DARTMOUTH 13, BROWN 10
This was one for the book, along with the Cornell Fifth Down game and the 33-33 Yale encounter of 1931. The winning Dartmouth touchdown was produced in the last eleven seconds of a game that had seen the fortunes and finesse of the Green rise and fall like a fever chart. Sophomore Hal Fitkin was the hero of the afternoon, personally accounting for both touchdowns, the last one after a six-yard jaunt around his own left end on the nextto-the-last play of the game. In an afternoon not conspicuous by astute field generalship on the Dartmouth side, this final jaunt was an extremely clever maneuver, with a massive Brown forward wall poised to hurl back a final thrust at the line as the clock was running out. But Fitkin took a lateral from Joe Sullivan and streaked for the corner of the field and the end zone, arriving at that vantage point before the Browns could lay a serious hand on him. There was just time for a kick-off after that. So ended one of the most delirious afternoons that Memorial Field has ever seen.
The game began on such a dreary note that nobody could possibly have anticipated the frenetic finish and a Dartmouth victory. The Green fumbled on the very first play and Brown recovered on the Dartmouth 23, placing the home team at a disadvantage from which they never recovered the entire first half. With negligible exceptions, this pattern has been followed (with local variations) with distressing similarity for the past two years; Dartmouth spots the opposition one or two touchdowns before the clients are well settled in their seats and then spends the rest of the afternoon trying to make up for the initial mistakes. This game followed the script again. One Brown touchdown was called back on an offensive holding penalty in these early moments and the Green made a gallant goal-line stand on their half-yard line to hold off another. But Brown could not be permanently denied and marched to a touchdown before the first period was over. They followed this up with a placement in the second quarter for what appeared to be a comfortable 10-0 lead against a footless Dartmouth team.
A miraculous change came over the Green cohorts after the half. From that point on, Dartmouth looked literally like a new team. They tackled, blocked, ran with the ball and generally comported themselves as their faithful followers had long hoped they would. The first Dartmouth tally came shortly after the third quarter opened, when Hal Fitkin took the ball from Sullivan and rocketed around his own right end, to run 43 yards for a touchdown. In this pleasant journey, he was aided by several key blocks along the way until he was out in the open at the 20 yard line, from which point he dashed across the goal. It was a highly spectacular run, one in which Sophomore Fitkin displayed the power and speed predicted of him all along. Coupled with his final epicmaking dash in the waning seconds of the game, this made a very good afternoon for him.
In an effort to provide additional authority to a backfield whose punch had heretofore been confined largely to the fullback slot, Coach McLaughry started a revamped backfield for this game. Sophomore Bill Dey was at quarter, Joe Sullivan at left half, Carey at fullback, and O'Brien at right half. This experiment was not an unqualified success and the bulk of the game was spent with Sullivan shifting back and forth between quarterback and left halfback and with Fitkin at right half, leaving Carey and O'Brien to resume their familiar dual role at fullback. The only other change in the starting lineup was the insertion of Jack Young to team with brother Stewart at the guard positions, after the showing made by the former in the Penn game.
To return to the final furious quarter. Brown almost made another touchdown in the early moments of this period, when they penetrated to the Green 2-yard line, only to end that particular sequence of downs on the Dartmouth 23. With five minutes to go and the score 10-7 against them, the Green took over for what was to prove their major effort. The field general came to the luminous conclusion about this point that Brown was vulnerable to end sweeps, which Dartmouth forthwith began to use for the first time in a serious way. With all the Green backs engaging in the business of circling the Brown ends, the ball reached the one-yard line, following a pass from Sullivan to substitute end Bill Felton. The latter was stopped on the goal line, where he conceived the splendid idea of tossing the ball over the goal line to a teammate, who caught same, only to have Dartmouth promptly penalized 5 yards for an illegal pass. That looked like the ball game, with the clock showing eleven seconds to play and Brown massed on their own six-yard line. Then came Fitkin's flight. The rest is history.
