With Big Green Teams

THE 1953-54 Dartmouth athletic year is over and while it may have seemed during the course of the fall, winter and spring seasons that the Big Green teams were taking quite a drubbing, statistics prove otherwise. Elsewhere in these columns will be found a tabulation of the won-lost results for all Dartmouth teams sponsored by the DCAC. The totals for all teams show 142 wins, 110 losses and three ties. The varsity teams for all sports came up with 83 wins against 81 defeats and one tie, while the freshman teams did much better, winning 59 contests and losing 29, with two ties.

That's about par for the course, but the disturbing fact remains that some of the poorer records were turned in by teams in the so-called major sports. Football had a record of two wins, seven losses; basketball 13 wins and 13 losses; baseball six wins and 16 losses and hockey 15 wins and 13 losses. To the general public and often too frequently to the alumni body, the success of a Dartmouth sports season is judged almost exclusively on the performance of the Big Green teams in the major sports.

The above summary shows that Dartmouth teams performed creditably throughout the year against fairly stiff competition. All indications point to generally better results in 1954-55. The freshman teams for the most part have been gradually improving and the general awakening to the fact that good athletes should be sought for Dartmouth as well as good students bodes well for the future.

Since the last report in these columns there has been a general last-minute flurry of athletic news. Bill McCarter, who leaves the post of athletic director on July 1, was cited at the June meeting of the Athletic Council and a report on this will be found elsewhere in this section. Red Rolfe, who succeeds Bill, has arrived on the Hanover scene and will spend the summer learning the intricacies of the Dartmouth athletic organization. Joseph A. Mullaney, a Holy Cross graduate and a basketball star with the Crusaders and later with the Boston Celtics, has been named to coach freshman basketball at Dartmouth next year. Mullaney, a protege of Doggy Julian both at Holy Cross and on the Celtics, succeeds Harold M. "Chick" Evans who remains on at Dartmouth as assistant professor of physical education.

For the first time in some years the DCAC revived the custom of presenting athletes who have won three or more varsity letters (at least two in major sports) with Davis Field House Charms. These charms are given by Howard C. "Shorty" Davis '06, donor of the Davis Field House and the Davis Hockey Rink, and were first awarded when the Davis Field House was opened.

But even as one athletic year draws to a close, another approaches. In early June Coach Tuss McLaughry sent out invitations to 68 players for the Dartmouth preseason football training camp opening in Hanover on September 2. As the first football game - with Holy Cross - will be played (Sept. 25) before the ALUMNI MAGAZINE resumes publication next October, we are devoting part of these columns to an analysis of the Dartmouth football prospects for 1954. Before going into this, though, let's glance back for a moment at the spring sports as they wound up here this last month.