Big Green Teams
Pros and Cons of the Track Question Explored in Response To Letter From Former Captain of the Sport
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL announcement that the June ALUMNI MAGAZINE shall be recognized as the Track Issue of said publication insofar as the sports section is concerned. In one giant swoop we have hopes that we can make amends for the years that we have been a bad boy, and if you don't think we've been bad, harken to what one Jack Donovan '38 writes in a personal letter which we don't think he will mind our making public since it's for the good of the party:
"Dear Whitey:— "I've been meaning to write you for over a year now and being lazy I never got around to it in spite of how sore I get at the way you write up track. You in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and THE DARTMOUTH— not you alone in THE DARTMOUTH, however.
"I agreed entirely with the two letters published last spring in THE DARTMOUTH concerning track. Lack of publicity, I think, is the big reason why track is on the decline at Dartmouth. I don't mean outside publicity—I mean in THE DARTMOUTH.
"My first year at college, track was written up very well—it held its own with other sports. My sophomore year it started to fade and my junior and senior years, it stunk! A. fellow no matter what team he is on likes a little credit now and then, but few nice words were spoken about the track team my last two years.
"An example of what used to burn me up was this: My senior year the track team wasn't too hot—not nearly as good as the year before when we blew up at Harvard. But Harry managed to instill a little pep into us before the Harvard meet which we did not expect to win. In the next meet, a few fellows ran away over their heads and we pulled a surprise and won. I thought that really was something. We had not beaten Harvard in 24 years or so. Well the following Monday THE DARTMOUTH came out, and buried on the back page was a small account of our meet. No one should complain about track if that is all THE DARTMOUTH seems to care about what the team does. This is one example of kids in track who did something but never got credit for it—why shouldn't they lose interest?
"As for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE—a few of us would-be Alumni are interested in track and when we get our MAGAZINE, we look forward to reading about Harry and his team. In March you had two or three lines —nothing about the team or its chances in the Quad meet and IC4A meet. In April you wrote up the Invitation Meet very well but nothing about what happened in the Quad meet and IC4A. Since I can't get the results in the Detroit papers I depend on you, and you fail us. Fellows like Lane Donovan here and others are in the same predicament. And you an old Peddie School miler! In May you had very few words. You write the other stories on other sports well, Whitey, but you sure neglect track. This, however, is the complaint of an Alumnus and has nothing to do with the lack of interest in track at Hanover. That can be blamed on THE DARTMOUTH and other sources. There is a lot of interest in football, baseball, etc., because these sports are competently written up in the college, but you can bet your boots that track will remain in the same position it now holds unless there is a radical change in the covering of it. And there is no good reason for not doing it.
"When my roomie Dave Camerer started to write track for the World Telegram, I wrote and criticized his way of coveringand he did not get sore, so don't you because of what I've said about the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. I remember my last year early in the fall, the football team looked lousy and you were riding them in your column unmercifully. I didn't like that and told you so, although it was none of my business. You can ride a "pro" athlete, but not a college fellow. You have no right to, for it's a game for them and not a business. Once my senior year I was really hurt. I lost one of my many races that year but the fellow in beating me had to break the record. Well anyway, THE DARTMOUTH in a caustic manner put a pin in me. I almost went looking for the guy who wrote it, but was restrained by roommate Stinky Davis until I had cooled off. I did my best as I always tried to do, so thought the criticism by some jockey was unfair. About the above football item, you stopped your riding, I remember, after our few hot words on the subject, and, as you recall, Stinky's team had a pretty good year. Encouragement is often more helpful than criticism at times.
"This has gone far enough, Whitey, so I will close. I started off to write Harry and here I am—woofing again. In the future, in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE give us more about what Don Blount did at the Penn Relays and how Ritter broke the 100-yard record, and how we fared in the Harvard meet. If you don't, I don't know how I'll keep up with the Dartmouth track fortunes if I am sent to South America. Then the ALUMNI MAGAZINE would be my only connection with life in Hanover."
Far from speechless and certainly not "sore," the above letter from a former Dartmouth track captain and a great allaround athlete leaves me with the thought that there are some points we could talk about all night long and both be dead right. It would appear to this writer, at least, that only when the young sports writers on THE DARTMOUTH fail to provide proper inspiration do they ever receive even back-handed applause for the part they and THE DARTMOUTH can, and do, play in the success of Dartmouth teams. Can we say then, that the sports writers on THE DARTMOUTH should have realized that on them depends the success or failure of the teams even in small portion, when no one that I know of has ever gone to the trouble of informing the youthful press that they can, if they want to, be so vital to a Dartmouth athletic team.
Furthermore it is my own personal opinion that the enthusiasm that a sports writer and his editors show for a Dartmouth team is always in direct proportion to the enthusiasm the team shows for itself and its sport. A fine example of this in recent years has been the support that the Dartmouth lacrosse team received from THE DARTMOUTH even before the stickmen began to win New England League championships —although we don't wish to deny that the successes helped in the last three years. Here was a team that worked hard in mud and slush to be good, and THE DARTMOUTH caught the spirit and demonstrated it at every possible chance. We could likewise mention the heroic efforts made by the Dartmouth crew in years past as a relationship between the college paper and a sport that thrived, not on victories or defeats, but on an appreciation of what was taking place behind the scenes.
Never one to avoid the main cog of an issue, I would say very frankly that in recent years the sports editors and the sports writers of THE DARTMOUTH, and myself included, have felt the members of the Dartmouth track team did not match some of the other sports in enthusiasm for their cause and what they were representing. Undoubtedly many of the instances where the opinion existed that 100 per cent effort was not being put into track by some individuals was unfair, as is so often the case. But there is no overlooking the fact that there was concrete evidence to be seen that some of the instances of 80 per cent effort were true, and for this reason the sport suffered as a whole.
However there are more vital things that have kept track off the front pages and out of the columns much of the time and some of these things are unavoidable. First, the track team does not compete as frequently as the other sports. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. jam dual competition after dual competition into seasons of various lengths. There is every opportunity for frequent coverage of these sports both from a practice and game standpoint. Track, on the other hand, using this year as a typical example, opened the season with a dual meet with Bowdoin, which the Green lost, incidentally, by several points. Any editor in his right mind covered the Bowdoin meet before and after, and where he put the story and how many words he used were up to his own judgment and the space available.
Next for the trackmen came the Quad meet at Boston. For many years now it has been obvious that the only way in which Dartmouth can hope to win this four-way meet is to have four or five outstanding men who get into shape easily and quickly. The reason why we say this is that first semester examinations and Carnival have always come directly before this meet so that Dartmouth has hardly ever been represented by its very best performances. Therefore it has become the custom of the sports writers to treat the meet accordingly.
On March a the Dartmouth track team was represented at the IC4A by a select group of stars. To get this off my chest without further ado, let me say that Dartmouth track and track colleges similar to Dartmouth have suffered because of the fact that some colleges have deliberately and without inhibitions cornered all of the great schoolboy stars for future delivery in such a manner that only on rare occasions does Dartmouth, or Harvard, or Yale, etc. have a star who can go into intercollegiate competition in this day and age and score a brilliant personal triumph. Because of this, Ivy League track has looked bad when actually the situation itself demands investigation.
Two months later Dartmouth track fans were allowed their first glimpse of the Dartmouth trackmen in action in dual competition against Harvard on May 4 and Holy Cross on May 11. Here was the initial opportunity for the fans and the press to turn on the heat and show support. If in some years the fans and the press have both failed to demonstrate interest, could it not be, maybe, that they have been lulled to sleep by the long wait between drinks?
But now let's hear Coach Hillman give his opinion of the situation. Harry feels that track has been on the down grade at Dartmouth for several reasons, which we will present. He thinks that the fact that Dartmouth has so many different sports in each season has hurt track. In other words he believes that in the old days when the athletes had fewer sports to choose from, track received more of the natural athletes. He also mentions such recreational activities as skiing in the winter as an instance of counter-attractions to coming out for track and putting a wholehearted interest into personal development in track and field. Oh, yes, Harry does agree with the claim that there is less than 100 per cent effort in some cases, and says that on the whole the modern track man does not want to put as much time and practice into a bid for stardom as was the case in the first years that he coached in Hanover. "This is not true, of course, in every case, but I am more than willing to admit that hard work scares some of the boys now and then," says Harry. That some of his potential trackmen haven't given their best to the sport this year was evidenced in Harry's admission that four or five of his men are now on probation, some of them because of careless overcuts. When asked if he did not feel that students who are ambitious to see their sport go ahead and receive campus recognition seldom go on pro for administration delinquencies, Harry replied in the affirmative and added that he had thought along the same lines. What hurts Harry even more is the fact that had he had these men for the Harvard meet, the Green would have won the engagement, and facts bear him out in this contention. The meet was close all the way and additional points could have, and would have swung the outcome in the Indians' direction. It is no wonder then that Harry agrees in part with the opinion that before the track team points to others as the reason for their lack of support and success, they might do well to bolster their own house a bit.
For myself I am more than willing to admit poor coverage in this section for the track team in the past and may the future prove that we live and learn. It may not be with full enthusiasm that we render the accounts, for until we see evidence that the trackmen in college are giving a great guy their utmost effort, we could never flow over with phoney applause and neither money or marbles could change that, THE DARTMOUTH already has made its first move toward the track team with copious front page write ups, pictures and several feature articles. It is now up to the trackmen themselves to hold the territory they have won both from their fine showings in the two dual meets and from their statement that THE DARTMOUTH has it within its power to make track once more a rip-roaring, ripsnorting sport on the Dartmouth campus. It may be that both parties will benefit, for if the latter proves true, then THE DARTMOUTH has proven itself to be an excellent cheering section, and in 1940 we may see the sports editor walking across Main Street sporting a varsity "D" for excellency in non-combat manoeuvers.
As for the defeat by Harvard and the victory over Holy Cross both meets proved that there is local interest in track competition of this kind. Sophomore Larry Ritter touched off a spark when he broke the College record in the 100 yard dash with a 9.9 seconds performance. The former record of 10 flat was held jointly by C. G. McDavitt '00, G. L. Swasey '06, N. A. Sherman '10, W. Wilkins '13, A. L. Llewellyn '15, D. J. Coakley '16, G. Glendinning '28, R. E. Button '36 and W. King '38. Ritter was the proud recipient of a congratulatory note from Mr. McDavitt and the sophomore star seemed to take more pleasure from this thoughtfulness' on the part of the original record-holder than he did in his own fine running.
Other winners in the to setback were Ritter in the 220, Bill Uptegrove in the mile, Dale Bartholomew in the javelin event, Sid Bull in the two miles, and Don Blount in the high jump. Blount, winner of the Penn Relay broad jump title a week previously with a leap of 24 feet, 8¾ inches fell below his high standard in the Crimson meet and placed second. In the Holy Cross meet Ritter was again a double winner, Blount won the high jump, Andy Hunter the broad jump, Dick Godfrey the pole vault, Lloyd Fishman the hammer throw, and Bartholomew the javelin. Outstanding second-place winner was Uptegrove who bettered previous performances to push an old campaigner, Stanton of Holy Cross, to a 4.28 mile. The final score was 78-57 and demonstrated the value of balance in both the track and field events.
By the way, other sports teams have been going along with their ups and downs. The lacrosse team has been brilliant with only one defeat by Yale against its northern record; the baseball team, after a slow start and some disappointing breaks, most of which have been the result of inexperience, now seems ready to play good baseball; the spring football scrimmage ended in a o-o tie and was encouraging from many aspects; the golf team, never able to get started, was shut out from the League championship honors; the crew defeated American International College and lost to Rutgers by three lengths; the tennis team has been doing remarkably well. But the space, she has long since been all gone.
BIG GREEN TRACK ACE Don Blount '41 of Providence, R. I., whose winning ways in the high-jump and broadjump have been among the highlights of the spring sports season.
LARRY RITTER '42 OF YONKERS, N. Y., SHOWN CREATING A NEW DARTMOUTH RECORD OF 9.9 SECONDS FOR THE 100-YARD DASH IN THE HARVARD MEET. FRED HEINBOKEL '42 OF SCRANTON, PA., IS TAKING SECOND FOR THE GREEN.
GREEN CREW WHICH HAS DIVIDED TWO RACES Lined up on the Connecticut River float are, left to right, Bill Wotherspoon '40, stroke;Capt. "Moose" Stearns '40, No. 7; Jack Delander '41, No. 6; Rumsey Ewing '42, No. 5; Bruce Stevens '42, No. 4; Jack Bates '41, No. 3; Bob Barr '41, No. 2; Jim Ingersoll '42,bote; and Bill Hartman '41, coxsiuain.
