Loved, Just the Same

Dartmouth's 1950-51 basketball record of only three victories in 26 games is "one for the books," as the sports writers like to say. In the midst of the New York basketball scandal, the team came in for some good-natured joshing about its failure to score.

The distinctive thing about the season, in fact, was the good-natured backing the campus gave to a losing team—one that never stopped trying but obviously did not have what it takes to win in fast company. There was no element of indifference in the students' failure to get worked up about such a long string of losses. Maybe the oddity of the team's record was involved, but bigger factors were a grown-up attitude, a belief in the team's earnest desire to do better, and a complete confidence in the caliber of "Doggie" Julian's coaching.

The main object in playing a basketball game is to win it, but it seems to us that Dartmouth can take more satisfaction in the spirit that accompanied this season's poor results than it could have taken in a record that contained a lot more victories. Praise like the following, which we recently spotted in the Princeton AlumniWeekly, gives its own special sort of satisfaction:

"If any Nassau team ever takes the floor with a record of 19 losses against two lone victories and plays with the spirit and determination that Dartmouth showed in the face of such disheartening statistics, Princetonians can well be proud of them. The Green never let up, replacing inexperience and average ability with drive and a desire to win born of the old college try at its best."