. And then he played quarterback for one year on the football team, and to cap the climax was in great demand by the musical clubs as a soft-shoe dancer.
"Worthington, together with Nate Sherman and Larry Whitney, formed a great trio. Sherman was probably the best sprinter that ever entered Dartmouth, and Whitney was the best man in the weights for his time."
A flood of names came to Hillman's memory of track stars in days gone by, and we asked him to pick an all- star aggregation similar to his football team. After some musing, he chose the following, which gives a perfect cross section of Dartmouth track during Hillman's tenure:
AN ALL-HILLMAN TRACK TEAM
100 and 220 yards: 440 yards: 880 yards: one mile: two mile: hurdles: high jump: broad jump: pole vault: shot put: discus: hammer: javelin:
Sherman, Glendinning and Olson Riley, Swope and Legay Martin, Crawford and Granger Martin, Harmon and Noyes Marceau, Thompson and Ball Thomson, Wells and Braun Brown, Russell and Maynard Worthington, Nordell and Donner Wright, Meyers and Buck Whitney, Spears and McAvoy Whitney, Spears and Lee Tilley, Marden and Englehorn Covert, Lee and Dooley
"I would put those boys against any team in dual competition," said Hillman, "although I don't know whether I have picked the best that could be brought together, for there were so many good performers." It is significant to note that on Hillman's all star team, there are few men from recent years. Only Robert E. Lee, Jr., and Roger Donner at present in College, and Gerard Swope, Jr., Jack McAvoy, Tom Maynard, Eddie Dooley and Jeff Glendinning are recent graduates.
We asked Hillman what was the outstanding performance of all the Dartmouth track athletes he had coached, and he unhesitatingly answered, "Earl Thomson's without a doubt. His record of 14 2-5 seconds for the 120-yard high hurdles still stands, and he made that while still in college. It probably will stand for some time to come." An interesting sidelight was that it was Earl Thomson who came up from the United States Naval Academy to take charge of the Dartmouth team at the Intercollegiates when Hillman was unable to make the trip to New York.
"But there were other stars," Hillman went on, "there was Marc Wright who held the world's pole vaulting record for over ten years, and Leßoy Brown, the best high jumper Dartmouth ever had, who held the college, indoor and outdoor intercollegiate titles, and who was just nosed out at the Olympic games by Osborne, the world record holder."
Hillman's pipe was now out, and it was getting dark outside. We had been talking most of the afternoon, and Mrs. Hillman was making anxious motions which indicated that there were some household tasks left undone. So in a final summation of his twenty years, we asked him this question: "Is there anything which you would view with alarm during your twenty years at Dartmouth?"
HANOVER'S HIGH COST OF LIVING
He took a deep breath, and said, "Yes. Now back in 1910. . . ." Here he put in an aside, "I don't know as you had better say that, for I will be surely kidded about my advanced years. I am not bald, and I still think that I could get out there and run." He went on. "Yes, there is one thing and that is the high cost of everything compared with the old days."
"When we came up the hill from the Norwich station in stage coaches, when the Outing Club was just an idea, and when the freshman rules were as yet unthought of, everything was so much cheaper.
"Why, we could get a week's meals for $4, and the student paid only $150 for tuition. Even athletics cost only $10,000 for the whole college outfit. Nowadays, food is $12 a week, and they spend about $100,000 on athletics. If I wanted to eat at the Inn, I would have to pay $21 a week for my food!
"But then, it is not such a bad world after all," Hillman mused, "but remember one thing, I am not getting old!"
FOE THE 1908 OLYMPICS Hillman defeats John Taylor, U. of P., in the 440
THE DARTMOUTH SPECIAL (On the way to play Washington in 1920) Some Dartmouth notables are here: Hillman himself (lower tier, left); "Fat" Spears 4th; "Gus" Sonnenberg 7th; "Jim" Richardson 9th; "Doc" Bowler 10th; "Jigger" Pender 11th; on center tier may be seen "Pudge" Neidlinger 3rd from left; "Brainy" Bower in middle position; Aschenbach and Robertson extreme right. Bill Cunningham is on roof (wearing sweater with D); other notables fill the foreground.
IN THE 1904 OLYMPICS Hill just after establishing new record in the 400 meter at St. Louis
EARL THOMSON CHASING HIMSELF OVER A HURDLE