With the Outing Club
A few weeks ago Coach Otto gathered his winter sports squad about him and invoked St. Peter, lord of the snows. The next day the ground was white.
Since then pre-season preparations have taken on new zest: Each afternoon sees a queue of earnest skiers on the fairways of the golf course with ski-poles flying madly. Otto's "jumping machine" is in constant use for learning the fundamentals of the aerodynamic style. Heelers are busy repairing the jumps and the all too rocky Balch Hill courses. And now the downtown stores are beginning to pin price tags on skis, boots, and poles, and are worrying about the Norwegian exchange rate. As this is written there is a foot or more of light powder snow on Moosilauke, the barometer is hovering nearly an inch below normal, the campus is white, and snow is streaking the white swath of the searchlights that sweep the Library tower. It looks like a good old-fashioned winter—at last.
Meet the 1934 winter sports department: Prof. C. N. Proctor 'OO, the head of the department; Otto Schniebs, genial and enthusiastic coach, whose efforts have kept Dartmouth teams in top place for the last three years; Jack Shea, mainstay of the team in the speed skating events, and an inspiring captain; and Sig Stern, the team's efficient manager.
Of last year's championship team, Lyme Wakefield '33 and Dick Goldthwait '33 are the only losses by graduation, though their places of figure skater and all-round skier will be hard to fill. But this year will again see Jack Shea and Pug Goldthwait on the ice for the speed races; Frank Lepreau will be on hand for the snowshoeing event; and the team of skiers who ran off with the National Downhill Championship crown on the Moosilauke course last March will be back on skis this year without a single exception. The most important fact here, however, is that none of them is a specialist in this branch of skiing alone, but all are equally accomplished in slalom, jumping, and langlauf. Do you wonder that the winter sports department is looking forward impatiently to the winter's meets?
Winter, and the Harding Trophy meet, the Carnival meet, the intercollegiate championships, the important downhill meets, and all the rest, are all too unbelievably close. Meanwhile Otto and Emerson Day, 1934 director of Carnival, join in that fervent prayer to the great god of precipitation,
"Dear St. Peter, oh,How about some snow, . . . ." and send on their high hopes for a grand winter with a "big skier cheer"—Ski-HEIL!
