With the Big Green Teams

I'M still in a daze and don't quite realize what has happened. About three hours from now, somewhere in New York, I'll jump out of my chair and holler and suddenly realize that we are the undefeated Ivy League champions."

That was Coach Bob Blackman's reaction shortly after his Dartmouth football team had completed its superlative nine-game campaign with a 28-14 victory over two-year undefeated Princeton.

The Big Green's performance in the finale was unequaled in Blackman's 11 year regime at Dartmouth and must rank equally with any in the 75-year history of the sport at the College.

Seasoned observers in the jammed Palmer Stadium press box shook their heads in amazement. "Dartmouth is destroying one of the greatest teams in Princeton annals," said Moe Berg, the erudite former baseball great and constant watcher of Tiger football. "Dartmouth should have scored six touchdowns," said the Boston Globe's Jerry Nason, one of the few writers to pick the Green before kickoff.

"Here is one of the fastest, strongest, and most accomplished Ivy teams developed in years, manned by high-spirited personnel. Dartmouth was so powerful on defense that Princeton, one of the high-scoring machines in the country, was almost throttled in the second and third quarters," wrote the New York Times' Allison Danzig, who also had covered the Green's undefeated-untied teams of 1925 and 1962.

Princeton, which never had been behind in a game during the season and had not lost since its Dartmouth game of 1963, played its best football. In fact, Princeton coach Dick Colman said, "We still think we have a very fine football team and all the more credit should go to this Dartmouth squad for beating us so convincingly."

The Tigers actually led in the opening period as star Ron Landeck capped a 69yard march by cutting over left end from the one-yard line. And when the Green was held for downs on the Princeton 14 at the end of this period, gloom settled over the Dartmouth stands.

Then the tide began to change. Junior Bill Brandt, who had to replace injured captain Tom Clarke at defensive end, was able to contain the Tigers' weak-side plays. The Dartmouth defensive backfield was covering Princeton receivers perfectly. And midway through the second period when Dartmouth took over on its own 14, that exciting and varied offense which Blackman had installed began to click.

Dartmouth moved 86 yards in 12 plays. There were four fine rushes by senior Bob O'Brien (later to be voted Dartmouth's outstanding back of the game) and three completed passes by quarterback Mickey Beard, playing the finest game of his career. The last pass was a high one from the Princeton 23 to senior Steve Bryan down on the one-yard line. As Steve re- called later, "I was covered and tipped the ball into the air. I couldn't see it for a moment, then found it right in front of me and grabbed it." On the next play Beard barreled into the feared Stas Maliszewski for the tying touchdown.

Quickly now the Green moved in front. Junior defensive back Andy Danver ("How can one guy improve so much in one year?" - tackle Dan Williams) picked off a hurried Princeton forward on the Tigers' first play and returned it to the Princeton 39. Fullback Pete Walton slammed 12 yards up the middle. Beard and O'Brien teamed up on a complicated double-handoff pass play to the 6. Sophomore tackle Hank Paulson opened a huge hole as O'Brien drove to the 1. And finally Beard again wedged over for the go-ahead touchdown.

That sensational Gene Ryzewicz kept the Green flame alive as he raced 69 yards with the second-half kickoff and established dominant field position. Midway into this third quarter Dartmouth was off on a 13-play, 80-yard march to post an insurmountable 21-7 lead. It was fitting that junior end Bob MacLeod Jr., who had been idled since October 2 with a knee injury, came in for one play and caught an important third-down pass. And it was fitting that little Ryzewicz scored the touchdown on a typical hipswitching slasher for 12 yards around right end.

Princeton kept trying. Wingback John Bowers appeared in the clear on a weakside reverse from his 28 but Dartmouth sophomore Norm Davis, a linebacker compared to Maliszewski by game's end, caught him from behind on the Green 29. And senior Jon Colby made another saving tackle four plays later at the 34.

All season Dartmouth had been inches away from completing a long bomb. At least once in each of the previous four games the Green had a downfield receiver completely in the clear but the aerial had gone awry. But now Beard made amends for all those other misses with a courageous playcall and a perfect pass.

The situation was a third down and 15 at his own 21. A lesser quarterback, leading 21-7 in the final period, would have called for a punt or possibly a quick kick. Mickey called for the bomb. He sent right end Bill Calhoun on a deep slant-in. Calhoun got a two-step lead on the Princeton defense at midfield and the ball was perfectly thrown. Fastest end on the squad at 211 pounds, Bill kept that lead into the end zone and the 79-yard scoring pass went into the record book as Dartmouth's longest, surpassing the 74-yard combination of Ed Dooley and Myles Lane in the Harvard game of '26.

It did not matter that Princeton got a final touchdown with 32 seconds to play on a 38-yard pass play. By then the Dartmouth fans were waving handkerchiefs at the Princetons who, good-naturedly, were tipping their hats toward Dartmouth. And the undefeated Big Green squad was gathering around Coach Blackman to hoist him to their shoulders and bid adieu to one of Dartmouth's greatest seasons with a triumphant march around Palmer Stadium.

THE build-up as Dartmouth and Princeton moved toward their climactic meeting was unprecedented in Big Green football history. Under the impact of today's communication media, the coverage of the contest alone was staggering and had both this sports correspondent and his counterpart at Princeton, Bill Stryker, in a similar condition.

For instance, the game was being broadcast on at least 30 radio stations throughout the country. The Dartmouth Club in San Francisco leased a special wire from WDCR, the college station. Beacon Sports Network, which already was carrying the game on radio to 15 stations in New England, brought up the possibility of a closed-circuit telecast into Hanover. The Undergraduate Council enthusiastically agreed to underwrite it. Tickets went on sale at 1 p.m. Monday the week of the game, and three theaters in Hopkins Center with a capacity of over 2000 were sold out by Tuesday evening. The game was shown on video tape later in New York and Philadelphia. Palmer Stadium's 45,725 seats were filled as soon as alumni and student ticket applications were processed and there was no public sale. The press box was loaded as never before with nearly 300 representatives on hand.

The sequence of events which brought on this amazing attention was a scriptwriter's dream. Princeton, the only major eleven in the nation still using the single wing offense, had marched to within this final game of its second successive undefeated season. The Tigers were tied with Notre Dame for the highest scoring average, 33.4 points per game, and featured the greatest placekicker in football history in Charles Gogolak.

Dartmouth, which had been the last team to defeat Princeton back in 1963, also had. moved smoothly toward an undefeated campaign. The Indians were a high-scoring team, ranking sixth nationally with a 30.4-point average, and their defensive record was superior to Princeton's.

But the path had been a bit harder for the Green. They had had squeakers with Pennsylvania and Yale, two easy victims of the Tiger. They had jumped out quickly against Harvard to a two-touchdown lead, then sat conservatively on it. All this was a bit deceptive to the experts who realized Dartmouth looked immense at times, especially in the 47-0 rout of Columbia in New York and the 20-0 shutout over Cornell on Eastern Regional television, but in other moments was susceptible to fumbling and faulty play selection.

There were several important factors in the emergence of Dartmouth as an Eastern power in 1965. One, of course, was the quick development of the sophomores. On the defensive platoon, which recorded three shutouts in the four games prior to the Princeton test, there were three rookies in the backfield alone.

Steve Luxford of McLean, Va., took over the important and demanding job of defensive fullback or "rover." It was his responsibility to move around in his linebacker's position depending upon the offensive alignment of the opposition. His decision had to be lightning fast as the other team came up over the ball; it required football know-how and poise. Luxford, a 198-pound sophomore who had missed most of his freshman season with a knee injury, handled the job perfectly. By midseason Coach Bob Blackman was on record about Luxford: "Steve is as important to us as any offensive back on the squad."

Norm Davis, another big rookie from Sedro Woolley, Wash., played an interior linebacker. Great things were expected of this 6-2, 208-pounder and as his confidence and experience developed after the first two games he lived up to expectations. By season's end his coaches predicted he'd be at least the equal of All-America Don McKinnon '63.

Gordon Rule is a somewhat skinny, lanky sophomore from Chandler, Ariz. He had been a reserve quarterback with his freshman eleven, then was given a shot at defensive halfback this year. Injuries to others boosted him quickly, but Gordie was still uncertain of himself over the first half of the season. Then came the Cornell battle, a very important game for Dartmouth. Cornell had swamped Brown the previous week with the aid of a fine passing attack. Rule was going to be an obvious target for the Big Red. But on that day Gordie emerged as a complete football player. He intercepted two passes, recovered a fumble, knocked down several other passes, and was voted Dartmouth's outstanding back of the game by the covering press.

On offense it was known before the season that qb Mickey Beard was an excellent player and that halfbacks Bob O'Brien and Paul Klungness could rank with any in the league. It also was learned early in the season that young Gene Ryzewicz was as fine a broken-field runner as anyone in the first decade of the Ivy League.

But the major development during the middle stages of the season was fullback Pete Walton. This 226-pound junior from Johnstown, Pa., not only put veteran Mike Urbanic on the bench, he also jumped into the team lead in rushing and into national notice in scoring. Entering the Princeton game Walton had ten touchdowns and was, in Coach Blackman's words, "potentially the finest fullback in Dartmouth football history."

There were many other key men on this Big Green squad. There was Captain Tom Clarke, the big defensive end who kept playing despite shoulder, hand, and foot injuries. And his senior sidekick at defensive end, Ed Long of Batavia, Ill., who consistently played outstanding football and really kept Dartmouth in the Yale game with his efforts. Tony Yezer of Silver Spring, Md., was a senior offensive guard, who was a junior varsity end as a sophomore and considered "the worst pass-catching end I've seen here" by his coach. By 1965 Tony was opening huge holes which allowed the Dartmouth backs to tear by to national prominence. He also was the best student on the squad, averaging 4.07 overall despite a difficult major in chemistry, and is a Rhodes Scholar candidate. Junior center Chuck Matuszak thrilled his dad (former Cornell captain who with many teammates and opponents was here for that 1940 Fifth Down Game reunion) by being voted Dartmouth's outstanding lineman in the Cornell victory.

That's the type of team it was, one without a super star but with so many good players that the team stood out and not the individuals. Final League StandingsLeague SeasonW L T Pts OP W L T Pts OP Dartmouth 7 0 0 188 59 9 0 0 271 71 Princeton 6 1 0 222 94 8 1 0 281 100 Harvard 3 2 2 70 55 5 2 2 120 62 Cornell 3 3 1 143 124 4 3 2 192 137 Yale 3 4 0 78 118 3 6 0 84 138 Penn 2 4 1 100 165 4 4 1 136 192 Brown 1 6 0 116 155 2 7 0 128 169 Columbia 1 6 0 61 208 2 7 0 83 229

A Blackman scheme to block Gogolak's fieldgoal kicks had Sam Hawken leaping intothe air off a teammate's back. Maybe this caused the only attempt to fall short.

Icing on the bacon: End Bill Calhoun crossing the goal-line with Dartmouth'sfourth touchdown against Princeton, on a 79-yard pass play from Mickey Beard.

Coach Bob Blackman being carried offthe field by his super-happy players.

Paul Klungness gathers in a 30-yard Ryzewicz pass at the Harvard 17, from whichspot he scored on the next play. Defensive back Bob Norton (22) made the tackle.

Dartmouth's defensive play was a big factor in the season's success. Here seniorsEd Holley (64) and Ed Long (85) pile up a running play in the Yale game.