THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS

Those were tough times. I suppose things were tougher back in the days of the Paganini haircuts and the quilted pants with the reeds down the front of the thighs, but ours were plenty tough enough, and so was our opposition. I wouldn't want to be casting any aspersions at the matriculatory processes of some of our opponents at this late date, but it was quite disconcerting, to say the least, to look up and ask some abdominous guard kindly to take his heel the hell out of your eye, only to have him look down blandly and reply "No spik Inglish!"

I heard old Cav in one of his last afflicted days, in a moment of grim reminiscence, say, with a dejected shake of his leonine mane, "It always seemed to be my fate to coach the grubby when they were at their grubbiest." Close scores, formidable hospital lists, the constant search for somebody to play, the constant having to explain where and what Dart-MOUTH was . . . . all that and more was part of the picture some so years ago.

But you'd never know the old place—or is it necessary, I wonder, still to speak about it in whispers? It was for years—the matter of our being socially affiliated at last at Cambridge and New Haven, I mean. We earnest sons of the Old Mother writing sports for the press of, especially, Boston and New York were urged constantly to pipe down. We shouldn't make so bold as to say Dartmouth was "pointing for" Harvard. We shouldn't commit lese majeste to the extent of referring to a Dartmouth-Harvard or a Dartmouth-Yale game as "an objective contest."

It would be just as well if we didn't refer to Dartmouth in terms of equality, especially with Harvard, for we weren't by any means a fixture on the Harvard schedule, Harvard might bust us out of that spot at any moment. And as for Yale .... well it might be just as well to be careful there, too.

None of this came from the college officials, as such, but I could write a few poignant chapters about those jitters of a decade and a half ago and about the dazzling difficulties of trying to be a free-swinging sports writer and a punch pulling alumnus at one and the same time. It was awful, and thank God, it's no more, which is what I've been all this time getting around to try to say.

The Green alumnus in say, California, who hasn't seen a Dartmouth football game since say, 1920, would no more recognize the Dartmouth of today than Rip Van Winkle would know his 20-year-old daughter. With the fear of God hammered into me as it was 12 or 15 years ago, I hesitate to stand right up and shout that we're now as important and as socially acceptable as any of 'em, but plenty of others are shouting it and not stopping there even to reach for a glass of water.

When I tell you that Dartmouth is now a bigger attraction in the Harvard Stadium than the Army team plus 1000 of the West Point Cadets marching into the field in formation to the stirring melodies of their magnificent and world famous band, I'm speaking the honest truth.

When I tell you that Dartmouth drew 72,000 paid admissions to the Yale Bowl on October 30, for a complete sell out that caused them to close the gates for the first time in six years, turning 10,000 people away, I'm merely stating an easily authenticated fact.

And when I proceed with the report that almost 40,000 people flocked to Princeton's Palmer Field a week later to see "the amazing Dartmouth team go," that's another fact. And that crowd came to see Dartmouth. The Princeton half of the picture had been splattered by Cornell, had barely beaten Rutgers 6-0 and the previous week had taken the worst licking from Harvard a Tiger team ever took—the count being 34-6.

I say this reverently, humbly and en tirely in the bosom of the family—l mean I wouldn't dare write it for the outside press—but Dartmouth is now practically the dominant figure of the so-called eastern Ivy League, through its proved box office appeal. There isn't so much talk—in fact there isn't any—about dropping Dartmouth now. There's even an occasional fear expressed that Dartmouth might do some dropping.

You can butter it and slice it in any fashion you please, but Harvard, Yale and Princeton—especially Harvard and Yalestill dominate the eastern picture so far as self sufficiency goes, but although they have tremendous wealth, academically, their athletic associations are not entirely disinterested in what happens at the box office. And when an outsider can come in and outdraw even a family member as a regular visitor, he's not exactly greeted with, a kick in the teeth.

THE AUTHORWho is also sports broadcaster, magazinestory writer, after-dinner speaker, in addition to sports editorship of the Boston Post and composer of the daily column in the Post that is widely read throughout NewEngland—Bill Cunningham '19.

"THIS GREEN TEAM IS A TRIUMPH OF COACHING" The varsity staff: Coaches Andy Gustafson, Earl Blaik, Eddie Chamberlain, Ed Hirschberg, Trainer Rollie Bevan, Coach Harry Ellinger.