THE COLLEGE

IN the wake of four straight football defeats this fall, three of them drubbings administered by Holy Cross, Navy and Army, and with the prospect of Dartmouth's being the underdog in all five of the games remaining to be played this season, the "Big" in the Big Green has become something of a misnomer. In Hanover and among the alumni the Dartmouth football situation is an almost inescapable topic for discussion.

The two questions most widely pondered are "What's wrong with Dartmouth football?" and "What can be done about it?" The to-be-expected emotional answers to these questions are of no help whatever. Pertinent to the discussion is something that President Dickey said in his Convocation address: when things do not turn out right, even after the best answers have been carefully sought, the mature person does not seek a scapegoat.

There is a better body of fact for tackling the first of the two questions posed above than there is for the second. In this month's Big Green Teams section, our sports editor, who is in close touch with Dartmouth athletics, presents his personal estimate of what has caused this season's definitely poor record. Included in his analysis, and in nearly everyone else's version of "what's wrong," is a schedule of nine major games that has been rendered unrealistic in part by the Ivy League football agreement, particularly the dropping of spring practice. After the 55-7 game with Navy, The Dartmouth, in an editorial entitled "Blue Monday," had this to say:

Since Saturday afternoon, half-baked explanations for THE defeat have been as common as footballs in November. Emotion excluded, the facts support just one explanation: The College has gradually deemphasized football but not its schedule.

There was a time when Dartmouth could play Holy Cross, Navy and Army. But that time is long past. Army, Navy and Holy Cross have not deemphasized football. Dartmouth has.

Unlike other colleges, there is inadequate football recruiting at high and prep school games by Dartmouth scouts. This should be corrected.

Unlike other colleges, there is no way for a prep school standout to gain admission here unless he can hold his own scholastically. There are no scholarships set aside for potential stars. There are no breaks for stars once they are admitted. These conditions should not be changed....

The arguments for scheduling top-twenty teams are familiar. By playing big-name schools in large-capacity stadiums, the College makes more money. But this is tarnished coin. It is made at the expense of team morale and undergraduate spirit. It is gained at the cost of alumni support and admissions appeal. High and prep school seniors with and without football skill think twice about entering a school with lopsided loss records....

That is the explanation of THE defeat. What is the solution? It is amazingly simple: Deemphasize the College's schedule to match its deemphasized football.

The roster tor 1954 is not. No changes can be made. But changes can be made for 1955. Teams like Army, Navy and Holy Cross might be replaced by Lehigh. Lafayette, Rutgers, Brown or Amherst. Besides cutting the loss percentage, this would ready Dartmouth for its most important encounters the ones with the Ivy League. Such preparation has been sadly neglected in the past....

Only the DCAC can make these changes. Maybe this morning, the Monday morning after, it will finally recognize that deemphasized football must go hand in hand with deemphasized schedules.

The Dartmouth's editorial recognized what is a fact that it would not be possible to carry out any new schedule policy so quickly as 1954. Amidst all the questioning of present policy, the DCAC last month was about to announce that the 1954 football schedule would be exactly the same as this year's, with the possibility that the Navy game would be played in Hanover along with the Holy Cross, Colgate and Columbia games.

We have always understood that football schedules had to be arranged far in advance of any given season, and in order to see just what the timing was in preparing the 1953 and 1954 schedules, we requested the facts from the Athletic Council. The four-year series with Army, finally arranged for 1951-54, was proposed by Army and tentatively accepted by Dartmouth as far back as 1946. The two-year arrangement with Navy for 1953-54 was proposed by Dartmouth in November 1950. The 1953 schedule as a whole was approved by the DCAC in December 1950 and one year later the 1954 schedule was approved. Both schedules were ratified prior to January 25, 1952, when the Ivy League colleges entered into the agreement that included the dropping of spring practice.

Of special interest, in relation to schedule policy, is the December 9, 1951 entry in the DCAC records, expressing favor of a complete Ivy schedule after current commitments (1953 and 1954) had run out. This was reaffirmed by the Council at a meeting last month. A similar stand was taken by the Executive Committee of the Faculty on October 12 when it voted to address to the Committee on Athletics a resolution that it consider the advisability of scheduling games in the major sports with institutions whose athletic policies are similar to Dartmouth's; in other words, so far as football is concerned, with institutions which honor the no-spring-practice agreement.

Dartmouth for some time has been strongly in favor of an Ivy League in actuality as well as in name. It is interesting to speculate whether the hard realities of intercollegiate football, now that the Ivy League has set itself apart by the adoption of strict and commendable standards, might not speed into being a League that seems inevitable anyway. The alternative is to persuade others to adopt the same standards, and there are not many optimists on that score.

With Dartmouth firmly committed to the policy of keeping football in its proper place, realistic scheduling will go a long way toward solving the present football problem. But beyond the question of what opponents Dartmouth is going to play is the equally important question of what kind of an account we are going to give of ourselves when we meet them. Once an institution elects to field a football team, its adherents naturally want it to play the game as skillfully and successfully as it possibly can.

Dartmouth men have made it clear enough that they support the football standards to which the College has long adhered. They subscribe to the idea that intercollegiate athletics play a vital role in undergraduate and alumni life but must be conducted in sensible and healthy relationship to the educational purposes of the College. They realize that where competition is fairly even, as it is in the Ivy League, the victory pendulum will swing back and forth and that no team can "win them all." If we interpret alumni feelings correctly, what Dartmouth men want are not powerhouse teams but teams they can be proud of in both victory and defeat.

Within this framework it is perfectly possible to play winning football, at least winning enough to keep the sport from becoming a negative factor in student and alumni morale, and to have it contribute to public relations and the College's enrollment efforts, not to mention the satisfaction that comes from doing well whatever you set out to do a satisfaction to which Dartmouth is entitled on a good many fronts. At this point some alumni will rear up and assert that Dartmouth's admissions policy discriminates against athletes which we dismiss as ridiculous. Mere numbers are no guarantee of ability at the college level, but recent reports of the Committee on Admission and the Freshman Year state that the Class of 1956 included 244 football lettermen (46 captains) and that the Class of 1957 contains 200 football lettermen (37 captains). Competition from our Ivy League sisters being what it is, there was also many a slip twixt admission and matriculation. Dartmouth alumni, with propriety, can help on this, just as many make the effort to tell the story of Dartmouth's opportunities to boys who supplement scholastic quality with skill in extracurricular activities, including sports.

One need never doubt that Dartmouth teams are giving their all in every game they play. This fall the Big Green eleven has suffered a devastating series of injuries and has been caught with heavy schedule commitments while still trying to adjust to the new Ivy League restrictions. The resulting defeats, while disappointing, do not call for the emotional tizzy into which some Dartmouth partisans have been thrown. The questions "What's wrong?" and "What can be done about it?" are not being ignored in Hanover. Let's hope that the right answers will put the "Big" back in Big Green.