FOOTBALL STAR AS TEACHER-COACH
THE word "pressure," as applied by For- rest Branch '33, has a special signif- icance.
Branch, now football, hockey and base- ball coach at Hanover high school, a former three-year letterman on Big Green elevens under Jackson Cannell, will say, "Pressure in that league is tough," or "The lack of pressure " In a two-hour conversation, the word is repeated many times. Ob- viously it explains something.
On a small table and several mantle- pieces in Branch's home are gifts he and his attractive wife prize very highly. Mrs. Branch is official scorer for teams her hus- band coaches at the local school. There is a gold-plated platter inscribed "To Coach," an electric clock, a sports trophy and other gifts from his athletes. "They didn't have to give them, you know. Makes coaching worthwhile, doesn't it?"
The high school is small, and yet it turns out some of the best teams in the state. Five years ago, Johnny Parker '29, his predecessor, had told him the "pickin's were lean." The first year, his football team won one game, tied one, lost the rest. Hartford cleaned them 26-0. The second year his eleven knocked off Hartford but lost to Newport and Lebanon, the "Big Red" of the local circuit.
In his third year, until the last game with Lebanon, Hanover was undefeated, unscored upon. The ball was on the l-foot line in Hanover's possession when the final whistle blew: his team lost 14-7. Next season, after losing the opener to Brattleboro, they went the rest of the way undefeated and, avenging the heart-breaker of the last year, drubbed Lebanon 24-6.
This fall, aided by Walt Snickenberger, whom Branch thinks can make any college eleven in the country and who, in the Lebanon game place-kicked a 52-yard field goal to add to the 16-6 defeat of the rivals, the team lost only to Hartford. And in a night game, they beat a big Concord eleven 12-0.
"Remember," Forrie Branch reminds, "the boys play the game. The coach sits on the side-lines."
But his hockey and baseball teams have had consistent success. In iggg and 1940, the sextet, playing out of its class in order to get opponents, lost only one game each season, both to Kimball Union Academy, where Branch coached for two years before being called to Hanover by R. J. Fuller, school district superintendent.
His skaters tied for the state championship last year, and would have entered the New England play-offs if it hadn't been for injuries sustained in the state finals. Concord, whom they had bettered, went on to play Brattleboro.
On the diamond, luck has been only slightly less than in the other two sports. Two years ago, there was an undefeated season in the high school league, though the Dartmouth freshmen batted out a win. In addition to his coaching duties, Branch teaches civics, eccy-socy, modern European history and U. S. history. In his senior year at Dartmouth he held, with his room-mate, Bill Hoffman, the Morrill Al- len Gallagher Scholarships awarded to two undergraduates selected on the basis of awards of the Rhodes Scholarships.
He is still part of the Dartmouth scene. He says he doesn't like to think of someone offering him a better-paying position. "That would be too tough a decision to make. I like the community spirit here in Hanover. I like the kids I work with. We all like to play. It's fun.
"More than that, there's no pressure here at Hanover. A game's a game. That's the way it should be played."
A Medford, Mass., boy, he was accepted at Dartmouth, having been urged to ap- ply by Benny Beck, his Medford football coach. He fell in love with Hanover the moment he arrived. He polished silver, supervised the drying-rack and eyed the cocoa in Commons his first year.
As a varsity player on Cannell's teams ("Cannell had bad luck. We seemed to lose all the close ones. We did, though, beat an undefeated Cornell team 14-0 in '31"), Branch started as a center, then went to guard, finally to end, in his soph- omore year. He played the last two as guard, when the "Morton to McCall" com- bination was raising havoc in the Ivy League.
Two falls as assistant to Beck at Middle- bury, a spring and winter coaching at Ham- ilton, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and two years at KUA preceded his tenure at Hanover. He married his Med- ford sweetheart in 1934. They have two daughters, Lois and Judy.
It was Mrs. Branch, his greatest fan, who recalled a recent baseball game vs. Hart- ford. To all appearances, the Hanover team had been beaten in the first half of the first inning when eleven runs were scored against them. Branch's boys, under pressure, won the game, 19-11.
HARD RUNNING BIG GREEN BACK GAINS AGAINST COLGATE With the score 20-6 agaitist it, Dartmouth's fighting eleven staged a spectacular comebackin the second half of the game with Colgate in Hanover, October 10. One of the BigGreen's best backfeld—Kast, Wolfe, Douglas, Frost, Burroughs, and Carey—pushed theball over the Red Raiders' goal line twice, bringing the score to 27-19. Above, Ray Wolfe(44) off for a yard-gaining dash aided by good interference.
ONE OF HANOVER'S SUCCESSFUL HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAMS, COACHED BY FORREST BRANCH '33 First row, left to right: John Graham, Schuyler Berry, Donald Ballam, Charles Parker, Allen LaPorte, Gordon Jones, William Mac Do-nald, Earl Monica, Sam Zappala, Wesley Lanyon. Middle row: Richard Rand, Richard Colt, Philip Garran, Lorton Scott, Capt. EdwinTask, Walter Snickenberger, Lawrence Perry, Roger Blake, John Stone, Coach Branch. Back row: Norman Beauchene, Harold Cloud,Granville Austin, Clifford Jordan, Joseph Stone, Dominic Zappala, Francis if. Drury Jr.
