"Red" Rolfe '31 to Return As Director of Athletics
DARTMOUTH men gave a warm reception to the news, late in November, that Robert A. "Red" Rolfe 31 will become the new Director of Athletics next July 1. His appointment by President Dickey came as a complete surprise to newspaper men, alumni and others who had been speculating about the successor to William H. McCarter '19, athletic head since 1937, who will return to the English Department and also fill the position of Editor of Dartmouth College Publications; but once the news was out, it was hailed with general satisfaction by the College and all those interested in Dartmouth athletics.
The selection of Rolfe brings back to the campus one of Dartmouth's greatest athletes of all time, a player who went directly from college to professional baseball and within four years became the star third baseman of the world champion New York Yankees. After nine seasons with the Yankees he was coach of baseball and basketball at Yale for four years, then returned to the Yankees as coach, and in 1947 joined the Detroit Tigers as head scout, becoming their manager for three seasons and part of a fourth, 1949 to 1952. Most recently he has been associated with a Detroit investment firm.
With his wife, Rolfe will move to Hanover this winter to work with Mr. McCarter and learn the details of his new job. As the principal administrative officer directing the College's athletic program, he will be Dartmouth's representative on the administrative committee of the Ivy Group and will be the chief adviser to the President and Trustees on intercollegiate athletic policies. Since the summer of 1952, when the Dartmouth College Athletic Council ceased to be an autonomous controlling body, responsibility for athletic policy has been vested in the President of the College representing the Board of Trustees. At that time the status of the Director of Athletics changed from that of an executive officer elected by the Athletic Council to that of an administrative officer of the College appointed by and responsive to the President.
The move from Detroit to Hanover will a New Hampshire "homecoming" for both Red and his wife. Rolfe was born in Penacook, N. H., 45 years ago, and his wife, the former Maude Isabel Africa, is a native of Manchester and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire.
In Penacook, as an infielder for the "Bog Pirates," Rolfe began to develop the baseball prowess that made him one of the greatest third basemen ever to play in the big leagues. Next came Penacook High School and one year at Phillips Exeter Academy. Arriving at Dartmouth in the fall of 1927, Rolfe was captain and shortstop of the freshman baseball team, then coached by Sid Hazelton. There was no question about his taking over the same infield position on the Big Green varsity, and for the next three years he gladdened the heart of Coach Jeff Tesreau, former New York Giants pitcher, who knew that he had a future big leaguer in the red-headed shortstop who was as dangerous at bat as he was graceful in the field. Even then Rolfe was an uncommon student of the game, putting in overtime to perfect his hitting and defensive play.
Not only on the diamond but in campus life he was a prominent member of the Class of 1931. He was class president in his sophomore and junior years, was a senior class marshal, and a member of Phi Sigma Kappa, Green Key, Palaeopitus, and Sphinx. No Phi Bete, he was still a good student and Jeff Tesreau never had to worry about his star's eligibility.
Big league scouts early got wind of the fact that Rolfe was something special as college players went, and in his senior year, when he captained the team, they followed his play closely and made ready with their offers. Jeff Tesreau has always been credited with a decisive role in Rolfe's choice of the New York Yankees. As things turned out, the choice couldn't have been better.
Red joined the Yankees immediately after graduation in 1931, and was sent to Albany in the old Eastern League for seasoning. The next year the Yankees moved him up to their top farm club, Newark in the International League. As regular shortstop in 1932 and 1933, Red fielded the shortstop position brilliantly, batted .325 and .330, and helped Newark win the pennant both seasons. In 1933 he was voted the league's most valuable player, and the Yankees decided he was ready for the big time.
At spring training camp in 1934 Rolfe became the teammate of such stars as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bill Dickey. On the strength of his showing he opened the season as the Yankees' regular shortstop, but was benched later and then in August was shifted to third base where he finished the season. In 1935 he played all 152 games at third and clinched his status as a Yankee regular. The following year he batted .319 and led the league's third basemen in fielding. From 1936 through 1939 the Yankees won four straight American League pennants and it was during this period that Rolfe established his reputation as one of the greatest third basemen of all time. Probably his best season was 1939 when he had a .329 average and led the league in hits (213), runs scored and two-baggers. He played third on the American League all-star teams of 1937 and 1939. In 1952, the 50th anniversary of the Yankees, he was picked for the New Yorkers' all-star, alltime team.
In his nine seasons with the Yankees, Rolfe was in six World Series, 1936-1939, 1941-1942. A consistent hitter, just as he was a sound and effortless fielder who did the right thing at the right time, he had an all-time batting average of just a shade under .300. With his speed and his ability either to bunt or to belt the ball, he was the ideal No. 2 hitter and always filled that key spot for the Yankees. Connie Mack, who had tried to get Red for the Philadelphia Athletics, called him "the greatest team player in the game."
In the off-seasons Rolfe returned to his home in Penacook and kept himself in trim with hunting and other outdoor activities. Something of a basketball player himself and always an ardent follower of the game, he began in 1934 to coach the Concord Business College team. He was a familiar figure at Dartmouth's home games, became a close friend of Coach Ossie Cowles, and sometimes traveled with the Big Green team. Red studied basketball just the way he had dug into the fine points of baseball, and he was often found at Madison Square Garden watching the top teams perform.
Weakened by an intestinal ailment that did not respond to treatment, Rolfe in his last year with the Yankees often played on sheer nerve. Finally he announced that the 1942 World Series would wind up his active playing career. That fall he became basketball and baseball coach at Yale, remaining in New Haven until the end of the 1945-46 basketball season, when he accepted the invitation of the Yankees to return as a coach. Rolfe's baseball teams at Yale won 56 of 75 games and his basketball teams won 48 of 76 contests. Although back with the Yankees, he kept his hand in as basketball coach and for the 1946-45 season directed the Toronto Huskies, a Canadian professional team.
Rolfe's coaching career with the Yankees turned out to be a one-year affair, for in 1947 the Detroit Tigers asked him to join their organization as supervisor of scouting. Within a short time he became their director of minor league clubs, and in November 1948 he was a dark-horse choice to succeed Steve O'Neill as manager of the Detroit team, a post he filled for three full seasons and part of a fourth.
Under Rolfe, Detroit finished fourth in 1949 and in 1950 made a strong bid for the American League pennant, finishing second, only a few games behind the Yankees. For this 1950 performance Red voted Manager of the Year. Detroit dropped to fifth place in 1951 and in July of 1952, with the Tigers in last place, Rolfe went the way of all managers whose teams do not win.
Much has been written about Red's managerial career and the circumstances that ended it. One of the most astute evaluations was that written in July 1952 by Arthur Daley, veteran baseball expert of TheNew York Times, under the heading "Too Much Perfection":
"Perhaps his qualifications tor the job were illusory in the first place. Robert Abial Rolfe had been a great third baseman on a great Yankee team under a great manager, Joe McCarthy. His baseball background hardly could be matched. Nor were there any flaws to be found in his personal background. Red Rolfe was a Dartmouth graduate, highly intelligent and insatiably curious about the finer points of the game. Yet he failed as Detroit manager, ousted just a week ago
"There is a dog-eared axiom that you can take a boy out of the country but you can never take the country out of the boy. The baseball paraphrase probably would be that you can take a player out of the Yankees but that you never can take the Yankees out of the player _ not if he's a deep-dyed and genuine Yankee. Keller was that. So, unfortunately, was Rolfe.
"Victory was in his blood. So were booming bats, slick fielding, adroit pitching and baseball know-how. For nine years he'd been a Yankee and for six of those years the Bombers had won pennants. Mediocrity never even brushed against him in all that time. He had become a Yankee perfectionist
"Not until this spring did the smoldering anti-Rolfe feeling erupt into print, exposed by the pungent pen of Gordon Cobbledick of The Cleveland Plain-Dealer. The ball players, true to their code, gave Rolfe 'a unanimous vote of confidence.' No one in the know believed a word of it. It was the unanimity of the vote which exposed it as a sham.
"It all seems so incomprehensible to the inkstained wretches of the Fourth Estate who rate the redhead as one of the " best liked of all managers - intelligent, articulate, scholarly, frank and a thorough gentleman.
"But he never clicked where it counted because he was, in the final analysis, 'a Yankee perfectionist.' "
Among all those who wrote about this managerial chapter in Red Rolfe's bright career there was universal agreement about his integrity,' his sterling personal qualities, and the all-out way in which he tackled any job given to him. These are qualities he brings to Hanover as Dartmouth's new Director of Athletics. Along with them he brings a love of the College and an intense interest in all phases of Dartmouth athletics, demonstrated ever since his undergraduate days. He brings also the great respect of the sporting world, an intimate knowledge of intercollegiate athletics, and a philosophy about sports that dovetails perfectly with the standards and traditions of the College.
In Hanover, Rolfe will find another Yankee great in baseball coach Bob Shawkey, and a former Dartmouth teammate at second base in hockey coach Eddie Jeremiah. Such associations will not be needed, however, to make him feel at home. He has never lost touch with Dartmouth and, in a sense, has felt that he has never been away.
DARTMOUTH'S NEW ATHLETIC DIRECTOR, Robert A. "Red" Rolfe '31, with President Dickey in November at the President's camp in Swanton, Vermont, where final details of Rolfe's appointment were worked out in the non-shooting moments of a duck-hunting trip.
YANKEE STAR: Rolfe when he was at the peak of his career as third baseman for the New York Yankees. Their all-time star at that position, he played in six World Series in nine seasons.
DARTMOUTH STAR: Rolfe crossing the plate after hitting a homer against Cornell in the 1930 game. He was captain of the team the following year, and had a whole bevy of big league offers.
FIRST SEASON AS A YANKEE: Rolfe with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1934, the year he moved up to New York after starring with Newark and being voted the International League's top player.
DETROIT MANAGER: Rolfe shown in 1949, his first managerial year, being honored by Dartmouth alumni in Detroit. With him is Jack Scolaro '42.
