Experiences
LARRY MARGERUM, wearing uniform number nine, was standing on the sideline at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts, on a Saturday afternoon earlier this fall. Holy Cross was leading Dartmouth, 7-0, in a game that was just 12 minutes old. Margerum, the backup Dartmouth quarterback, didn't expect to play that day. He had seen varsity experience on only one occasion, a single series last year against Boston University, which Dartmouth drubbed 38-0.
Buddy Teevens was at the controls for the Big Green against the Crusaders. A week earlier Teevens had played the entire game at quarterback, completing 15 of 24 passes for 155 yards as Dartmouth defeated Pennsylvania, 31-21, in the season and Ivy League opener. The co-captain also had a five-yard touchdown run that helped make coach Joe Yukica's Dartmouth debut a successful one.
Teevens had just completed a short offbalance run and was stopped on the left sideline in front of the Holy Cross bench. As he went down, two Holy Cross helmets crashed into his own headgear. "He suffered a slight concussion. He didn't know where he was for a time," head trainer Fred Kelley said later. Teevens was gone for the day. Enter Larry Margerum.
"I looked over there and it looked like Buddy wasn't going to get up," said Margerum, who completed 39 of 64 passes and rushed for 109 yards as a member of the jayvee squad last autumn. "I was ready to come in. The number two quarterback has to be ready to step in. There shouldn't be any great change. It's not a major adjustment for me although it possibly is for the rest of the team." The strong-armed junior from West Lafayette, Indiana, said he wasn't nervous about directing Dartmouth against Holy Cross before 20,000 fans. Margerum conceded he had some jitters during the half-time break when he thought of all the things he had to remember. "But as soon as I got back out I was all right. You just can't be nervous if you're going to be a quarterback."
Margerum did not turn out to be the game's hero, but he played well after a slow start and moved the team on three potential scoring drives. With Dartmouth trailing 14-0, Chris Sawch attempted a 35-yard field goal that would have cut the Crusaders' margin to 11 points. But the kick was blocked by Holy Cross and run back 68 yards for a touchdown as time expired in the half. That touchdown, which put Holy Cross up by 21 points, was the turning point of the game, Yukica admitted.
Holy Cross put the game out of reach with a touchdown early in the third quarter and added another in the fourth quarter for the eventual 35-0 shutout. Twice Margerum directed drives that ended up inside the Holy Cross ten-yard line, only to end with fourth down failures - the second being halted on the Crusaders' six-inch line.
"We moved the ball pretty well at times," said Margerum. "But we got frustrated. There were things we could have done that we didn't do. But frustration was the main thing. We didn't get a lot of breaks. I had the confidence to get the job done, I just didn't do it."
Margerum completed 14 of 32 passes, his first completions for the Dartmouth varsity, for 126 yards. Holy Cross defenders picked off two of his aerials. "Larry certainly got a baptism of fire," observed Yukica.
Margerum was back on the sideline in the third game of the season, a tough 20-17 loss at Hanover to unbeaten Boston University. It was the Terriers first victory ever over Dartmouth. Touchdowns by Greg Henry and Jeff Dufresne and a 33-yard field goal by Sawch were not enough to off-set the three-touchdown effort of BU's Mal Najarian. Teevens completed 18 of 30 passes for 172 yards, but he lost two fumbles and had one pass intercepted. Another fumble into the BU end zone deprived Dartmouth of the winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. "We had good momentum early and failed to get more points and had an opportunity late and failed to get it in," said Yukica.
While football fortunes alternately plummet and soar, soccer rolls on undefeated.Goalie Lyman Missimer, shown in action against Penn, is one of the reasons why.
