A VETERAN MOVES ON

Back in the fall of 1955, Seaver Peters '54 arrived aboard a train at the railroad station in the Lewiston district of Norwich, Vermont. Peters, who was an officer in the United States Air Force at that time, was headed for the annual DartmouthHarvard football game that would be played across the Connecticut River at Memorial Field in Hanover. Dartmouth prevailed that day, defeating archrival Harvard, 14-9, in Coach Bob Blackman's first win at the Big Green. Almost 28 years later, Peters was back at the Lewiston railroad station, using the renovated building as a hide-away study as he prepared to embark on a new career. The trains still roar by the station, although the railroad no longer owns the building. The property now belong to the Connecticut & Passumpsic Rivers Railroad Association, a private club that consists of Peters and 24 other member-owners. "They were good enough to say I could locate here for a bit," said Peters.

"Pete" Peters stepped down as Dartmouth's Director of Athletics on June 30. He was employed by the College for almost 24 years and had served as the school's athletic director for the past 16 years. During July, at the Lewiston station, and through August, in Boston, Peters was studying to become a registered broker with the investment firm, Burgess & Leith, Inc. Peters conceded that he was studying harder than he had since 1954 when he graduated from Dartmouth. All told, he had some 30 volumes of information about the brokerage business to absorb before taking the test for his broker's licence. If everything went as scheduled, Peters opened his office after Labor Day in downtown Hanover. [It did. Ed.}

Through the squalid heat of July, Peters arrived at the Lewiston station no later than 8 a.m. He took a 20-minute break at noon to grab a sandwich at his nearby Norwich home. He finished his studies between 5 and 5:45 p.m. five days a week, reading at night if he fell behind schedule. "If I were still on my old job, I'd be playing golf one afternoon a week," Peters said. "And I can tell you I've really had to discipline myself to do without that."

As a broker, Peters is mapping out a new career, yet one not so far removed from his Dartmouth days as it might seem. "I've told a lot of people that my background is more financial than anything else," Peters said. "I was an economics major at Dartmouth, and seriously debated going on to Tuck. In the service, I was a budget and accounting officer, and when I got out, I went into the family business for three years." He took a position as an assistant to Athletic Director "Red" Rolfe when incumbent assistant "Snuffy" Smith took a year's leave of absence to become associate commissioner of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference. Peters figured incorrectly it turned out that Smith would remain with the ECAC. " 'Snuffy' came back and I was out of work," Peters said. "Then John Meek, the treasurer of the College, offered me a job in his office because of my financial background. As assistant comptroller, I was really the first budget officer of the College. I pulled the whole College budget together. And as sorry as I was then that 'Snuffy' came back, it was in retrospect, a blessing, because in my new job I got to know the College just about as well as anyone could."

Three years later, one of President John Sloan Dickey's assistants approached Peters and asked him who would be a good successor to "Tuss" McLaughry to head up the physical education and intramurals programs. Peters recommended "Whitey" Burnham but he declined, opting instead to continue coaching. "The assistant came back down again and I told him I might be interested," Peters recalled. Another opportunity knocked on Peters' door three years later. "It was a Thursday in October 1966," he said. "I had just learned that I had been offered the job as athletic director at Bowdoin College. The following Monday, it was announced that 'Red' Rolfe was going to retire, so I decided to stay. There have just been so many coincidences."

It was, however, no coincidence that Peters came to Dartmouth in the first place as a student. "There was a long family history, and then, of course, there was the College's hockey tradition" said the 51year-old Melrose, Massachusetts native. Peters' father, the late Paul S. Peters, was a member of the Class of '22, and his brother, Paul A. Peters '49, attended Dartmouth in one of the Navy's officer training programs during World War 11. "There were also a lot of Melrose people who had come up here," Peters said.

Seaver Peters played three years of varsity hockey at center and wing under the late Eddie Jeremiah '3O, and he captained the 1953-54 Big Green sextet, the first Dartmouth hockey squad to play a full season on artificial ice. That team, incidentally, played 30 games, including a lop-sided exhibition game in Hanover vs. the Boston Bruins. At Dartmouth, Peters was a member of both Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and Sphinx, and he claims that he even managed to perform in the interfraternity play contest.

Peters established himself as one of the nation's most active and imaginative athletic directors during his 16-year Dartmouth tenure. He was in charge of an intercollegiate athletic program that involved nearly two dozen sports for men and more than a dozen for women. He was also responsible for the College's physical education, intramural, and recreational programs. Peters was active on several committees of the NCAA and the ECAC. He was a member of the NCAA excutive committee and at one point chaired the powerful NCAA television committee. He is also a past president of the ECAC and served as chairman of that organization's basketball and hockey television committees.

Peters cited the continued success of the football and hockey teams, the vastly im- proved athletic facilities, and the remark- able development of the women's athletic program as some of the high points of his career as Dartmouth's Director of Athlet- ics. "I don't know if the director deserves much credit for football staying where it is," Peters said, "but it's easy to let a program like that slide and far more difficult to bring it back." He looked up thoughtfully, and then went on with a distant stare, "Our strength in football, the transition to coeducation, the hockey team's two recent trips to the NCAAs, beating Yale in swimming when we hadn't ever done it before, the baseball team's trip to Omaha for the College World Series these were all great thrills. But the real highlight is the tremendous people we've had here. To see the success that so many of those people have had elsewhere, from the (Dave) Gavitts to the ("Jake") Crout- hamels to the assistant football coaches who have become head coaches and there's a long string of those and to see the relationship they had and continue to have with Dartmouth that's got to rate as tops. I guess my greatest disappointment would be that we never made it back in basketball. When I first came here the crowds were tremendous in the gym. I had always hoped I'd stay long enough to see us get an NCAA bid in basketball."

It is no secret that Peters believes that some of the Ivy League schools are not living up to an admissions policy that re- quires their athletes to be representative of the school's entering class. "The Ivy presi- dents feel very strongly that our goal ought to be competitiveness within the league; it should not be to be competitive nationally in light of the profound philosophic differ- ences we have with the others. Yet as a group," Peters claimed, "the Ivies have made what I view as very slow progress in achieving the goals mandated by the Ivy presidents."

Peters had praise for the Dartmouth admissions office. "We're number one in the League in admitting athletes who are representative scholar/athletes. No one can quarrel with that assessment when they look at the figures. And that was the mandate set by the Ivy presidents some three and a half years ago. Some of the other schools simply have not made it. And this is contrary to what their presidents voted, and of course, unfair to us.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we can be competitive across the board in the Ivies if one or two things happen. I think the ideal would be if the other Ivy ADs took the commitment their presidents made seriously. The alternative would be for the Ivy presidents to meet again and for Dartmouth to say "Well, dammit, some of the Ivies are not living up to the commitment that the Ivy League presidents made, so why should we?

"Probably the most important thing we can do is to try to bring the League together on this issue. It's the most valuable asset we have. The coaches always groaned a bit that I was naive and too rigid in adhering to the regulations, but I think that's the only way to do it."

On the home front, Peters married the widow of his close friend, Jack Gile '45, about five years ago. With four children of his own from his previous marriage and two Giles, Peters knows well the value of investments in the short- and long-term. But he's hardly alone whenever a decision has to be made; all but one of the Peters' six children remain in the Hanover area.

The white-haired rookie stock broker claimed that he has had no pangs about leaving his athletic director's job, a decision which he announced in February. "At least not yet," he added. "I probably will by my second or third Harvard-Dartmouth football game. But I've really got the best of both worlds now. I can still stay involved as a spectator, yet enter a new role with all the challenges that it offers." He paused for a moment and then grinned with a hint of resignation,"Yeah, there'll be pangs. But 16 years in any job, if not too long, is maybe long enough. I think the athletic department will benefit because when someone new comes in there are always new ideas. Like a new president of a college or a president of the United States. New ideas. I think that's healthy. I really do. It's healthy for everyone for the department, for the school, and in the long run, for me too."

Well, as John Dickey would say, "the word is so long, Mr. Peters. And good luck. We're with you all the way."

A Dartmouth contingent from Melrose, Mass., takes to the ice in ancient Davis Rink in the annualAlumni/Varsity encounter in the 1968-69 season. Left to right: John Manser '26, Roby Cann'69, and Seaver Peters '54.