AN ATHLETIC SUMMING UP

"Red" Rolfe '31, on the eve of retiring as Director of Athletics, expresses some views on the state of Big Green sports

THE year 1967 isn't even half over, but already it's a big one for Robert A. "Red" Rolfe '31, Dartmouth's Director of Athletics. He has bought an attractive retirement home on Governor's Island at Lake Winnipesaukee and is having some work done on it. He has also had some work done on himself at the Hitchcock Hospital where he underwent a major operation - an ileostomy - from which he is now rapidly recovering. He is looking around for a good-sized boat to go with his island house, and come the end of June he'll retire as Director of Athletics, putting an end to a thirteen-year career in that post and a lifetime career in professional and intercollegiate athletics.

"I really feel great," Red tells anyone who asks. "Haven't felt like this for twenty years. And I'm really enjoying eating again."

The 58-year-old Rolfe doesn't look much different than he did back in the fall of 1954 when he took over the athletic directorship from the late Bill McCarter '19.

"I had a chance to come back to Dartmouth a few years before that," Rolfe recalled, "when Jeff Tesreau died and they asked me to be coach of baseball. But I was managing the Detroit Tigers at the time and getting a pretty good salary, so I decided to stay with Detroit for a while."

Actually Red had already done a stint in college coaching, for when his professional playing days with the New York Yankees ended in 1942 he went to Yale University as head coach of basketball and baseball from 1942 through 1946.

When his job as Detroit manager ended in 1953 Rolfe thought of staying on in Detroit and entering the investment business.

"I started playing around a bit in stocks when I first went to Detroit," Rolfe explained, "and I took a few night courses in investment practices and procedures. But then the Dartmouth offer came along and I felt I'd better stay with athletics."

Red has kept alive his interests in stocks, however, and DCAC associates are accustomed to seeing their boss studying the Wall Street Journal each morning before he turns to the sports pages of other newspapers. Rolfe actually charts some 125 stocks these days and cautiously concedes he's done "pretty well" in the market over the past fifteen years.

The thirteen years of the Rolfe regime at Dartmouth coincide with some fairly important developments on the College's athletic front and Red provided the active leadership and responsibility for many of them.

"Certainly our physical plant has improved considerably," he reports. He cites the Leverone Field House with the "finest indoor facilities in the country" as the most important addition. The new swimming pool in the east wing of Alumni Gymnasium and a new basketball court in the west wing were also built during this period.

"You need good facilities to attract boys," he says bluntly. "Just look at how our swimming teams have improved since we got the new pool."

But Red believes that other plant facilities must be added in the immediate future if Dartmouth is to keep up with its competition.

"We badly need a new hockey rink," he says, "and I honestly feel we should enlarge the seating capacity of Memorial Field, particularly if we're going to play some of our Ivy football games at home."

Other needs cited by Red include handball courts, additional squash courts, one or two indoor tennis courts, and possibly some additional playing fields. "We play a lot of our intramural games on the campus green and it really takes a beating. I think the day is coming soon when we'll have to schedule these on other playing areas so that we can get some decent grass growing on campus."

Turning to the subject of the coaches at Dartmouth, Rolfe was quick to point out that he was all for the youth movement.

"Coaching is a young man's game," he said. 'We're working on a plan now so that our coaches can retire when they are 60 years old with a year-to-year option after that if they want to stay on to 65 and if they are vigorous enough."

Bob Blackman and his assistants were the first coaches Red hired when he came on the job. "This was a tough one," Red told us, "but certainly Blackman has demonstrated what youth and desire and hustle can do. He's not only attracted a lot of good football players, but many of the boys that he and his staff have scouted up have turned out to be better in other sports than in football. So this has helped the entire athletic program."

More recently coaches like Ab Oakes '56 in hockey, Dave Gavitt '59 in basketball, and Ron Keenhold who assists Karl Michael in swimming are bringing new vigor and direction to Big Green teams. "I think you'll see some of our teams improving steadily in the next few years," Red said, "particularly if we can continue to improve our facilities and recruiting."

But intercollegiate competition gets stiffer each season as competing institutions strengthen their facilities, their coaching staffs, and their recruiting programs.

"I think the recent trend toward leagues in almost every sport has caused a lot of the improvement in intercollegiate athletics," Rolfe observed. "No one likes to finish down at the bottom of the league, so all the schools in the league try to keep up with each other."

The trend toward more formalized leagues in college sports is not without its problems, however, Rolfe notes. "We've had some real scheduling problems recently, because of the great variations in the academic calendars of the league members. Here in mid-May some colleges, like Penn, are finishing their terms, while we're just really getting under way with our spring sports. I'd like to see the presidents of these league-institutions try to get a little closer together on their school-year schedules."

Another problem with leagues, according to Rolfe, is that they limit or sometimes seriously curtail competition with independent teams outside the league. "We've already had to eliminate some independent teams from our hockey and basketball schedules, and I don't think this is good." Rolfe believes Ivy League teams may get inbred if they don't face outside competition, and that they should be tested and judged, when possible, against strong independent teams.

The league problem is further aggravated by the stiff pace of today's academic life on campuses like Dartmouth. Students have less time for practice than formerly and, at Dartmouth, the recently introduced three-three curriculum means that most students have classes even on Saturday. Class excuses for athletic events are multiplying and becoming a source of real concern to both faculty members and athletic officers.

"On some Saturdays this spring we excused more than 150 boys from classes so they could compete," reports Rolfe, "and the problem is further compounded by our demanding travel schedules which require many teams to be away overnight."

Rolfe pooh-poohs the notion that today's student doesn't have time for athletics. "Most students still waste an awful lot of time. They hang around the fraternity house, they stroll downtown, they play bridge in a dorm room. Any boy who wants to participate in athletics can. He just won't have quite as much time to waste," Red asserts.

Red has one specific suggestion for easing the conflict between classroom schedules and athletics. "I think Dartmouth should drop Saturday classes," Red states. "I think we could schedule Saturday classes on Monday or Thursday night and it would work out pretty well. I know the administration is properly concerned about students taking off for long weekends, but most do so anyway. If we had Saturdays free I think we'd have more interest in sports generally, both from students watching the Big Green teams play and those who might just get out on a Saturday and try something athletic themselves."

Finances, of course, continue to be a real problem for even Ivy institutions, which increasingly support their intercollegiate sports out of general funds. There's some current talk of one or more of the Eastern independent colleges dropping football. Rolfe sees no immediate threat at Dartmouth, admitting that television receipts have helped ease the financial burden in recent years.

"With Blackman at the helm we've had good football teams and have been on a national or regional TV telecast almost every year, and we expect to have one TV game this fall," Rolfe reported. "Actually it got to be a little embarrassing," said Rolfe, "so we suggested some split in TV receipts with other Ivy institutions whose games were not selected." Recent TV fees have enabled the DCAC to establish a small contingency fund to guard against gate losses because of weather or other unforeseen circumstances. But Rolfe admits that "finances and paper work" are problems he'll be glad to pass along to his successor, Seaver Peters '54.

"You'd be amazed at how much paper work there is in this business today," Rolfe groaned. "We really can't do anything on our own without checking through with the others in our league. We're in so many conferences — NCAA, ECAC, Ivy, and many others - and they all have their own rules, regulations, forms. Some day the whole system may sink under the weight of all that paper!"

Rolfe holds Seaver Peters in high regard. "He's young, capable, and knows a lot about sports," says Rolfe. "I'm confident he'll make a fine athletic director, and I predict that you'll see substantial improvement in some of our teams over the next few years."

There's no doubt that Rolfe is looking forward to a well-earned retirement. He has been competing in one way or another since his early days at Penacook (N. H.) High School, Exeter, and Dartmouth. Immediately upon graduation from Dartmouth, where he was a standout shortstop, Rolfe signed with the New York Yankees, and after three years with Yankee farm club teams he moved, in 1934, into Yankee Stadium and to third base for the World's Champions. Rolfe played eight years with the Yankees during which they were in six World Series and won four of them. The slender redhead was named to the American League's All-Star team three times during that period.

It has been an active and full career for one of Dartmouth's great athletes, but now he's looking forward to that lakeside home and that boat.

"I can just see it now," he told us enthusiastically. "I'll get up early in the morning and go down and take the boat out on the lake to some quiet fishing hole. I'll pull in a few fish and then take them into the galley and cook them up and eat breakfast right on my boat. I want a boat big enough to have a galley on it and room for myself and a few friends to fish over the stern."

So Red and his good wife, Isabel, will leave Hanover and Dartmouth this summer, but it's safe to say that Rolfe and Dartmouth won't forget each other.

"I'll get back from time to time," says Red, "I want to watch some more of these Dartmouth teams and see how things are working out at the DCAC."

Into the pages of Dartmouth history on June 30 will go the name Robert Abial Rolfe, Class of 1931, professional baseball player and manager, Director of Athletics at Dartmouth 1954-1967, and a really great guy.