With the Big Green Teams

ONE of the strangest success stories of the college world has been the current Dartmouth football team. Despite mishaps and melodrama unforeseen by the most imaginative mind, the Big Green 22 (remember, this is the two-platoon era again) were still undefeated entering the heralded Harvard game.

The campaign began routinely enough. As the experts had predicted, Dartmouth's offense was awesome in the overwhelming 56-6 triumph over New Hampshire. Although Coach Bob Blackman put numerous restrictions on his "Go Gang," both as to variety of plays used and number of minutes played, the team scored a record-breaking point total for the Blackman regime. Quarterback Mickey Beard threw three touchdown passes, rookie Gene Ryzewicz broke in with a 52-yard punt return and accounted for three scores, the halftime score was 35-0.

One unexpected thing happened. The Dartmouth defense, suspect in the minds of most Ivy observers, forced U.N.H. to minus 38 yards on the ground. Now admittedly the Wildcats are destined to finish last in the Yankee Conference and their offense will never be mistaken for that of the Green Bay Packers. But this defensive achievement was another modern Dartmouth record and it raised eyebrows throughout the Ivy League.

Then the really spooky part of the season began the next week at Holy Cross. The Green offense, which had clicked so smoothly and powerfully in the opener, sputtered like a schoolboy team's. Dartmouth actually fumbled four times in the first seven plays and the first 25 plays of the game took place in Green territory.

It wasn't that the Crusaders were putting that much pressure on Dartmouth. The problem seemed to be between qb Beard and center Chuck Matuszak. The latter is the son of Cornell's 1940 captain and is a converted tackle. Yet this pair had had no trouble in practice. Fans figured it was just the tenseness of the first significant game and when the team began to roll in the second period, en route to its final 27-6 victory, everyone chuckled over the horrendous start.

Two injuries brought no smiles to Dartmouth faces, however. Senior tackle Gerry LaMontagne, whose importance to the squad was delineated here in the October issue, felt a sudden pain in his right leg during the last half and hobbled off the field. This was the same leg which had been fractured a year ago and now extensive X-rays showed another fracture, this one of the hairline variety, below the previous break.

In the fourth period end Bob MacLeod Jr., considered a certain All-Ivy choice and possible All-America, received a ligament strain of his left knee and was sidelined indefinitely.

The strange part of the affair was that neither player was touched during the play on which he was injured. LaMontagne felt a pain as he pushed off with the right leg and physicians diagnosed it as a fatigue or stress fracture. MacLeod, in the end zone to catch a pass, twisted to his left as the pass came in over the wrong shoulder. The cleats in his right football shoe caught in the turf and his knee was twisted.

Overall Dartmouth had eight fumbles in the game, losing four of them, and there was much talk of the need for concentration on ball-handling in preparation for the Pennsylvania invasion of Hanover the next week. Again Saturday dawned bright and clear, a perfect football day, a perfect day for ball-handling.

Only this time Dartmouth's troubles holding the ball were even worse. Mickey Beard fumbled the ball on first down three straight times. He became so shaken that he threw a bad pass which was intercepted and returned for a Penn touchdown. Dartmouth was able to move the ball at will but those fumbles (nine in all) kept interrupting the continuity. A game which should have been an easy victory turned into a 24-19 squeaker.

Definitely something had to be done. Beard and Matuszak were worried and tense. They got together on Sunday, just the two of them, and drilled on the center handback for a couple of hours. "I've learned from past experience that the more conscious you become of fumbling, the more you're apt to fumble," said Coach Bob Blackman.

The Monday after the Perm game Dartmouth's junior varsity had a contest with the Boston College jayvees. The Eagles brought a huge, talented squad to Hanover. Many had played in the 17-0 loss to Penn State the previous Saturday and were hungry for Indian scalps. In fact, this same B.C. squad was to beat the Harvard jayvees 34-18 the following Friday.

Blackman watched that Monday game with interest. At quarterback was Bill Robb, a classmate of Beard's and a fellow who had been on the defensive platoon until the week before. Robb handled his Green team with poise and leadership. There wasn't a fumble on a center or handoff against the huge Eagles and the Green moved out to a 32-20 triumph. On Wednesday Blackman announced that Robb would start the Brown varsity game on Saturday. "Maybe Beard will benefit from coming off the bench as he did last year as a sophomore," said Blackman.

In another surprise move he put junior Jim Menter at right halfback against Brown. Menter was another jayvee starter against B.C. and, scoring three touchdowns, he was the star of the game. A contributing factor in Menter's promotion was that seven other halfbacks, including senior veterans Bob O'Brien and Mike Urbanic, were injured.

Why didn't Dartmouth start Gene Ryzewicz, the sophomore sensation who plays both quarterback and halfback? "Gene will play a lot," said Blackman, "but he still is inexperienced at both positions and it reduces our offense somewhat to use him regularly. However, he will be in there on all kick returns as well as at quarterback and both halfbacks during the game."

With the many Dartmouth injuries there was a feeling that an upset was in the making as the team arrived in Providence. It was Homecoming Day for the Brown team which had failed to win a game yet this season. Dartmouth scouts reported that the Bruins had outplayed both Penn and Yale in losing games but had had bad luck on scoring opportunities. The cheering and yelling from the adjacent Brown locker room before the game also indicated that the Bruins were really "up" for the occasion.

In the first 17 seconds of play, however, Ryzewicz illustrated why he has become the most feared kick-return man in the Ivy set. He took the Brown kickoff on his own 10, ran straight to his 25, hurdled a prone Brown defender, sidestepped another at his 30, and angled off to his right and to daylight at the 50. His 90-yard romp took some of the zest from the Bruins and sparked Dartmouth to its best performance of the young season, a 35-9 victory.

"I've never seen anything like it before in our league," admitted Brown coach John McLaughry later. "Several of our boys thought they had him in their arms and he just disappeared." McLaughry, who was standing within 15 yards of Ryzewicz when he veered at the 30, swung his left arm against his chest in a reflex, tormented movement and crushed his eye glasses in his breast pocket.

Blackman's maneuver of starting Robb and bringing Beard in from the bench also paid off. Robb steadied the team so that there were no fumbles in the opening period and Beard sparked a secondquarter rally which sent Dartmouth to halftime with a 21-3 lead.

Two important developments during the opening four games were the emergence of junior Pete Walton (Johnstown, Pa.) as probably the best fullback in the league and the appearance of the Green defensive platoon among the nation's leaders.

Walton is a 226-pounder who has improved so fast that holdover Urbanic has become basically a halfback. Pete had been hindered by an ankle injury as a sophomore but after four games this year he was the team's rushing leader, averaging 5.3 yards per carry, one of the most feared blockers in the league, and the team's scoring leader with seven touchdowns. On the Thursday before the Brown game Pete landed hard on his left knee during a passing drill. Complete silence enveloped the field as he lay writhing with pain. When he finally shook it off and rejoined the squad for the next drill, the players broke into unprecedented applause. "I never spent such a sleepless night," admits Coach Blackman. "I couldn't wait till I saw Walton on Friday and could be sure he was all right." Walton was, as his two touchdowns and 90 yards gained against Brown indicated.

Despite the loss of LaMontagne the Dartmouth defensive team zoomed to number one ranking on total defense and rushing defense. After three games it had limited the opposition to an average of only 16.3 yards by rushing. Defensive coach Jack Musick moved senior Dave Coughlin (Portland, Ore.) into LaMontagne's tackle spot, a move made possible by the outstanding play of sophomore offensive tackle Henry Paulson (Barrington, Ill.). Senior linebacker Edgar Holley (Maywood, Ill.), who finally got his weight up to a respectable 186 pounds to complement his excellent speed, called the defensive signals and kept team morale high with his constant witticisms.

The Harvard game, of course, loomed as the first really tough test of the season. The Crimson squad had been living with that 48-0 trouncing on regional television for one whole year and it was no secret that Harvard wanted the Dartmouth game even more than Yale. Interest in the game was so high that for the first time in any football tussle other than Yale extra wooden bleachers, raising the capacity to 40,000, were put in the open end of the Stadium. Even so, nary a seat was available a week before the game.

This game, along with the Yale and Princeton battles, was scheduled to be carried on radio on the following stations: WQMR in Washington, D. C.; WEDO in Pittsburgh; WDOK in Cleveland; WPON in Detroit, and WEEF in Chicago.

Sports Schedule

FOOTBALL—Nov. 6, Columbia at New York; 13, Cornell; 20, Princeton at Princeton.

FRESHMAN FOOTBALL—Nov. 12, Boston College at Chestnut Hill.

SOCCER—Nov. 6, Columbia at New York; 13, Cornell; 20, Princeton at Princeton.

FRESHMAN SOCCER—Nov. 6, Exeter at Exeter; 10, St. Paul's at Concord.

CROSS COUNTRY—Nov. 5, Heptagonal Games at New York; 15, ICAAAA at New York.

FRESHMAN CROSS COUNTRY—Nov. 5, Columbia Inv. at New York.

Fall Results to Date

FOOTBALL—Dartmouth 56, New Hamp- shire 6; Dartmouth 27, Holy Cross 6; Dart- mouth 24, Pennsylvania 19; Dartmouth 35, Brown 9; Dartmouth 14, Harvard 0.

J.V. FOOTBALL—Army 7, Dartmouth 0; Dartmouth 32, Boston College 20; Harvard 7, Dartmouth 0.

FRESHMAN FOOTBALL—Holy Cross 20, Dartmouth 14; Dartmouth 14, Brown 8 (A); Dartmouth 7, Norwich 0 (B); Harvard 10, Dartmouth 7.

SOCCER—Middlebury 2, Dartmouth 0; Pennsylvania 1, Dartmouth 0; Dartmouth 2, Amherst 0; Brown 1, Dartmouth 0; Harvard 6, Dartmouth 1.

FRESHMAN SOCCER—Dartmouth 1, Kimball Union 1; Dartmouth 1, Andover 0; Dartmouth 4, Middlebury 0; Dartmouth 3, Norwich 1; Harvard 3, Dartmouth 0.

CROSS COUNTRY—Manhattan 19, Dart- mouth 41: Dartmouth 42, Columbia 54; Yale 34, Dartmouth 42; Brown 17, Dart- mouth 42; Harvard 16, Dartmouth 47.

FRESHMAN CROSS COUNTRY—Dart- mouth 55, Columbia 67; Yale 15, Dart- mouth 55; Brown 16, Dartmouth 42; Har- vard 17, Dartmouth 44.

Pete Walton '67, the powerful fullback who is Dartmouth's leading ground-gainerand scorer, shown bursting through the line in the 27-6 victory over Holy Cross.

Gene Ryzewicz (15), the sophomore sensation whose broken-field running has madehim the darling of Big Green fans, fakes a pass before running a sweep. Fb PeteWalton, It Dan Williams, and lg Bill Sjogren are forming the interference.

Senior halfback Bob O'Brien, by vote ofthe football writers, was winner of thefirst John Turco Memorial Award for hisall-around play in the Holy Cross game.