Student Coach

Ray Hilsinger '58 worked one summer selling hot dogs and cokes between the polar bears and the hippos in the Cincinnati Zoo. Just what imprint this experience made upon him in those important formative years is, as yet, undetermined but there are some indications that the experience was not unfelt.

Ray attended the public schools in Cincinnati and had the range (he's 6' 4") to play on the Walnut Hills High basketball team and the voice to sing in the Glee Club (he's a tenor). After the job at the Zoo, he longed for a little summer quiet and he found it: in a cemetery as a groundskeeper. Last summer, on the theory that if he could sell hot dogs between the roars of the polar bears and the snorts of the hippos he could sell Fuller brushes door to door, he entered that time-honored occupation. During a nine-week period he visited an average of seventy houses per day. In all, it was a good summer: sales were brisk and he didn't end up in jail when charged with breaking into a home after placing a catalog inside a screen door.

In his freshman year at Dartmouth, Ray had the usual student extracurric-ular activities dilemma. Because he had been on the student newspaper in high school, he joined The Dartmouth heeling program. The DCAC managerial competition looked interesting and so he joined that also. And, because a relative had once mentioned crew to him, he, quite casually, went out for the freshman lightweight crew and, in short order, made the first boat. It was a fine year and, somehow, he managed to keep most of his activities going. Sophomore year was another story: his grades went down, he was cut from crew because of missing practice and he had no fraternity.

There was need to do some real digging and Ray was up to it. By spring he had joined a fraternity (Kappa Sigma) and was, once again, rowing for the 150-pound varsity. The lightweights didn't win a race but "it was a good crew - no doubt about it!" By the end of the year Ray's grades were up and all was right. Last fall, Ray was elected captain of the 150-pound varsity and, shortly thereafter, he was appointed coach.

Ray has worked very closely with heavyweight coach Pete Gardner and, during the week after Winter Carnival, he had eighty men doing calisthenics. Early in March, Ray and his crews entered the polar bear stage by working out in fiberglas-reinforced shells on a bit of open water found at the junction of the Connecticut and White Rivers. Dartmouth breeds a hardy oarsman and spring practice in fast water sometimes among little icebergs - is a good test of both endurance and perseverance.

This spring, Coach Hilsinger took 55 men with him to accept the hospitality of famed crew coach Rusty Callow at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Oars were lashed to car ski racks for the trek south and the Navy generously loaned shells for the practice sessions. Workouts lasted about four hours a day and continued for eleven full rowing days or well over 200 miles. And along with all the exertion expended, the oarsmen spent their own money. Because the Dartmouth Rowing Club is an inde- pendent organization, it pays its own bills and each student (including the lightweight crew coach) contributes about $150 toward expenses.

One of the few amateur coaches left in the collegiate sports, Ray, nonetheless, considers the season's prospects with the same reserve exercised by the highly paid professionals. He does say, however, that the lightweights look good and he expects them to make a strong showing.

Ray plans to enter business upon the conclusion of his sociology major this June. He is now mulling over a few offers and any businessman out there in the audience who would like to hire an operative who can work effectively even in the midst of polar bears and hippos had best get his oar in quickly.

Ray Hilsinger '58