Coaches' Dream
SANDY BRYAN makes her presence felt quickly. In her first winter track meet the freshman from Ipswich, Massachu- setts, broke Dartmouth records in the 60yard hurdles, 55-meter dash, and the long jump. This spring, in her initial appearance as a member of the Dartmouth women's lacrosse team, Bryan paced the Green by scoring three goals in a 10-9 loss to Yale. "There wasn't much she didn't do," says Peter Fox Smith, her track and field coach. "She's a tremendous athlete," adds Aggie Kurtz, her lacrosse coach.
Bryan faced a difficult decision this spring. She had to choose between spring track and lacrosse or possibly compete in both. Bryan determined that two sports would be too much of a burden and picked lacrosse. "Sandy's favorite sport is lacrosse much to my delight," admits Kurtz. "She is one of the most coachable persons I know, which is unusual in an athlete of her caliber." Kurtz feels that Bryan has the potential to be a member of the U.S. lacrosse team. Dartmouth senior Ellen Remsen is currently a member of the 12player national team, and Kurtz was a member of the squad from 1962 to 1970. "One of the best assets in lacrosse is speed," points out Kurtz. "And Sandy's discovered she has the ability to run. She looks to people to pass to and is in the game all the time."
Dartmouth was selected over Harvard, Yale, and the University of New Hampshire, Bryan said, because of the College's academic reputation and its coaching staff. "There was more to it than just track or athletics," she explains. "Academics are very important to me. I came up here last year during the Dart- mouth Relays and spoke to the coaches. They impressed me and I liked the campus. I didn't want to go to school in a large city. ' During her high school days in Ipswich, Bryan had earned numerous honors including the Harvard Book Award for scholastic and athletic achievement. She also received the Boston HeraldAmerican Athlete-of-the-Year Award for her winter track efforts.
When she arrived in Hanover last fall, Bryan joined Smith's cross-country team primarily as a conditioning program for the indoor track season. The first time she stepped on the track for Dartmouth during the winter she qualified for the national championships with her record run in the 60-yard hurdles. "That was totally un- precedented," observes Smith. "It was the first time ever for Dartmouth to qualify for the Nationals on the first time out."
For a while it seemed as though Bryan established a Dartmouth record each time she stepped onto the track. She also set the mark for the 220-yard indoor run, was a member of the record-setting one-mile relay team, and established a new mark for
the 60-yard dash. She set Leverone Field House records against Boston College in both the dash and hurdles and set the 220-yard record at Yale. She qualified for the A.I.A.W. indoor championships and the Eastern Regional meet, but an aggravated muscle pull knocked her out of action for the rest of the season.
Bryan is modest about her accomplishments. "The people you meet, coaches and athletes, make the sport, not just winning. I enjoy traveling to meets, competing, and coming home again. There are so many special moments," she says. Bryan is carrying on a family tradition. Her grandfather and father were involved in track as Yale undergraduates, and her sister Carrie is on the track and lacrosse teams at Harvard. She and her father Bob, who teamed up as a hobby with Marshall Dodge of "Bert And I" record fame, were featured in a two-page Sears ad in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated. It shows daughter and father unwinding after Sandy's participation in the Sears A.A.U. Junior Olympics. The ad tells of unloading borrowed hurdles from the back of an old blue pickup truck. "It was lonely and it was hard work, but I was aiming for the Nationals," she is quoted as saying. Bryan was seeded 23rd or 24th in the Junior Olympic girls 400-meter hurdles but placed in the top eight in the nation during the 1979 competition.
Smith views his young track star's decision to play lacrosse during the spring with mixed emotions. "It would be foolish for me to say that I wasn't disappointed to lose my single most gifted track and field athlete," he says. "That is modified by the fact that she is a superb lacrosse player The satisfaction she gets from lacrosse is also a satisfaction for me, and she's also making a tremendous contribution to women's athletics at Dartmouth. And she'll be back for me next fall."
Sandy Bryan forsook track for lacrosse this spring, and quickly began scoring goals.
Wally Lutkus, rugby's player-adviser, says he aims to take to the field until he's 40.
