TEAM NEEDS BACK SCRATCHED
Coach Blaik Makes JVo Definite PromiseBut Sparks May Fly
THE DARTMOUTH football team needs to have something scratch its back."
That, in Earl Blaik's picturesque way of speaking, means that the Big Green eleven needs a nip-and-tuck battle, maybe even a licking, to pull it together and start the sparks flying. Three early-season romps over Norwich, Vermont and Bates have left the Dartmouth coach (and everyone else) high and dry in his attempt to get a real line on the gridmen who have been absorbing his football wisdom on Memorial Field for some five weeks. He is firmly convinced that the current varsity team is better than that of last fall, but he would like to know a little more definitely how much better. And nothing short of a good back-scratching will supply the answer.
So far this season the Green varsity has received its toughest opposition from the freshman squad, which is made up of an assortment of better-than-average football players. Sid Hazelton has brought his first-year men over from Chase Field for a number of scrimmages, and the yearlings invariably have made things definitely interesting for the varsity. Coach Blaik and his aides are keeping close tabs on the freshmen this year, and have been visiting Chase Field on an average of twice a week to watch the workouts and even to take an active part in the coaching.
"The freshman squad is a little short on line material but looks pretty good on backfield material" is the way that Coach Blaik sizes up the freshman situation, with an eye to the future. The Big Green coach has plenty of basis for judgment, for he has seen the crimsonjerseyed freshmen tangle with his varsity players several times a week and has already had a personal interview with nearly every man on the first-year squad. "We are fortunate in having a scrappy freshman team to pit against the varsity this fall," Coach Blaik declares, "for it has had to assume a lot of the work that would normally fall to the junior-varsity." The Green jay-vees are unusually light this season, and outside of putting on an occasional forward-passing attack they will not be used for much contact work. Pat Holbrook's juniorvarsity charges are rendering an important service, however, in running through opponents' plays for the benefit of the varsity's defensive play.
Scouting Well Organized
Blueprints for the jay-vee plays are based upon the reports of a well-organized corps of Dartmouth scouts. Harry Ellinger, the Big Green's genial line coach, is primarily responsible for the Harvard game this year; Joe Donchess, the end coach, has been given the job of collecting the dope that will beat Yale; and Pat Holbrook has been assigned the Brown and Cornell games. These coaches are being assisted by a number of willing alumni, whose chief is Larry Bankart '10, one of Dartmouth's gridiron immortals. Jim Robertson '20 and Hal Booma '30 have been working on Brown; Mel Merritt '20, Gay Bromberg '31, and Bill McCall '32 on Harvard; Abe Cohen '27, Myles Lane '2B and Bill Clark '35 on Yale; Bill Hatch '24 on Cornell; and John Phillips '28, Chuck McAllister '31, Shep Wolff '31, and Bill Morton '32 on Princeton. Coach Blaik has compiled detailed instructions and blanks for his scouts, and when all the material on a major opponent has been assembled it makes quite a compendium.
The Green coaches aren't so worried about opponents at the moment, however, as they are about the big problem of finding replacements for the first team. "The team is playing more rugged football than last year and is vastly improved in kicking and passing, but we're not as well off in reserve strength," Coach Blaik will tell you. The tackle slots especially are causing a lot of concern, with five men at the most ready to play varsity football at those positions. "We don't have to worry about the ends, and the backfield reserves are at least coming along," the Green coach points out, "but I hate to think of what will happen if we lose any one of our first-string men from tackle to tackle." The sophomore contributions to the varsity this year are pretty largely confined to the end squad and the backfield, which explains the problem facing Harry Ellinger and Coach Blaik.
Believes in Tough Games
The Green coaches were counting on the Bates game to test the second- and third-string men especially, but Dave Morey's club proved almost as easy as Norwich and Vermont, and Dartmouth consequently enters upon its major schedule untested. Coach Blaik is a firm believer in the morale-building qualities of a tough game, and even considers it worth while to invite a defeat for the sake of a close, hard-fought contest early in the season. He recalls the year that a seemingly mediocre Army team held Pittsburgh to an 18-13 score early in the season, thereby gaining confidence and cohesion and going on to win every other game and compile one of the finest records in West Point's gridiron history. Next year's schedule, calling for Holy Cross as Dartmouth's third-game opponent, is more to Coach Blaik's liking, and with Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia in the offing just now, he wishes that the Indians had something like it under their belts.
Team Gets New Jerseys
Speaking of belts, the Dartmouth gridmen have a somewhat different uniform this fall. Jerseys of dark Dartmouth green have replaced those of a lighter shade which dazzled the spectators last season, and a new double white stripe on the sleeves adds a snappy touch. The Indians are still wearing their silver satin pants and their green and silver helmets, but have adopted stockings instead of the bare legs of last year. The whole ensemble is decidedly pleasing, and in more ways than one Coach Blaik is trying to make the Dartmouth eleven look like a real football team.
And speaking of Dartmouth green, the result of the Yale-Penn game seems to have put an early quietus on all local talk about carrying paint to New Haven this year.
The origin of last year's paint story, to the effect that Dartmouth followers had secretly shipped hundreds of gallons of green paint into New Haven, still has College officials baffled. The Big Green coaches are pretty well convinced, however, that some astute psychologist at Yale cooked up the yarn to spur on the Bulldogs. The flaw in this theory is that it is difficult to imagine Yale needing to be spurred on against the Indians.
The Green Varsity Poses in Its New Jerseys Front Row (left to right), Whitaker, Kiernan, Lando, Muello, Nairne, Captain Kenny, Williams, Frick, Schildgen Christiansen Sherman, King. Second Row Bennett, Cassey,Bott, Davis, Barrett, Seidensteucker, Lynch, Archibald, Smith, Reeve, Murphy Hull Third Row Camp Matzinger, Duckworth, McCray, Eckel, Woodman, Chamberlain, Armour, Cannell, McGrath Boyan Hollineworth lop Row—Assistant Manager Cohen, Manager Morris, Joe Handrahan, White, Camerer, Ray, Otis, Merrill, Foley, ClontP
Two sophomore newcomers to the Big Green varsity and a stalwart veteran of the line. Left, Fred Hollingworth, forward-passer deluxe; right, Herb Christiansen, line-plunging Churchill Prize winner; and between them, Carl (Pop-Eye the Sailor) Ray, whose play at center promises to be even more slashing than last year.
