The Buddy System
A charismatic young coach seeks to restore Dartmouth's gridiron glory.
If appearances won ball games, Eugene F. "Buddy" Teevens 111 '79 would already have hold of the Ivy League football title. The College's new coach has all the attributes of a returning hero: he comes from a famous Dartmouth athletic family, is remembered as an unparalleled letterman in both football and hockey, and at the age of 31 has already turned around the fortunes of a perennially losing university. He even has the requisite boyish looks, a John-Boy Walton with biceps. Former charges at the University of Maine at Orono speak of his energy and his stern commitment to academics. Make a movie of the man, and a happy ending would be irresistible.
At first, Teevens himself plays the obvious role, even down to the corny credo ("My big belief is that if you dedicate yourself to a certain goal and put in the work, you will achieve that goal."). How could a guy like that ever lose?
But behind the appearances lies the weight of precedent: in the three decades ades since the Ivy League was formalized, only four out of a total of 31 fledgling coaches have had a winning season. Teevens wants very much to be the fifth, and he has brought to Dartmouth a combination of technique and attitude that campus wags are calling the "Buddy System." A mixture of team psychology, strength training and chalkboard sophistication, the system is Dartmouth's best hope of rekindling the fire that has brought Dartmouth more Ivy titles (13) than any other League team.
Teevens certainly has the credentials; his athleticism seems genetically determined. At Dartmouth, he was Ivy League Player of the Year, led the Big Green to an Ancient Eight crown as a senior quarterback in 1978, helped the hockey team finish third in the NCAA Championship, and won the Alfred W. Watson Trophy as the College's outstanding athlete. His father, the late Eugene F. Teevens II '52, was a hockey letterman, and his younger brother, Shaun Teevens '82, bore up the family tradition by lettering in football and hockey and winning the Watson Trophy. A sister, Moira Teevens '87, captained the women's crosscountry and track teams.
Buddy earned a master's degree in history at DePauw University while coaching before moving on to Boston University and a full-time position.
In five seasons with the Terriers, he rose to become offensive coordinator and helped with B.U.'s three Yankee Conference titles. Moving on to his first head-coaching job at the University of Maine in Orono, he brought Maine fans two consecutive winning seasons (6-5 and 7-4), the first such streak in 21 years. "Those two teams were definitely overachieyers," recalls Tim Murphy, Teevens' top assistant in Orono and now Maine's head coach.
When Dartmouth called, Teevens brought with him a bevy of assistant coaches, none older than 34. "We're not used to having such young coaches," says junior Craig Morton, an all-Ivy receiver. "We've had older, businesslike coaches, and now we have young, fired-up coaches wanting to win a title." But Teevens is coming with more than enthusiasm. He is also coming with a system.
Element 1: Academics
During his two years at Maine he never lost a player of note to academic problems. To keep a full roster, he instituted a program of mandatory study periods and hired an academic advisor. Players who maintained sufficient grades were exempted from the study program. When players failed to keep pace academically, Teevens kept them off the field. "The one aspect that most stands out about Buddy," observes Bangor Daily News sportswriter Mike Dowd, "is that he taught the players the meaning of balancing academics and athletics."
At Dartmouth, there will not be an academic advisor specifically for football players. Teevens feels existing advising programs at the College suffice. But he will keep an eye on all of his players on the playing field and in the classroom. "I like to keep abreast of things, and we will have all of our players' class schedules on hand," Teevens says. "We will really emphasize class attendance."
He intends to take the matter into his own hands by making spot checks on classes to find out if players are there. "Football is not a career, even for those who go on," Teevens notes, using as examples star Dartmouth players who became pros. "Reggie Williams, Jeff Kemp, Nick Loweryeven their careers end," the coach notes. "These people need an education for a lifetime."
Element 2: Strength
Beyond the classroom there is the weight room. When Teevens first came to Dartmouth, he decided to replace an existing Nautilus system with free weights. He has been a proponent of free weights since his playing days at Dartmouth, claiming that lifting changed him "from a scrawny little runt" into someone a beach bully would avoid. This belief in weight training was reinforced at DePauw, where Jerry Berndt was head coach. Berndt liked the free-weight system and later used it to help win four straight Ivy titles at Pennsylvania.
Teevens' employment of free weights derives from his theory that football is an explosive sport that requires control and balance. He believes that the Nautilus system inhibits motion and free weights force control. A player using free weights, for example, must use equal strength on both ends of the bar to keep the weight from falling off.
Strength is key to Ivy League football with its short training period. Dartmouth's first official practice this season came on August 30—less than three weeks before the opener against Princeton on September 19. According to Morton, Teevens felt the returnees from last year's team were "talented but weak." When the new coach arrived in January he told his players, "I don't have time to get you in shape." He then instituted an off-season weight training program that is about as mandatory as a coach can have in the Ivy League.
Players were asked to work out four times per week in the offseason for one and a half hours per day. They sent progress cards to Teevens with reports of training and personal notes. In return, Teevens sent a newsletter to all his players. The coach sees this as a way to make sure his players are staying in shape, and as a means of keeping his "family" together. So far, compliance has been almost total; one report was sent from Mount Kilimanjaro by senior Andy Russell.
The results have been remarkable. Since the team began lifting, the average vertical jump by players—an indicator of lower-body strength and explosiveness, which is a key to success in the trenches—increased by two inches. Similar gains at Maine were accompanied by a marked reduction in injuries.
Besides having his players lift weights to build "a natural armor," Teevens sees lifting as means of renewing confidence in his players who have seen three straight years of Ivy failure. "The big thing is the documentation of improvement," he says. "It's positive reinforcement for the players."
Element 3: Spirit
Another Teevens ploy to instill confidence is to build on the proud Dartmouth tradition of the Blackman, Crouthamel and Yukica teams. The new coach has evoked the image of Green glory from the outset. He has stressed the heritage of a program in the team's new weight room on the third floor the Davis Varsity House. The words "DARTMOUTH FOOTBALL" are the first things one sees when walking in. Surrounding the words are the years of the 13 titles.
A similar small touch involves the projection of a classy image that Teevens says goes hand-in-hand with Dartmouth. Head shots of individuals in the game programs will be coat-and- tie pictures, as opposed to the old uniform shots. And Teevens himself will sport a tie on the sidelines for the first time in his career. Two other visual changes that alumni are apt to notice involve the uniform. Teevens has eliminated all colors except for green and white. The helmet is also changed, with the "DARTMOUTH" logo underlined by speed stripes in order to give his team a faster, lighter look. "Image is a big thing to me," he says. "I want to put my best foot forward."
Dartmouth is making sure that Teevens and the new image of Dartmouth football aren't Hanover secrets. He was sent on a national speaking tour just one month after his hiring. Even before the season began, the new coach scored a victory with the alumni. "We came away wanting to read the Sunday papers after dreading it the past two years," said Denver club president Ed Stern '64. "He wasn't prepossessing like a lot of football coaches, but when he started talking, it was like someone who just walks in and plays the piano."
Element 4: Recruiting
Teevens has already impressed the young as well as the old—perhaps to a fault. Outgoing coach Joe Yukica helped through the early stages of the recruiting process, which was the first on a national level for the new coach. (At Boston University and Maine, recruiting was done on a regional basis.) But once Teevens got the hang of the new system, he caught fire. His first recruiting class had a 71-percent yield and exceeded the 55 players the Ivy League strongly recommends. Ivy rules will probably require Dartmouth to bring in fewer players for the next two years, but this first-year bonanza could be an indication that Teevens will get exactly the kind of players he wants.
One recent recruit is Brendan Mahoney, a 5'9", 165-pound tailback from Sudbury, Massachusetts, who chose Dartmouth over Holy Cross. "To be honest," he says, "Coach Teevens really turned my head toward Dartmouth. " Teevens supported Mahoney's desire to try out for baseball, and showed flexibility in the position he would play. The Buddy system allows incoming players to try out for any of three positions. Mahoney wants to play tailback but had been tagged as a defensive back or wide receiver by other schools.
Robb D'Amore, a 6'0", 185-pound quarterback from Rome, New York, was also swayed by Teevens. "When I met Coach Teevens and sat down with him, I knew Dartmouth was the place," says D'Amore, who was also considering Bucknell. "I could tell he was the kind of person who would bring out the best in me, the kind of person I would want to pattern myself after now that I'm leaving home."
For Teevens himself, the immediate future belongs to Dartmouth. He says that in the coaching profession one can't really make career plans. But mention coaching at a Big Ten School and he gets a faraway look in his eyes and chuckles.
Buddy Teevens '79 combines technique and attitude in a coaching formula that makes players stretch themselves.
Senior lineman Brian janssen hoists some iron. Coach Teevens favors "explosive" free weights over Nautilus,
He may be a good catch for Dartmouth, but mention the Big Ten and Buddy gets a faraway look in his eyes.
The system is a mixture ofteam psychology, strengthtraining and chalkboardsophistication.
Freelance writer Frank Cicero '85 was recently named Harvard's sports informationdirector.
