The Club Set
ABOUT a third of Dartmouth's 4,000 undergraduates participate in sports at the intercollegiate level. These students are members of the College's 29 varsity, junior varsity, and freshman teams. They are not the only wearers of the green. Another 500 students belong to a diverse collection of 20 sports and recreational clubs ranging from rugby to Ultimate Frisbee. Varsity, junior varsity, and freshman teams receive full financial support from the College. The teams must have bona fide intercollegiate schedules and definite practice times. Students have to meet strict eligibility requirements and may receive an insignia, or letter, at the end of the season. Clubs, however, receive no money from the College. Members must raise all their operating funds, and, with a couple of exceptions, they do not qualify for an insignia. Clubs don't need an intercollegiate schedule and their members don't have to meet eligibility requirements. Only a majority of club members have to be Dartmouth undergraduates.
Twelve of the clubs fall under the jurisdiction of the Dartmouth College Athletic Council. Eight clubs related to the out-of-doors are controlled by the Dartmouth Outing Club. The D.C.A.C. clubs include fencing, karate, sailing, paddle tennis, men's and women's rugby, Frisbee,. scuba, women's Softball and golf, volleyball, and water polo. The D.O.C. clubs include Bait and Bullet, riding, trap and skeet, mountaineering, cycling, biathlon, rifle, and canoe. Louise O'Neal, an assistant director of athletics, oversees club operations for the Athletic Council. "The clubs are student-initiated," she says. "If there is enough interest, the students then file a constitution, or formal application, to be recognized by the D.C.A.C. The copy of the constitution must include a statement of purpose. The club must set up its own officers, have an adviser from the administration or faculty, and be open to all interested students."
Approval of the club by the Athletic Council is not automatic. "They have to demonstrate interest in sufficient numbers the numbers have to be significant," says Whitey Burnham, who, like O'Neal, is an assistant director of athletics. "We make every effort to accommodate every person and every interest, realizing we can't accommodate everybody. But I don't think too many things go wanting since we offer everything from varsity football to Ultimate Frisbee. This diversified program is part of the uniqueness of the Dartmouth experience."
Over the years some clubs have been elevated to varsity status while some varsity teams have been reduced to club status or dropped. "Budget constraints don't allow us to have everything on the varsity level," observes Burnham. Crew was a club for years. It is now a varsity sport. Women's soccer, hockey, and gymnastics started as clubs. They are now varsity teams. Wrestling and fencing began as clubs, became varsity sports, and were then victims of budget cutbacks. Wrestling was eliminated because it was possible to drop the sport without firing a coach. The fencing team was funded by an outside benefactor. When the private contributions ceased, fencing lost its varsity status
A few sports have been given clubvarsity status. These mutants are recognized but not funded by the D.C.A.C. The team must have a bona fide schedule, and members are supposed to meet eligibility requirements to participate in intercollegiate competition. Students on club-varsities are eligible to receive an insignia. Water polo and karate are D.C.A.C. clubs with varsity status. The D.O.C.'s riding club was given varsity status this spring, while the cycling club, the current champion of the Ivy League and the East, has petitioned for varsity status. The rifle team was a victim of budget cutbacks in April 1980 but resurfaced a month later as the rifle club with varsity status.
Riflery has had a checkered history at Dartmouth. The rifle club was organized in 1910 as a result of a letter to The Dartmouth by Fred Harris '11, founder of the Dartmouth Outing Club, organizer of the first official Dartmouth Winter Carnival, and later of the U.S. Eastern Amateur Ski Association. "A new sport, namely that of shooting, has been but recently introduced at Dartmouth, but yet it has already proven that it has met an existing need," Harris wrote. "There are always men in College who have had experience with either shotgun, rifle, or pistol, and these men should have an opportunity during their life at Hanover to keep up these sports and to improve rather than deteriorate in skill."
Dartmouth defeated the University of Minnesota in its first rifle match on January 11, 1911, and finished the season with a 9-6 record, coming in seventh in a 16-team league. During its early years, the team practiced in the old baseball cage in the gym, where there were many complaints about lighting and heating. In 1923, the club moved to a new range under the Memorial Field stands but disbanded four years later due to "inability to secure heating facilities." The team was resurrected in 1947 as part of the R.O.T.C. program. In 1970, when the R.O.T.C. program ended, the team continued under Athletic Council jurisdiction through alumni donations. Earl Jette, executive director of the Outing Club, became the coach. The Athletic Council took over the funding in 1973, and a year later the team became coeducational. In 1976, the rifle team came under the auspices of the Outing Club as part of the shooting sports, with Bill DeVaux '51 as coach of the rifle and trap teams. Two years ago, the team posted a 14-7 record in the New England College Rifle League and placed second in the league finals. Then the team lost its $6,000 budget last April but was set up again as an affiliated club of the D.O.C. in May.
Christopher Hill 'BO became coach and adviser to the rifle club and played a major role in the organization's success. "They had to get me to agree to coach for free and raise some money," says Hill, who is manager of the Environmental Measurements Laboratory in the Environmental Studies Program. "The team members really wanted to keep it going. There was a lot of enthusiasm. To raise money we said, well, let's try this and this and this."
The club started a phsyical education program in shooting for freshman. About 35 students paid $30 to participate in the program. A Tuesday night recreational shooting program was started. "Anyone in the Dartmouth community could come down, and for $2 each we'd sell them ammo. The ammo cost $1.50, so there was not a lot of profit," concedes Hill, who was the non-shooting captain of the team as a senior.
By the end of the year, 60 persons had paid $5 each to become members of the rifle club, with the top ten shooters forming the rifle team. Letters to alumni shooters brought in another $800. A paper-target turkey shoot was held during the Harvard game weekend. "It was enjoyable but we barely cleared our costs," says Hill. The club also sponsored an intramural rifle shoot during the winter, with 100 shooters paying $2 each to participate. "We were able to raise just about all the money we needed," says Hill. "We spent $2,700, and we raised it ourselves."
The team fires its .22 caliber rifles in a 50-foot indoor range located on the north side of the Alumni Gym basement. The range is one of the smallest in New England. The 1980-81 season was a successful one for the shooters, who fired off 40,000 to 45,000 rounds en route to an 18-3 record, which was second best in New England. "The team," says Hill, "had its best season in a long time I'm tempted to say 20 years or so." In one meet Dartmouth recorded 2,214 out of a maximum possible score of 2,400. It was Dartmouth's highest total ever and the best score registered in New England during the shooting season. William Woodbridge '81 was the open winner at the M.I.T. Invitational, was second in the league finals, had the second-best average for the New England season, and was second in the N.R.A. Intercollegiate. He also recieved the Darling awards for highest match score and average.
Hill intends to continue coaching next year even though he will be moving to southern New Hampshire. "I will commute," he says. Hill sees at least one plus from the formation of the rifle club. Fundraising efforts increased the interest in riflery at Dartmouth. "There are more and more people coming down to the range. On Monday the team has a captain's supervised practice. There's rec shooting on Tuesday. The coach's supervised practice is held on Wednesday. Phys-ed is held on Thursday and Tuesday noon, and team members practice twice a week on their own. I can envision the range being used 40 hours a week, which is more than it has been in the past," he says.
In a gloomy hallway of the gym the rifle club (nee team) goes right on winning.
