Fifty-Two Years of Dartmouth Football
A Complete Record of Big Green Gridiron History
DARTMOUTH HAS just completed its fiftysecond year of football. Back in 1881 on the Hanover campus Amherst was defeated by one touchdown. Including this first game the Green has played 409 games, winning 272, losing 111 and tieing 26, total points for Dartmouth 8045, opponents' total 3078.
This period of over half a century can, like Gaul, be divided into three parts. The first, from 1881 to and including 1900, comprises nineteen seasons. During this period Dartmouth was coached either by its captain or by some young Yale football star. Although very successful in its games with colleges of its own size, it was completely outclassed by the large institutions. Sixteen games were played with Harvard, eight with Yale, two with Pennsylvania and one each with Princeton and Columbia and in none of these games did Dartmouth score a point while the opposition rolled up a total of 971 points! Six games were played with Brown and one with Cornell and although able to score, Dartmouth failed to win any of the seven games. In other words, over a period of nineteen years Dartmouth failed to enter the victory column in any contest against institutions which lately have provided our major opposition. During the same period, however, the Green had a brilliant record in its games with colleges of approximately its own size. Against Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Tufts, Vermont, Bowdoin, M. I. T., Stevens and Trinity, the record shows 44 victories, only 11 defeats, and 6 ties, with Dartmouth rolling up 1463 points to its opponents 348. The New England League was reorganized in 1887. The men of Eleazar won the league laurels seven times, including five consecutive championships from 1893 to 1898.
THE SECOND period in Dartmouth football history runs from 1901 through the S. A. T. C. team of 1918. In this period Dartmouth comes into its own. 1901 brings the first alumnus of the college acting as regular coach, and brings the first victory over a major rival—a 22-0 defeat of Brown. Probably more important to the under- graduates of that time, it marked the first year that the Green scored on Harvard. 1902 brought another triumph over Brown, and again the Green crossed the Crimson goal line. 1903 was a red letter year. After tasting defeat eighteen consecutive times at the hands of John Harvard, Dartmouth went down to Cambridge for the dedication of the Harvard Stadium and not only defeated the Crimson but added insult to injury by keeping Harvard from scoring. 1903 also brought victories over Brown and Holy Cross with scores of 62-0 and 18-0. At the end of the season Walter Camp put Hooper of Dartmouth on his All-American team. Dartmouth had climbed from football obscurity at last and basked in the sun of glory. In 1904 the Green experienced its first undefeated team. In 1905 Princeton for the first time fell before the onslaught of what had now become the "Big Green." 1907 brought another undefeated team. In 1908 the Tiger again fell before the Indian, while in 1909 they battled to a furious tie. In 1913 Dartmouth first tasted of the red blood of Cornell, and in the seasons of 1913, 1914, and 1915 each year found the Green experiencing but one defeat. For the eighteen year period the records show 118 victories, 27 defeats and 12 ties with the point score Dartmouth 2935, opponents 696. During these years Walter Camp picked eight Dartmouth men on his firststring teams.
THE THIRD period in the history of Dartmouth football begins in 1919 and ends with the 1933 season. There are a number of things that distinguish and mark it.
1. It began after the war and naturally has been greatly influenced by two things which have affected the College at large since the war—first, the growth in the size of the undergraduate body and—second, the Selective System with its influences on the type of men entering Dartmouth.
2. The period has been marked by the resumption of regular annual games between the Green and Cornell in 1919. Harvard in 1922, Yale in 1924 and Princeton in 1933. From now on these old and respected rivals will annually play the Indian.
3. More intersectional games were played in these fifteen years than in the preceding thirty-seven. Ten intersectional games found Dartmouth winning six and losing four. Next year finds another intersectional contest—the Virginia Cavaliers invading Hanover.
4. This period brings forth a host of Dartmouth backfield stars of AH-American calibre. There were many great linemen, including three who were on Camp's AilAmerican teams, Youngstrom in 1919, Bjorkman in 1924 and Diehl in 1925. But it was in the backfield that the Big Green really found its luminaries. Jim Robertson, Jack Cannell, Eddie Dooley, Bob McPhail, Jim Oberlander, Myles Lane, A 1 Marsters and the two Bills—Morton and McCall, these scintillated brilliantly from 1919 to i93i-
5. The period is marked in its later years by a greater annual number of major games. For the past six years the number of major games has been as follows, with the number played away from Hanover in the third column:
1928 6 4 1929 5 4 1930 5 4 1931 6 4 1931 5 4 1933 6 5
This matter of big games played on opponents' fields is one which should always be kept in the back of the mind when considering Dartmouth football. When five out of six games necessitate journeys of from one hundred to nine hundred miles, a distinct handicap is imposed.
6. This fifteen year period brought the most successful three year record in Dartmouth football history and it also brought the most disappointing three year record since the turn of the century. From 1923 through 1925, the Big Green lost but one game. From 1931 through 1933 the Indians lost eleven games with the Chicago 39-0 defeat going down as the worst since 1921 and the third worst since 1896. In spite of the last three years, however, the Green's record in this fifteen year period against opponents who were played in more than two games is good. The advantage over Harvard stands six to five with one tie in 1933. Brown was defeated seven times out of ten games, Cornell won but six out of fifteen and Pennsylvania bowed to Dartmouth three times, defeated the Indians once, and tied one game in 1921. After six straight victories for the Green, Columbia finally in 1931 chalked up a triumph. Yale alone of all regular opponents finds herself in a position to "point with pride." In the nine games played, the Elis have won six and tied three.
Did you know that:-
The Harvard-Dartmouth rivalry is one of the oldest and longest in the~ countryforty games in fifty-one years .... Of the major rivals Brown ranks next to Harvard in number of games played—twenty-four . . . . The Green has met Yale and Cornellthe same number of times—seventeen .... Although Dartmouth has not met Amherst since 1915 the Lord Jeffs still rank next to Harvard in number of games playedtwenty-eight .... In the thirty-five "major" contests played between 1881 and 1901 the Indians failed to win a single game .... Dartmouth has played the three Maine colleges (Bates, Colby and the University of Maine) a combined total of fifteen times, but none of the three have ever scored on the Green .... Bowdoin, the fourth Maine College, has never defeated Dartmouth, but out of ten games has one tie to its credit .... The Indians weredefeated by both Andover and Exeter—butthe games were in 1886 and 1888 . . . . Norwich and Vermont, two of the six institutions that Dartmouth has met over twenty times, have each scored twentyseven points on the Green, while the Indians \were rolling up 876 and 768 points, respectively, on the Vermonters . . . . Vermont, however, has one victory and three ties to remember .... Dartmouth has never defeated Army, Colgate, Stanford, Georgetown, Navy or Northwesternbut has met the first three only twice and engaged the last three only in single combats .... Henry Hooper '07 madeCamp's "All-American" his freshman yearand but for his death in February, 1904,probably would have developed into thegreatest center the game has ever seen .... Jack Cannell was coach longer than any other man in Dartmouth football history .... In 1882 the Green played Mc-Gill with each team using thirteen players and with McGill playing under Canadian rules and Dartmouth under American .... Dartmouth's greatest scoring team was that of 1914 which ran up 359 points in nine games—it is closely pressed, however, by the great 1925 team with 340 points in eight games . ... The best defensiverecord is held by the 1907 team which heldnine opponents to 10 points .... In 1931 opponents rolled up no points on the Green—this being the largest total since 1892 .... The Indians have not played in more than one tie game in a season since 1916—and have played in only one scoreless tie since 1915 . . . . Twelve Dartmouth men have made the Walter Camp-Grantland Rice Ail-American first teams .... And you do know that Dartmouth has never defeated Yale and most Dartmouth men expect the trick to be turned next year!! November 3, 1934—Carpe Diem!
Member Alumni Council from Detroit
SINCE THE publication in 1923 of "Athletics At Dartmouth" by H. G. Pender'97 and R. M. McPartlin '20 there has beenavailable no summary of game scores andother athletic data. The editors requestedMr. Whelden, who has kept his own records of Dartmouth game scores during thepast ten years, to compile the accompanying charts. By the end of the year it is expected that similar information on othermajor sports will be published by the MAGAZINE. Primarily a matter of casual interest, this article, and others of a similarnature to come, may well be preserved bythose readers who desire to have these figures and facts at hand.
