Fanciers

ALUMNI play an integral part in the Dartmouth College football program: They recruit players, boost morale, finance physical plant improvements, and comprise a substantial share of the 125,000 spectators who witness the Big Green's nine autumn games.

Amos Blandin '18 of Hanover, a retired New Hampshire Supreme Court justice, passes out chewing gum and words of encouragement during the Chase Field practice sessions. Frank Doten '23, also of Hanover, and his wife Gladys - she calls the players "my boys" - have provided the football office with carpeting, stereo, air conditioning, lounge, weight-lifting equipment and shed, motorized equipment cart, and shirts.

Since the third game of the 1955 season, Kenneth Young Jr. '48 of North Worthington, Ohio, has attended all the home and away games. He pitches in to unload the team bus before road games and helps the equipment men along the sidelines each" Saturday afternoon. "There's always some little thing that someone has forgotten to do," says Young, who arrives at noon on Thursday before a Hanover game. "We make sure everything is there so the coaches and kids don't have to think about anything else but playing the football game."

Prior to 1969, when he moved to Ohio, Young flew into Dartmouth game sites from his home in Florida. "It was a lot easier getting in from Florida than it is from Ohio," says the semi-retired businessman, who considers his attendance at some 200 football games a "diversification."

Alumni also help boost the Hanover area's economy, vying with foliage viewers for beds and tables in hostelries and restaurants for miles around. During football weekends, rooms are scarce from Fairlee and Woodstock in Vermont to the Lake Sunapee region of New Hampshire. The yet-to-be-built West Lebanon Sheraton Inn already has a 40-room reservation for the 1978 Yale game from one Dartmouth class. The 103-room Hanover Inn logs eight of its 35 yearly sellouts, almost exclusively to alumni, during the fall and grosses $9,000 for food, booze, and lodging when Dartmouth's in town.

Ron Campion '55, of James Campion Inc., says a good football weekend will double that firm's business. The nearby Lebanon Regional Airport, New Hampshire's second busiest airport, reports a 15 per cent increase in operations when the Twin-Cessnas and executive jets taxi in for a weekend game.

Some Dartmouth graduates tend to be feverish about the success of their alma mater's football team. They are demanding and accustomed to victory as Dartmouth has won six outright championships and shared the title four times since official Ivy League play started in 1956.

"The alumni expect effort, a well-coached team, discipline and execution," says Jake Crouthamel. "And that's nothing more than we expect. How can you be critical of that?" Crouthamel, 17 years out of school, is the first graduate-head coach since Jackson L. Cannell '19 guided Dartmouth from 1929-34. (Red Blaik, who coached the team from 1934-40, technically joined the alumni ranks when he was awarded an honorary doc- torate at Commencement in June.)

"A lot of it is who you lose to," observes Crouthamel, who has compiled a 35-17-2 record and three Ivy titles since succeeding his boss, former coach and adopted alumnus, Bob Blackman, six seasons ago. "Obviously, the big games for us are the Harvard and Yale games. I'm wearing two hats. As an alumnus I like to beat Harvard and Yale. As a coach I want to beat them even more."

In 1976 Dartmouth lost to Yale, 18-14, at New Haven where sagging attendance has prompted the beginning of a home-and-home series with the Elis starting in 1978. Dartmouth, for example, earned $41,800 when Yale played at Hanover in 1973. The Big Green's share of the Yale Bowl receipts for the past two years has been $36,000 and $24,000.

Dartmouth, which had a 6-3 record, also lost to Harvard last year. The 17-10 game at Hanover was witnessed by 20,220 paying customers. Anyone having the time to flip through the ticket applications would find that 3,582 alumni purchased one or two tickets for the game. Massachusetts had 1,116 graduates in the stands, or 31 per cent of the alumni total. Added together, the Bay State delegation, New Hampshire (653), New York (447), Connecticut (372), Vermont (224), and New Jersey (217) ac- counted for 85 per cent of the alumni turnout.

Yet, alumni from 40 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, and Canada were represented at the game. California was represented by 30 returning alumni and 15 more came north from Florida. Among others buying tickets were E. Fitz Donnell '35 of Honolulu, Hawaii, Alden L. Fiertz '52 of Switzerland, and G. Richard Fuglesang '62 of Oslo, Norway.

Dartmouth "lost" about $40,000, some ten per cent of its football budget, by staging the Harvard game in Hanover rather than Cambridge, where there are 16,000 more seats, all at $8, for the automatic sellout. "A decision like this shouldn't be based on finances," says Seaver Peters '54, Dartmouth's director of athletics. "We shouldn't be a Notre Dame road show," adds Peters. "If finances dictated it, we would only play one or two games at home a year."

The sport is not a money-making venture. "Football does not support anything at Dartmouth College," says Whitey Burnham, assistant director of athletics. According to Peters, the $400,000-per-year operation "clearly does break even" on a direct expense basis but "wouldn't really break even" if all indirect expenses were cost accounted.

Some alumni take in more games than others. Dr. Joseph Pollard '23 had attended 310 consecutive games when he retired as the football team's physician in 1969. David Orr '57, assistant secretary of the College, likes to write about football and has attended 109 games in a row. He's missed two games since 1960, the 1964 Cornell game at Ithaca and the 1963 game at Princeton. "I overslept and missed the train," says Orr of the New Jersey game.

Orr, who is in charge of reunions and alumni club activities, has seen an increase in the number of classes returning to Hanover in the fall over the last 15 years. There were 40 classes represented in the Friday night torchlight parade before last year's Harvard game. "The alumni are bound to get a feel of the Dartmouth of today," says Orr. "People go away with a better understanding of Dartmouth."

Crouthamel, too, wants to get more alumni involved, especially in recruiting efforts. "We're going to have an open house at the football office - with coffee and doughnuts - to let alumni drop in Saturday mornings before tailgating and the game to make contact, because that's where we get the players. I'm sure I'll be my effervescent self on Saturday morning," quips Crouthamel, who would be the first to admit he's far from relaxed on the day of the game.

"After we identify and evaluate a player, we rely extremely heavily on the alumni to follow up, make personal contact and maintain the contact of a recruit," he explains. "Without that, it's extremely difficult to compete. And we need more of it. We're making a special attempt to get the younger alumni more involved. The doers of the older regime, are getting up there in years and some don't feel that they have the time to devote to the effort."

"There are a lot of alumni actually involved," says Crouthamel. "And it's not just in Boston, or Cleveland, or New York. It's anywhere."

Alumni are sensitive about where they sit and some can be downright nasty if they get bad seats for the games. Burnham was the target of some hoots last October when he walked between the north end zone and bleacher's where 2,100 fans were seated for the Dartmouth-Harvard game. Burnham just smiled. "We got threatening letters and bitches about the seats," Burnham acknowledges, but adds that it was a major effort just to get all the alumni into Memorial Field. "I've been hooted at in stadiums as both a player and a coach," says Burnham. "But a smile shows that you can cope with it. It's just part of the game. If you've got rabbit ears, you're in trouble."

What does a non-championship season mean to Dartmouth's alumni-fans?

Robert Finney '63, Dartmouth's director of development, answers the question cautiously. "I honestly don't know if the Alumni Fund suffers from a losing season," says Finney, who for several seasons has been compiling the play-by-play summaries in the Memorial Field press box. "But it's my gut reaction that it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. A person who supports the College is going to do it whether the football team wins or loses. The Alumni Fund has had spectacular results the last two years despite the fact that there has' been no Ivy League championship. Of course, a winning football season doesn't hurt."

With this report, composed in the heat ofJuly, Brad Hills begins writing regularlyabout Dartmouth sports for the ALUMNIMAGAZINE. He is managing editor of thedaily Valley News, published for Hanover,Lebanon, White River Junction, and surroundingareas.