Following the Big Green Teams

DARTMOUTH ELEVEN UNDEFEATED FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1925;CAPTURES "IVY LEAGUE" CROWN SECOND YEAR IN ROW

ONE thing on the records of the 1937 Dartmouth football team was a "second." For the Indian gridsters won their second straight "Ivy League" championship by going undefeated for the season.

Otherwise almost everything on the books goes down as a "first." They were: (1) The first undefeated season since 1925.

(2) The first time Dartmouth has won its final game of the season since 1927.

(3) The first time Dartmouth has defeated Princeton since 1913.

Which just about ruins any further mention of the Yale jinx (buried in 1935), the Princeton jinx (annihilated in 1937), the last game jinx (ridiculed in 1937 by the Indian's 27-0 win over Columbia); and let's see, can anybody think of any other so-called Dartmouth inferiority complex that hasn't been tossed into the ash can?

Briefly, here's how the 1937 season developed. We feel that it would be a waste of space to go over the running accounts of the major game contests, because they have already been covered in so many different ways and the facts are familiar to almost every alumnus. But for the outside chance that some member of the family now stationed in China is not familiar with the records, we deal quickly with the scores, etc.

Going into the first real test of the cam- paign against Harvard, Dartmouth had de- feated Bates, 39-0, Amherst, 31-7, Spring- field, 42-0, and Brown, 40-0.

As the Indians were rolling up these large scores, followers of the team were complaining that the Dartmouth eleven was scoring not so much on machine-like precision and finished blocking, but on long runs, touchdown passes, and momentary flashes of brilliancy. On all sides there was a hue and cry for more of the type of football that had made the 1936 eleven famous and powerful.

Suddenly it dawned on everyone that this year's team could be a great eleven and still not be like the 1936 team we were all so used to as an example of perfection.

This is not to say the 1937 team did not work long and hard on perfecting fundamentals that it lacked in the first three minor games. However, it does go that this Dartmouth team never reached the peak as a unit that last year's eleven scaled. Nor could it be expected that a new eleven would cover ground that its predecessor took three years to cover.

However, in a different style entirely, the 1937 eleven was perhaps the equal of the team to which we can best compare it. For the first example, we are now in the Harvard game on October 22, 1937. A year ago in the same Soldier's Field stadium, the Big Green had quietly and relentlessly pounded the Crimson into their own sod. There was no question in any spectator's mind which was the better eleven.

This year, on the other hand, the Big Green continued to be an eleven that depended on one "big" play, one perfectly executed stratem. And from this pre-game plan, Dartmouth, with sophomore Bill Hutchinson in the role of the game's hero, emerged the winner, 20-2. Some may elect to say that Dartmouth was lucky to defeat a fine Harvard eleven, 20-2, but not those who realized that the one outstanding ability of the Dartmouth eleven this year was its knack of scoring quickly, unexpectedly, suddenly, and whatnot, from any point on the field. To those who trailed along practice after practice with the Dartmouths, it was not quite so unexpected, this long range scoring of the Indians. For the camp followers knew beforehand how well the Big Green had been coached on these scoring plays that looked easy to the fans, but were fully as much the result of laborious work as the other brand of football that calls for continued drives to the goal line. True Hutchinson's first touchdown gallop was the result of his own quick' thinking when he sped around left end when the enemy had expected he would punt and even his own mates expected the same, but Dartmouth was not a team the defense could make mistakes for, and the Crimson defense paid the penalty for its lapse.

Hutchinson's second score was something of a different nature. This cut-back scoring play was rehearsed time after time on Memorial field. It was called the "perfect" play, and it was. Rain, mud, and the Crimson line (a very good line at that) could not stop it as a play. Play after play that the Crimson did stop were only buildups for this play. Dartmouth knew that it was coming, could see signal caller Fred Hollingworth working to the climax, and bam she went with Hutch untouched by the opposition. Call it luck if you wish, but I'd call it good strategy on the part of our coaching staff. Dartmouth's third touchdown, set up by the great Bob MacLeod and pushed over by Hutchinson, was simply two fast backs, that is too fast for the Crimson defense.

However, I would say at this point that Harvard had the best offense Dartmouth was called upon to stop this fall and might have with a little good fortune scored one touchdown against the Indians.

So much for the first top major triumph of the season. Now we're in the Yale Bowl, and Dartmouth is undefeated and Yale is undefeated, and the Bulldogs are favored to win.

Harry Ellinger's great line stops an early game "break" for the Elis when a fumble gave Yale a real chance for a score. Dave Colwell's unbelievable punting then keeps Dartmouth from unleashing its own offense, because the Indians are always too deep in their own territory. However, Clint Frank and the rest of the Yale attack is finding the Dartmouth line (in a 7-1-2-1 defense) much too much of a problem. So Frank elects to pass, and his receivers are none too sure, when suddenly in the third quarter MacLeod intercepts one of Frank's passes on his finger tips, stops a fraction of a second to recover his balance, and then turns toward the Yale goal running for some 15 yards just inches away from the sidelines, receives two good blocks early from his mates, outruns three Yale tacklers as he turns to the center of the field, and then outdistances the rest of the Yale team as he races for the coffin corner across the field. Here was practically a routine interception turned into a score by the individual skill of one Robert MacLeod and the quick reactions of his mates in aiding a man on the loose.

Thus the score became 6-2 in favor of Dartmouth and minutes later Hutchinson intercepted another desperate Yale pass and carries back to Yale's territory. Four plays later the same Hutchinson carried over for a touchdown standing up, but a Dartmouth man was clearly offside, and the play was called back. Two five-yard penalties in a row for delaying the game and Dartmouth was out of reach of the scoring line. Into the game rushed sophomore Phil postal, who calmly booted a field goal for his mates to make the score read, 9-2.

The chances of Yale tying up the game with the time left on the scoreboard was against the Elis' success. But the men 0f Yale were successful, and one is forced to say, more power to them. For Dartmouth did not let down. Dartmouth did not become disorganized when two fourth down passes clicked for Yale to bring them deep into Dartmouth territory. Rather the Indians were cool and collected and Yale put it over. Seventy-two thousand fans watched the point-after-touchdown try sail square through the middle of the uprights, and then followed a scene many Dartmouth men will never forget.

There was the Yale team down on the field positively delighted to have tied Dartmouth, and from the manner in which the Elis tied Dartmouth, they had every reason to be happy. But Dartmouth men never thought three ye;ars back that they would live to see the day when a tie with Dartmouth would be satisfaction to Yale, and thus is written in a one-act drama in the Yale Bowl, the whole story of how far Dartmouth has come back along the trail of winning football since Coach Earl Blaik and staff joined forces with the Green.

Palmer Stadium was the next stop for the Indians, and the old jinx stuff was brought out of the closet and it was discovered by historians that although Princeton tied Dartmouth, 13-13, in 1936, an Indian eleven hadn't actually defeated the Tigers since 1913.

When the game in the Stadium was all over, the Tigers were a pretty docile jungle animal. For all but one minute of the first half, the Tigers were having something of a day for themselves. Princeton had scored nine points before Dartmouth tallied.

Rather than losing their nerve, however, the Big Green pulled the unexpected on the high flying mates. A pass from Hollingworth to Captain Merrill Davis, who was a good pass receiver but seldom used and thus not much considered by the Princeton secondary, registered the touchdown as the half came to a close.

The second half was all Dartmouth. For the third Saturday the Big Green came up with another backfield star. Against Harvard it was Hutchinson. Against Yale it was. MacLeod, who is always a star but particularly outstanding in the Bowl, and against Princeton it was fullback Colby Howe, the former jayvee who came up from the ranks to one of the top positions on the squad. Howe practically pulverized the Tigers with his power running behind clean cut blocking and some fine down-the-field pickup blocking.

Back home after five weeks-ends on the road, Dartmouth was primed to open up its attack to cope with a highly respected Cornell defense. That the day was unsuited to open football was a blow to the Indians, which is in no manner of speaking an alibi for the Big Green, 6-6 tie. Far be it from me to alibi for an eleven that never looked greater than it did coming from behind against the Big Red.

Dartmouth in the fourth quarter after Cornell's score was unbeatable in its retaliation. Some people qualify the statement by saying that they have seldom seen a more powerful attack under similar conditions of mud and rain than Dartmouth demonstrated on Memorial field, but I can't qualify it at all. As long as I have seen this game of football, and I will admit it isn't as long a time as many, many people can boast of, I have never seen a more devastating attack than Dartmouth had. It was even more unstoppable than Princeton's attack in the snowstorm of 1935 or Princeton's power of 1934, and I never thought I'd see anything that could compare with those two Princeton elevens.

Another Dartmouth power attack running against time stopped on the lip of another touchdown, but it wasn't in the books for the Big Green to win despite their superiority in the last five minutes.

But at New York on Baker field, there was no mud to speak of, no early game setromped through Columbia, 27-0. Again, although Dartmouth had shown its ability to do just such things before, critics felt that the Big Green was not 27 points better than the Lions. Maybe not, but we had seen Hollingworth passing to MacLeod for a touchdown before, had seen Dartmouth put over a touchdown with seconds left in the first half at Princeton, had seen Howe take an enemy punt and run back to the Princeton two-yard line, in short, had witnessed the plays some people thought were breaks in the game.

But to state the case another way, no enemy could afford to give this year's Dartmouth team an inch head start, for every team that did was sorry afterwards, and every single opponent except Cornell was guilty of playing into Dartmouth's main forte, turning a mistake of the opposition into a touchdown. Sometimes as at Harvard the mistakes of die enemy were defensive errors. Sometimes as at Yale and Columbia it was mistakes in the enemy's offense that boomeranged back into their faces.

Be this as it may, there never was a team that could score faster than this Dartmouth eleven as it proved time after time.

Sometimes during the season, in a weak moment, the writer felt sorry for the oppon- ents who were doing so well at holding the Indians in check only to find themselves seconds later lined up on their own goal line preparing to block a point after touch- down. It might have been an interesting study to have taken nerve tests of the rival gridsters after each game with Dartmouth to find out how the men suffered from 60 minutes of being on edge, always fearing that Dartmouth was to break away for a score on any one play.

As far as the writer is concerned, this was an outstanding Dartmouth eleven in many other ways besides its undefeated record. For one thing, Dartmouth was represented this fall by gridsters who could THINK. Coach Blaik, who seldom if ever makes comparative statements about individuals or teams, stated after the Columbia game that the 1937 Dartmouth eleven was the smartest team he had ever coached, and this quote coming from Coach Blaik is more than a mouthful.

Coach Blaik meant that it was a smart eleven because it could adjust itself to defensive manoeuvers made by the defense in two or three experimental plays. That it was a team that pulled the unexpected and most of the time successfully, and even when not successfully, it looked smart trying the plays. That it was an eleven that could think quickly when the opportunity to pickup a runner presented itself, besides many other small things that showed that it was a highly intelligent squad.

SPIRIT ALL THAT COULD BE ASKED

As for the team's spirit, or rather the squad's spirit, it was all that could be asked. The squad worked extremely hard at the beginning of the season when scrimmages were necessary nearly every afternoon. It was a squad that worked together at all times to help one another and to cooperate with the coaches at every step of the way. Much was written during the season about happy-go-lucky Dartmouth, etc., and actually it was in appearance a team that never seemed to be worried about anything. But in the end this was perhaps the thing that kept the team from cracking many times during the season in several of the games.

After Columbia Captain Davis, Francis Schildgen, Roy Duckworth, Hollingworth, Bud Lynch, Larry Hull, Herb Christiansen and Warren King took off their cleated shoes for the final time. Each of these men has played a vital part in Dartmouth football for three years. Five of them have been starting gridsters, three of them—Lynch, Christiansen and King have never had the pleasure of starting a game for Dartmouth, but there is a lot more to football than the starting lineup and the latter three will receive as much credit as the gridsters who opened games for the Green.

Next year Dartmouth appears to be set for an even greater season than this one. If the boys are as successful with the books as they are expected to be, Dartmouth will have good material and plenty of it, and this does not include the unknown freshmen who will report as sophomores next

September. It stands to reason that a yearling eleven that was defeated only by the Boston College freshman on the first game of the schedule must have something besides their uniforms. Likewise the Junior Varsity coached by Eddie Chamberlain may have a gridster or two who will rise as did fullback Howe. The jayvees downed Harvard and Army and lost to Yale, 7-6. Who the freshman gridsters will be who will make good, or who the jayvees will be who will make the big step, we wouldn't attempt to say. It is not fair to the freshmen to publicize them before they have had a chance to prove their worth and it is too hard, if not impossible, to point a finger at the jayvees who are promising. Next spring's off-season workout will tell the story and at that time names will be flung hither and yon. But not now.

So the football book is closed for the year with great reluctancy. But two well-written chapters have been added in the last two years, and the era can be said to be a prosperous and happy one.

On other fronts Harry Hillman's varsity cross-country team won another "Ivy League" title for Dartmouth. In so doing, the Indian harriers won seven out of the eight meets they entered. Looking ahead, the Big Green seems to be set for a successful season in basketball under Coach Osborne Cowles, while Eddie Jeremiah will certainly bring Dartmouth back in hockey in time, which the sextet will need, for progress will be slow at first. In the Spaulding pool swimming is having a tremendous rebirth in importance, with Coach Sid Hazelton already underway with his squad for a month and a half. Dartmouth, contrary to opinion, is not all done at the close of the football campaign.

DIAGRAM OF THE FRANTIC, FINAL QUARTER AT NEW HAVEN

PRECEDED BY FRAN SCHILDGEN (25), 808 MACLEOD GETS AWAY FOR A LONG GAIN AGAINST PRINCETON

BIG GREEN "ALL AMERICA" HALFBACK SHOWS HIS SPEED In the fourth quarter of the Yale game October 30 trailing 0-2, Dartmouth went intothe lead on Bob MacLeod's interception and run for a touchdown of a Clint Frankpass. The stellar junior halfback shown here at the fifty yard line about to reverse hisfield on the eighty-five yard run.

DARTMOUTH LEADS 6-2 AS MACLEOD SCORES Completing his long and brilliant run by outdistancing Colwell (44), Bob completed hisrun in the midst of pandemonium in the Dartmouth stands. Note that he started downthe side lines in the picture above and crossed the field through half the Yale team tothe opposite side lines, a stride ahead of Colwell. Final score: Dartmouth 9, Yale 9.

A DAILY SCENE ON THE CAMPUSIntramural touch football with teams competing in leagues among fraternities, dormitories, and classes has attracted a record number of participants and spectators this fall.Fast running, smart passing, and rugged-enough blocking feature many of the close andexciting games. Competition is keen for the silver cups handed out by the intramuraldepartment and the title of "College Champion" in all sports during the year.