PENNSYLVANIA 12, DARTMOUTH 0
For the second Saturday in a row, Dartmouth had the excruciating experience of entering a game the decided underdog, then decisively outplaying the opposition, and finally losing the game through a combination of wasted opportunities and nullifying penalties. To get the penalties over with in a hurry, Dartmouth apparently made two touchdowns against Penn, neither of which was, for various reasons, allowed. In the second period, the Green was held for downs inches away from the Penn goal line, while somewhat later Albrecht passed to Rusch for a touchdown which was called back because of a back illegally in motion. Motion pictures of the game subsequently showed, by general consensus, that O'Brien actually went over on the first occasion and on the second that the guilty back was not in motion. These two events were enough to take the heart out of anyone, but the Green never stopped trying. No possible blame is placed on the officiating, for officials are human beings and not endowed with telephoto eyes or unerring judgment. It was just one of those things. Or rather two of those things.
The game was played on a muddy field with intermittent showers, which seemed to bother neither side particularly, for Penn made only three fumbles and Dartmouth two. With a 50-0 rout of Brown the Saturday before under their belts, Penn was apparently all set for a similarly pleasant afternoon, of which notion they were soon disabused by an alert and hardhitting Dartmouth team. The latter dominated the play throughout the first half, coming within scoring distance on several occasions in addition to those mentioned above. On Penn's first play from scrimmage, they were rudely informed that they were in a ball game by a recovery of their tumble by Alexander, the burly Green center, who played a sensational game all afternoon backing up the line. On that senes of plays, Dartmouth managed to feach the 20-yard line before Penn was able to bring its superior manpower, led by the 250-pound Savitsky at tackle, to put out the fire.
Penn managed to score at the very end of the first half, following the first of several desperate Dartmouth gambles which failed. On fourth down at mid-field, with only a yard to go and two minutes left in the first half, Dartmouth elected to run the ball. They did not make it. Penn took over and, on a quick series of runs and long passes, put the ball over for their initial tally. The second gamble which backfired against the Green occurred in the fourth quarter when they were trailing 6-0. After staving off a desperate Penn attack, Dartmouth held for downs deep in their own territory. Taking the ball on their 10-yard line, two running plays failed to gain, whereupon the Green called for a pass from their own 8-yard line. If it had worked, it might still have won the game. But it did not work. Instead, the flat pass thrown by Albrecht sailed snugly into the arms of a Penn man, who trotted across for a touchdown without a hand being laid on him. And that, from the scoring point of view, was the ball game.
But not from the human point of view. In that connection, I should like to quote at length from a column in the New YorkTimes written the Thursday following the game by the man who had covered it. It was a tribute to Meryll Frost, whose gallant efforts on the muddy surface of Franklin Field were halted only after he sustained a compound fracture of the index finger of his left hand and was led protesting from the field. ' Last Saturday in the rain and mud at Franklin Field, says the good grey Times, "where Dartmouth and Penn staged a tense struggle, viewed by 550 patients at Valley Forge Hospital (where Frost spent an 18 months convalescence following his bombing accident in Italy: Editor), including many who spent months as fellow-convalescents with Frost, were on the sidelines, looking on from wheelchairs and litters. They came to see a football game, but they came primarily to see their old buddy play football. And play the game of football he did. After forty-two minutes, Meryll Frost, now 24, and the oldest man on the squad, was led from the field, though protesting he wanted to go on But before he departed Frost showed his old . mates and some 45,000 others that a person, dragged from a burning plane, minus ears and eyebrows and with other injuries, could come back."
"For Meryll Frost," the Times goes on, "on that damp afternoon was the sparkplug, the inspirational force that enabled the Hanoverians to give the Pennsylvania powerhouse .... a great scare. Penn won, 12-0, but in winning lost prestige. And it was Frost, the man behind the ball in Dartmouth's T-formation attack, with his plunging, passing and punting, who stole the show. Three different times Frost was knocked out. Three different times they took time out for him, but three different times he bounced back. Finally, when he could do his team no more good, he leftreluctantly. If Frost's performance thrilled 45,000 spectators, imagine the effect he had on those 550 wounded, crippled men, men inspired by one of their own; men who now may look forward to the time when they, too, may go out into the world and resume where they stopped. Medical science notwithstanding, Meryll Frost was the best medicine for them." That is one of the nicest tributes your correspondent has ever seen in the field of sports. And one of the most deserved.
A brief and possibly anti-climactic return to some of the other highlights of the game is in order. The other standout for the Green was big Francis O'Brien, who stepped into the fullback slot for this game in the same rugged style your correspondent happily predicted in September. Hurling his 200 pounds into the Penn line time after time, O'Brien punched out first down after first down and was stopped only inches short (according to the official version) of a touchdown. This big boy never played a game of football in his life before this fall, but improves practically as you watch him. He had more to do than anyone else, excepting Frost, in ringing up the impressive total of 13 Dartmouth first downs against Penn's 7. (When we said Dartmouth "dominated" the game, we meant just that).
A GAMBLE THAT WORKED. Forced back to its own 1-yard line by a clipping penalty in the first period of the Penn game, Dartmouth lined up in punt formation, but Halfback Bob Albrecht instead took a flat pass from Meryll Frost and raced up to the 13-yard line. Hal Swanson (23) is shown near the catch.
AN EXAMPLE OF THE BIG GREEN'S DEFENSIVE PLAY AT PENN. Bob Evans (41), Quaker backfield ace, was stopped on this play by a trio of Indian linemen, including Co-Capt. Carl McKinnon in the middle,. Meryll Frost (11) is behind them and George Little (71) looks on at the right.
