Rambling with Melancholy

MEANDERING - which means that there are assorted things to relate, many interesting but few startling, all worthy of conversation but none particularly conclusive as Dartmouth's winter season travels past. Such introductions should automatically alert you to the fact that no championship is in the wings unless it be in skiing. Therefore, permit some ramblings about people and places:

Jimmy Page was sitting in a corner of an office in Robinson Hall, contemplating a beer and resolving in his mind that Saturday would bring better fortunes for his skiers. It was the half-way point in Dartmouth's Winter Carnival, and for the first time since who-knows-when the host team was out of contention. Beside him sat Chip LaCasse, the Vermont coach, whose only concern in "the final two events was to make sure that his racers didn't fall victim to the calamity that struck three Dartmouth skiers in Friday's slalom race at the Skiway.

The slalom figured to be Dartmouth's strongest Alpine event. And why not: All-America Dave Cleveland had returned from a minor injury, veteran John Macomber was on hand. Likewise sophomore Jeff Kahl, who a week earlier had won both the slalom and giant slalom at the Vermont Carnival. All this, plus two other seasoned racers in Bryan Wagner and Peter Anderson.

Well, Macomber finished sixth and Cleveland was ninth. The other seven racers at the top of the pack belonged to either Vermont or Middlebury. Kahl fell on his first run, Anderson and Wagner did the same on the second. What figured to be a duel between Dartmouth and Vermont had turned into no contest. After two events, Vermont had 178 points, Middlebury had 171 and Dartmouth had 135. Twenty-four hours later, Page's Alpine racers redeemed themselves with a spectacular performance in the giant slalom as Macomber, Cleveland and Kahl finished 1-2-3, proving their skills just as Ed Waters had done in winning the 15-kilometer cross-country race for Dartmouth on Friday.

To wrap things up, Olympian Walter Malmquist and Chris Berggrav finished 1-2 in the jumping and Arne Nielsen was fourth, adding to Dartmouth's belated domination. "You couldn't have asked for a better effort," said Page. "The jumping field was as fine as you'll find in any collegiate meet except the NCAAs. It was a tremendous field."

And what of the overall outcome? "If any one of the three who fell on Friday had finished 13th or better in that event, we could have won the Carnival," said Page. Dartmouth halved Vermont's lead, and while the Catamounts still won Dartmouth's carnival for the second year in a row, the Green overtook Middlebury (by three points) for second place and opened the way for the opportunity to make amends in the Eastern championships at Middlebury and at the NCAA meet in Colorado.

Dartmouth's women skiers also have been playing second fiddle this winter, albeit to Middlebury. Debbi Tarinelli swept to victory in the giant slalom at Dartmouth's carnival, with Mary Kendall close behind. Anne Thomas Donaghy and Caroline Coggeshall have proven to be the mainstays in the cross-country scheme.

Just as fractions of seconds make the difference in skiing, so do miniscule increments tell the tale in swimming. Consider this item: Dartmouth's swimmers are in the midst of a middling season, at least by comparison with last year's 9-2 record, and the best performances figured to surface in the Eastern Seaboard meet at Army in mid-March. The Yale meet, a 67-46 loss, is a measure of how things are building.

The difference between losing by 21 points and winning by one point was 1.058 seconds, a total time factor that was spread over six events. Greg Dozer, the excellent distance freestyler from Phoenix, set a Dartmouth record in the 1000 freestyle (9:37.125) but lost the race by .078 seconds - less than one-tenth of a second over 1,000 yards! In the 500 free, Dozer lost again, by .08 seconds. Barely one-tenth of a second put Ted Pollard in the runnerup spot in the individual medley and likewise for Tim Hable in the 200 butterfly. It was half that for Jerry Kortekamp in the breaststroke and the same for Hal Frazier in his bid for third place in the 200 freestyle, a race won by Dartmouth freshman Todd Taylor, truly a standout this season along with diver John Evans. In three 1,000-yard races this season against Yale, Princeton, and Harvard, Dozer has lost by the combined margin of .278 seconds.

Dartmouth's women swimmers have come along well this year, winning four of their last five meets to finish 4-4 overall. Considering that there's only one senior on the squad, names like Carol Pelmas, Maja Wessels, Carlie Geer, Nancy Gildan, and Diane Fountas figure to keep popping up as this team improves.

John Manser, Dartmouth's hockey captain back in 1925-26, now watches his favorite sport from a reserved seat in Thompson Arena. His analytical eye has observed a fact that probably has contributed much to the middling fortunes of a team that launched its season with dreams of playoff happiness but .found its destiny to be on the outside looking in.

When Dartmouth belted Pennsylvania, 13-4, at home in late January, it was Dartmouth's seventh win. Nearly a month later, the Green headed to Penn looking for its eighth win. In between, a one-goal loss to Northeastern and a 5-5 tie with Yale were followed by successive losses to Boston College, Cornell, Providence, Cornell again, and New Hampshire. Only New Hampshire, the East's second-ranked team, really outdistanced the Green (8-3). Every other game was close, with the competitors evenly matched in effort if not in size.

That's where Manser's vital analysis comes in. Against Boston College, which beat the Green, 4-3, Dartmouth was out-weighed by an average of better than 20 pounds per man. On sheer size alone, Dartmouth was clipped by four teams that figure to be in the playoffs, and the loss to Northeastern - 7-6, after leading 5-2 - showed the delicate balance in the division. "We've played as well as we're capable of playing," says George Crowe. "We can skate with anyone but we just can't match the size. This is a game that requires a share of luck, too, and we didn't have much of that against these good teams."

When someone told the latecomer to the track meet against Yale and Connecticut that Ken Jansson had just broken the weight, the first thought was that this 245-pound defensive tackle had literally made the 35-pound sphere explode on impact. It happens occasionally but not this time. Instead, Jansson had smashed the seven-year-old record set by former Heptagonal champion Bill Dinneen.

Jansson's throw in the Dartmouth-Yale-Connecticut meet was 64 feet 7% inches. Three days later, against Massachusetts, he improved the record to 66 feet 3½ inches. It seems that superior weight throwers arrive in periodic cycles at Dartmouth. Jansson is the top man in the latest corps that includes freshmen Sean O'Keefe and Rich Bagley. Collectively, they represent close to 800 pounds of sheer strength, and the inspiration of intrasquad competition figures to do nothing save make the current record a short-lived one at best. They're major reasons - Jansson also has been outstanding in the shot put, as has O'Keefe - that the Green posted a 6-1 indoor dual record this winter.

The basketball season at Dartmouth wasn't expected to be especially bright - 3 wins, 16 losses heading to the last three weekends attests to the accuracy of the prediction - but in no way should that be a reflection on the way this group has stuck together and kept its poise. And, as Gary Walters mentions over and over again, the players have given something future Dartmouth teams (in any sport) can view as an example of hard work and dedication.

When Walters took his team to Columbia and Cornell early in February and came away with an 84-61 loss at Columbia and a demoralizing 76-45 defeat at Ithaca, it marked 11 straight losses and no one would have blamed a soul for throwing in the towel. It didn't happen, and the next weekend all the blood and despair was washed away with wins over Brown and Yale, neither faring much better than Dartmouth this season but each regarded as stronger than the Green.

Although Larry Cubas scored only 14 points against Brown, he did the defensive job that was needed to neutralize the Bruins' top scorer, Brian Saunders, while center Sterling Edmonds gathered 25 points in a 67-49 victory. Just as valuable were 13 rebounds and six assists by sophomore Peter Roby, and it was worth the price of admission to see his jubilation in the waning minutes.

The next night against Yale, Dartmouth trailed by seven points, 56-49, with 90 seconds left in the game. That's when, as Walters points out, "... it's Larry's game." Cubas outscored Yale, 10-2, in the run to the buzzer. When the Elis expended ten seconds and didn't put the ball into the forecourt, Dartmouth took it with four seconds left and Yale leading, 58-57. Cubas took the inbounds pass and lined a jump shot home at the buzzer to give the Green a 59-58 victory that was as dramatic as any you'll see anywhere. He scored 29 points that night, got 30 three nights later at Boston College, and 24 against Princeton, providing the inspiration for a team that, due to injury, played most of the last month of the season with only eight men available. It reached the point against Princeton when, as a result of fouls, Dartmouth closed the game with only four men on the court. Walters' old coach, Pete Carril, offered to do likewise. His team led by 20, but the officials said no.

Remember the women's basketball team that spent New Year's Eve practicing for nearly six hours? Hard work paid off for them, too, as Dartmouth compiled a 4-6 record in regular season play. The victory total isn't historic, but for the players who quadrupled the victory output of last year, it's a definite step in the right direction.

Touching base with other sports briefly, squash and gymnastics (men) have come through with basically break-even seasons, while in both sports on the women's side the wins didn't quite equal the losses. Likewise in fencing.

ACTING on recommendations from the athletic directors and football coaches, the Ivy League presidents have approved a ten-game football schedule for Ivy teams, with the condition that no game be scheduled after the Saturday before Thanksgiving or earlier than the next-to-last Saturday in September.

This means that the next decade offers the possibility of a ten-game schedule in each season except 1978, 1979, and 1984. The Ivy athletic directors were scheduled to meet in late February to determine if attempts would be made to schedule a tenth game for the coming season or wait until 1980, when the modified schedule introduced in 1976 will be reviewed.

Bob MacLeod '39, the all-America half-back on 1936-38 teams that built a string of 22 games without a loss (19-0-3), has become the tenth person in Dartmouth grid annals to be elected to the National Football Foundation's Hall of Fame. MacLeod, who ranks as perhaps the finest all-around player to wear the green, was named to 14 different all-America first teams in 1938.

A final, personal item: In June, your Green Teams correspondent for these past nine years will leave his chair as Dartmouth's sports information director. After being part of one of the nation's finest and broadest intercollegiate athletic programs for virtually half of one's working life, it's time to pursue further personal challenge and growth. To paraphrase the words of an understanding and patient wife, "When you turn 40, you decide either to have an affair or get a divorce." Well, we've had a memorable affair with athletics at Dartmouth for nine years. It's time to get a divorce, though the goal is to be somewhere on the fringe for many years to come.

Dismantling the Big Green in ThompsonArena - story of a long basketball season.