Big Green Teams

Basketball Team Captures Fourth Straight League Title; Coach McLaughry Names Varsity Football Staff

DARTMOUTH'S 3.0-A-SEMESTER, 2-pointsa-minute basketball team made Eastern Intercollegiate League basketball history on March 11 when the Indians of Coach Ossie Cowles won their fourth straight E. I. L. championship and thereby tied an old record made by Pennsylvania during the 1918-1921 era of Ivy League basketball.

Obviously some enterprising soul should presently set out to write a book about Dartmouth basketball under Ossie Cowles, and a few of the chapter headings we gladly supply free of charge to help in the planning of the masterpiece.

First of all, the opening chapter should be headed: "Cowles and Dartmouth Start Slowly—Oraty Take Second Place Season of 1937." The second chapter could be put on standing until further notice: "Dartmouth Wins Court Title." Of course the years would have to be added, but this is a minor point at best and something must be left to the author's judgment.

Then there would be a chapter or two headed: "Gus Broberg." This would be the tale of a big, rugged Swedish boy who came to Dartmouth from Torrington, Conn., and in his freshman season broke all existing scoring marks for a Green yearling. It would be the story of a record-breaking sophomore season, of another new scoring high for his junior year, and a brilliant senior season in which he formed the backbone of a great Dartmouth five, surrounded by three sophomores and a junior guard, Stubby Pearson, playing his first campaign in the rear court. If it were a story of Broberg on and off the court, it would have to include an outstanding scholastic record and a popularity that has seldom been equalled by any Dartmouth athlete in any sport.

Somewhere between the covers of this book would have to be a chapter on the rise of basketball at Dartmouth in the last five years from a position of lowly rank among the major sports to a lofty leadership on the winter sports calendar.

The book would also be a failure if it did not pay proper respect to the coaching genius of Osborne Cowles. No basketball coach in this country has a greater personal record than Ossie and this includes his pre-Dartmouth days as well as his Hanover career. That Ossie knows basketball inside and out, and upstairs and down, is well known in court circles. But his knowledge of how to teach what he knows and his ability to handle boys is perhaps even more important than his technical understand- ing of every minute point of the game. On the practice floor he is soft spoken, calm, meticulous on details and much more one of the squad than the chief boss of the sport. Dartmouth basketball teams of recent years have worked hard for their championships, but they have enjoyed their work and have criticized one another for mistakes and driven themselves on rather than forced Cowles to set the pace necessary for the supremacy that Dartmouth has maintained for four years.

In any sport material is not to be overlooked. It is true that in Broberg the Big Green has had a star seldom equalled here or anywhere else. But one ace is not a quintet of championship ability, and so full credit to Ossie for not only getting the most out of Gus' tremendous assets, but also his coaching skill that has year after year proven its skill in developing boys and knowing which of them had the stuff that could be developed and cultivated into top ranking quintets.

The last chapter of the book has yet to become history. We refer to the Dartmouth team's acceptance of an invitation to play in the National Intercollegiates at Madison, Wisconsin, on March 21-22. This was a dream come true for the varsity squad members. All during the winter they talked and hoped tournament basketball after the campaign was over, but did not dare hope too strongly. But if ever there was a Dartmouth team more worthy of going to an intercollegiate affair of this kind, you'll have to name it. The squad as a whole had a fine scholastic record. The first seven men, Broberg, Munroe, Else, Olsen, Pearson, Skaug and Parmer put their marks together for a B average.

Just how their basketball ability will stack up against the cream of the nation is something that competition will have to reveal. Personally we hope to see the Indians gain the national title and feel that they are good enough to do so. The team has the height, the speed and the shot-making to match strides with any five. At Madison the Green joins Wisconsin, champs of the Big Ten, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina in the Eastern playoffs. If successful at Madison, Dartmouth would then meet the winners of the Western division at Kansas City. Stanford is favored to win on the coast, and Wisconsin will enter the Eastern tournament as the favorite.

Even if we have to hide in a DCAC trunk to make the trip we'll be on hand to watch the Indians, feeling all the while that it is not only a team that will be hard to beat but also a team composed of Dartmouth's best and finest.

Two other Dartmouth winter sports teams have completed their seasons on scheduled time, the hockey team with a third place in the Quad League and the swimming team with a fourth in the E. I. L. swimming association. Coach Karl Michael will take a picked group to the Ivy League championships to be held at Navy and Dick Potter, outstanding breast stroke swimmer in the League, will also go on to the national intercollegiates. Swimming as a team sport bowed out with a bang, too; a thrilling meet with the Navy in Spaulding Pool ended the home schedule, and a close 39-36 defeat from Princeton climaxed the Indians' road trips. The Navy meet was, however, the dramatic highlight of the winter, with the teams tied at 34-34 going into the final 400-yard relay. Dartmouth, with Ez Crowley, Jim O'Mara, Larry Noble and Dick Martens each taking a leg of the relay, swam stroke for stroke with the Navy in the first three legs, and Martens, sophomore sprinter, finally took the meet and the relay on the last leg with the fastest 100 of his varsity career. Only the brick wall in front of the grandstand kept the spectators from falling into the pool from excitement. :

Coach Eddie Jeremiah's hockey sextet bowed out less sensationally, but nevertheless ended with a 3-3 overtime tie with Harvard at Boston before putting away skates and sticks for another year. The record in League warfare showed one tie with Yale, one victory and a tie with Harvard, two defeats from Princeton, one by a 2-1 score, and a defeat from Yale at New Haven. It was far from a strong Dartmouth six, but in those games in which the Indians played strong defensive hockey, they gave the opposition trouble. Another winter will bring Dartmouth back near the top once more. Of the present squad, Captain Freddie Maloon, Johnny Kelley, Pidge Hughes and Pete Keir will be graduated in June. At least five of the current varsity including goalie Ted Lapres and defenseman Harry Gerber will help Jeremiah a year from now, and a good freshman team topped by a line of Dick Rondeau, Bill Harrison, and Jack Riley will give Jerry more to work with than he has had since his 12-straight Quad victory of two and three winters ago. Army has recently accepted a bid to join Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale in the old Quad set-up, so next year the Indians will be striving to capture the Pentagonal League title ralher than the Quad pennant. Army will not bring a strong six into the picture, but at least it will lengthen the too short season of the League as it was established.

During the month since we last wrote about the return of varsity track to a role of importance indoors, one of the Green trackmen, Don Blount, wrote his name into the local track book as one of the great alltime stars of the sport. Blount won both the high and broad jumps at the indoor IC4A meet, broke the College high-jump record with his winning leap of 6 feet inches, and also was the only double winner among the collegiate stars. Andy Hunter placed second in the broad jump behind Blount, and the two men gave Dartmouth its total of 14 points, good tor fourth place.

The Dartmouth track team also displayed its dual-meet power against Harvard on the world's fastest indoor track on Washington's Birthday by spanking Harvard, 66-42—the worst licking Dartmouth has ever handed the Crimson in track. Sid Bull with a first in the two-mile, Bob Nissen with a first in the shot, Blount, Andrews and Hunter in the high and broad jumps, Dick Godfrey in the pole vault, Larry Ritter in the dash, Paul Hanlon in the 300 and 600, and Lee Trudeau with a double win in the mile and 1000 were the Big Green high scorers. Hanlon established a new track record of 31.8 in the 300, but it lasted only until the next heat when Pirnie of Harvard lowered the time to 31.7. All in all, the meet proved Coach Harry Hillman's contention that the '4l varsity would be well-balanced, as the twelve firsts taken by the Green would show, and the crowd that attended, some 500, demonstrated that interest is still to be found if the tracksters can be put into action often enough to keep the fans aware of the sport indoors.

Another top event in one of the busiest sports months Dartmouth has had in several years was a sports dinner staged by The Dartmouth in honor of football coach Tuss McLaughry. Bill Cunningham 'jg was the principal speaker and was even better than usual—which is terrific; Bill also entertained on the Hammond organ and the 300 present all felt that the evening was something that should be carried on as a local sports tradition. McLaughry spoke at length on the aims and ambitions of Dartmouth football and made a sincere hit with the football fans who heard him. He also announced his staff as follows: Coach of ends and tackles: Bill Bevan, former Minnesota All-American and for five years Tulane line coach; coach of guards and centers: George Barclay, former All-American at North Carolina and line coach last year at Oberlin College; backfield coaches: Charlie Ewart, former Yale star and backfield mentor at Wesleyan, and Dick Cassiano, former Pitt star and last year a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Osborne Cowles will continue as head freshman coach, Johnny Handrahan as freshman backfield coach, and Eddie Jeremiah as B team yearling football coach. The freshman line coaching job is still hanging in mid-air at this writing. John Bronk, for three years assistant trainer at Harvard and previously assistant trainer for the Redskins, was named head football trainer. This is a young staff all the wav through. It is also an experienced staff in number of years devoted to football. The idea of splitting the line coaching into ends and tackles as one group and guards and centers as another was new with Mc-Laughry and has already been copied by two other leading college coaches.

Spring football under the men who will lead Dartmouth in football next fall started for the freshmen on March 12. Somehow it seems as if football never does stop at any time during the winter. Certainly football has continued to, be a leading subject of sports talk and stories, and the opening of spring training comes along in stride as part of the continuation program. The Green gridsters are anxious to work hard and fruitfully and everywhere in Hanover there is optimism that at the end of the off-season workouts there will be reason to feel that Dartmouth will be playing victorious football against strong opposition next fall.

In freshman sports Coach Chick Evans ended against Harvard '44 with another undefeated yearling quintet, and a firstyear swimming team closed with but one defeat, that from Andover. Both the varsity and freshman squash teams under Coach Red Hoehn experienced successful seasons and each winter Hoehn is bringing his players to a higher standard that compares favorably with the other Ivy League colleges.

But somehow spring sports have managed to sneak into the limelight, with Coaches Jeff Tesreau, Tommy Dent, Tommy Keane, and Harry Hillman calling out their candidates recently and starting serious work for the warmer months that lie ahead. There is also much activity indoors on the part of the crew with Jim Smith returning as coach after an absence of a year.

Someday, somehow, we hope to devise a system that will enable us to keep track of all that goes on in this five-ring circus called Alumni Gymnasium. Someday Sid Hayward as editor will also discover the answer to the problem of getting twice as much copy into the same number of pages of this MAGAZINE. But until he does it looks as if we'll never return to the logical routine of featuring fall sports in the fall, winter sports in the winter, and spring sports in the spring.

THEORY AND PRACTICE Two big reasons for Dartmouth's championship basketball team are Coach OssieCowles and Capt. Gus Broberg, leagueleading scorer for the third straight year.

FOUR-FIFTHS OF NEW VARSITY FOOTBALL STAFF Left to right, Charlie Ewart, backfield assistant; Head Coach "Tuss" McLaughry; BillBevan, coach of ends and tackles; and Dick Cassiano, backfield assistant. Yet to report forspring practice at the time of this picture was George Barclay, new coach of guards andcenters.