Getting Ready

VICTORY and defeat come on nine Saturday afternoons in the fall, but football coaching is a year-round job. Take Joe Yukica, for example. The temperature outside Davis Varsity House was approaching the 90-degree mark and Yukica, as is his custom, was passing up lunch to prepare for Dartmouth's 98th season of football, which, at the time, was still two months away.

"The most significant thing we do during the summer is to try to get the playbook - both offensive and defensive - rewritten," said Yukica, who returned to Hanover in January as Dartmouth's 18th head football coach after a decade of fruitful seasons at Boston College. "We like to redo it, and, in fact, we changed quite a bit from a year ago, even our terminology."

The playbook is written, position by position, in virtual text form, and the detail is considerable. The mimeographed edition for the defense will be one and a half inches thick; for the offense it will be about a half-inch thicker. Each player receives a playbook roughly three quarters of an inch thick for his particular position. ,

"The next area we spend time on is mailings to the team during the course of the summer," explained Yukica. "We have three contact's with the squad." In June, members of the team are asked to follow a regimen to make them better athletes. This involves a weight program to develop strength and muscle tone and drills to perfect certain individual skills, such as ball-handling by a receiver. In July, six weeks before the start of the season, the team receives a running and conditioning program as preparation for the double sessions of practice that began on September 1. During the second week in August, the football staff sends out its third mailing. This gives details of the players' return to Hanover and contains a summary of play assignments, which they are supposed to read and learn by rote.

"Another activity during the summer is the follow-up on our mailing to high schools," said Yukica. "This is where we get leads on players. We extend invitations to juniors in high school to visit the campus before their senior year and encourage them to think about Dartmouth. We've had a number of them here this summer, from the Midwest and as far south as Florida. So you can see that we are also doing some recruiting work."

Everyone on the coaching staff has various administrative duties. Dartmouth, for example, participates in a film exchange program with the rest of the Ivy League. Each coach is assigned a game film, and it's his job to break the film down and analyze it. Proper analysis takes at least three days. Most of the coaches take their vacations in July but spend part of their holiday at a football camp as representatives of the College. "It's good for them professionally," observed Yukica, who this summer originated a one-week football camp at Dartmouth for 75 high school players.

"During the first week in August, we start in earnest with regular staff meetings. What we talk about - the most demanding topic - is personnel. The people. Where are we playing them and are we playing them correctly? We discuss various phases, the kicking game, etc., in minute detail. All final plans will be decided during this period at the staff meetings. We'll get 'idea films' from other schools and make preliminary game plans against every one of our opponents, although most of the talk will be around Penn and Holy Cross."

Yukica also attends functions of various kinds promoting football at Dartmouth. He figures he devotes about 20 per cent of his time to the promotion of the football program at Dartmouth and credits alumni for doing "an exceptional job" in recruiting.

During the first half of the year he visited alumni clubs in New Hampshire and western Massachusetts, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Hartford, Boston, and New York. "I'm anxious to meet the people who have helped us with recruiting and to talk about Dartmouth football," Yukica said.

JOE YUKICA succeeded Jake Crouthamel '6O as head coach of the Dartmouth football team after the deadline for student applications had passed; his coaching staff was not completed until the end of January, with two additional changes occurring since then. Yet, he is generally satisfied with the incoming group of freshman football players.

"In assessing our returning people we determined there was one area we could not afford to miss out on. That was offensive and defensive linemen - we didn't have what we wanted in terms of numbers. The second area was quarterbacks and the third area was the next best athlete who qualified for admission," explained Yukica. "We are pleased with our results in our first two objectives. We feel we recruited a good freshman class as far as linemen and quarterbacks are concerned."

The freshman quarterbacks will be led by Daryl Wong, a tall, lean graduate of Lowell High School in San Francisco. As a high school senior, Wong was the most prolific passer in Northern California, completing 58 per cent of his passes for 1,650 yards and 18 touchdowns. Yukica said that on film Dave Howard, a freshman from Half Hollow Hills High School in Farmingdale, New York, looked "very impressive" as a passer. Other incoming quarterbacks include Jeff Ogren, of Pleasantville, New York; Jeff Given, of Westlake, Ohio; Tom Hecimovich, of Coleraine, Minnesota; and Brett Homovec, of Farmington, Michigan. Homovec is also a kicking specialist.

There will be no shortage of size on the 85- to 90-member freshman squad. Thirty-three of the players stand over six feet two inches. "It's a class that's got good numbers," conceded Yukica. A look at the roster of tackle candidates confirms this. Vying for the tackle positions will be Scott Ahrendt, 6-3, 235 pounds, of Pipestone, Minnesota; Peter Jones, 6-4, 220 pounds, of Arlington, Vermont; Clif Daniels, 6-5, 245 pounds, of Baldwinville, Massachusetts; Matt Tadich, 6-3, 220 pounds, of Bloomington, Minnesota; John Starbuck, 6-6, 265 pounds, of Oakland, California; Robert Lasko, 6-2, 215 pounds, of North Branford, Connecticut; Robert Marcin, 62, 225 pounds, of Philadelphia; and Steve Milano, 6-2, 215 pounds, of Ossining, New York.