Big Green Teams
"Tuss" McLaughry Succeeds Earl Blaik as Football Coach; College Greets Appointment With Warm Approval
NINETEEN DAYS AFTER the Christmasholiday shock that Coach Earl Blaik and his entire varsity staff had asked and received release from their contracts to take over the football duties at the United States Military Academy, thus ending seven years of Dartmouth gridiron leadership, Director of Athletics William H. McCarter announced that DeOrmond (Tuss) McLaughry had been appointed to succeed Blaik.
In our own opinion, no coach among those who applied and even among those who did not, would have been a better or wiser selection. Tuss McLaughry is a great football mentor—how great he will soon prove in his new environment—and, what is more vital in many ways, he will become tremendously popular with the alumni, undergraduates and all who come in contact with Dartmouth football on and off the field.
For 15 years Tuss has enjoyed varying success as coach of Brown elevens. Some of the teams that he has coached, during the era in which we have personally been around the football camps of the east, have had the poorest material of any team in the so-called Ivy League. Some of his teams have been the result of fair material smartly handled, and when, in rare seasons, he has had good material he has had excellent results. Last fall in Yankee Stadium he proved beyond a doubt that given the proper tools to work with his attack is sensational and capable of defeating even such worthy opposition as the New York Giants of professional football. On the night that the All-Stars met and trounced the Giants, it was expected that the pros would show the attack that would be crowd-pleasing and crammed with trickery and legerdemain, but it was McLaughry's offense run by the pick of college seniors that brought the New Yorkers to their feet and caused many to ask, "Where has this man McLaughry been hiding all these years?"
Those among the football public who delve below mere statistics of the won, lost and tied records of coaches and look deeper into the actual ability of the nation's mentors could have told the assembled spectators long ago that McLaughry has for years deserved to rank among the top teachers of the game of football. That is why we predict that Dartmouth football under Tuss will maintain the high standards that Blaik has established.
In Hanover the afternoon that the news of his appointment was released to the papers, McLaughry had this to say about his future assignment: "Dartmouth is an institution which I have always liked and admired. I feel honored to have been invited to take the responsibility of carrying on her great football tradition. I am not unmindful of the fact that I shall be following in the footsteps of Earl Blaik, a great coach and a fine individual. He has set a standard that has satisfied all Dartmouth men and a difficult one for any successor to maintain. I will make every effort to give Dartmouth teams that will be creditable successors to those of the immediate past and I am looking forward with much enthusiasm to my new association with Dartmouth and Hanover."
Captain-elect Stubby Pearson, introduced to Tuss on the basketball floor, made the formal statement that he is sure that McLaughry knows how to handle a football squad, and that he will be able to give Dartmouth many successful seasons. "I'm very happy that McLaughry was chosen" was Stubby's first reaction. In a completely informal statement he concluded after Tuss had left, "What a swell guy." That seemed to be the gist of the feelings the various gridsters expressed. Other of the athletes spoke of their eagerness to take a crack at Tuss' more open brand of offense, and this seemed to please the "little" backs like Ray Wolfe, Bud Kast, and Ted Arico especially.
NEW FOOTBALL COACH GREETED BY 1941 CAPTAIN When announcement was made on January 14 that Coach "Tuss" McLaughry would succeed Earl Blaik at the helm of Dartmouth football, Charles M. (Stubby) Pearson '42 brokeoff basketball practice to welcome the former Brown coach on behalf of his teammates.
