Oh, The Ignominy Of It All
When the 1987 football season was finally over, a loyal alumnus remarked, "This was the longest year I've ever been through." That alumnus, Head Coach Buddy Teevens '79, had just seen his team go 2-8 overall and 1-6 in the Ivy League. "There weren't a whole lot of peaks," admitted Teevens in a massive bout of understatement. Much more memorable are the valleys:
• The 1987 squad gave up 302 points, a new school record.
• The team scored only 110 points, the fewest since 1974.
• Dartmouth had the lowest winning percentage since Tuss McLaughry's 1945 squad went 1-6-1.
The only real high point of the season was Teevens's own consistent optimism in the face of bad news. And there was bad news aplenty.
His debut contest was a 34-3 loss to Princeton, a team that played with a special mission. The Tigers' former coach, Ron Rogerson, had died of a heart attack just weeks before fall practice began. His charges played inspired football and dealt an early blow to Dartmouth fans hopes for a turnaround in the program.
Intrastate rival New Hampshire was no kinder, giving the Green a 41-3 whipping in the last game of the Granite State series. The team played better than it had against Princeton, but the Dartmouth players couldn't hold their composure. "One series we'd have intensity, we'd move the ball, and the next series we'd go three downs and punt," Teevens observed.
Then came Davidson, a team ranked at the bottom of USA Today's computer rankings all season. The Green thumped the small North Carolina school, 38-7, for Dartmouth's first non-Ivy win since 1977. But the high didn't last. As the season progressed, only Teevens's good cheer seemed to survive. And the scores rolled on:
Holy Cross over Dartmouth, 62-23. "The team didn't stop playing, and they came a long way," suggested Teevens.
Harvard—which eventually became Ivy champion—over Dartmouth, 42-3. "Bright spots?" Teevens mused. "Well, it was a nice day."
Cornell over Dartmouth, 21-14. "It hurts to lose by a relatively close score, but then, it's the first time we've lost by a relatively close score," said Teevens.
Yale over Dartmouth, 17-7. "We did everything we wanted to do except score, the coach concluded.
Things were supposed to get easier the following week, when Dartmouth traveled to Columbia. But the Lions, the pussycats of the Ivy League, led for most of the game and came three feet from making the name of Dartmouth infamous as the Green squeaked by, 12-10. Columbia's placekicker missed a 35-yard field goal by a yard with 19 seconds left to end the Blue threat.
The feeling afterward was not the normal elation of victory but one of relief and exasperation. Even Teevens found cracks in his usual silver lining. "I certainly don't feel like we won the ball game, he said. Columbia deserves better. They outplayed us." The most noteworthy performance of the game was that by Dartmouth placekicker Carl Romero '89, who put the Green up 12-10 with a late field goal. He was later named Ivy Player of the Week for his boot.
The season ended with two more gloomy defeats, 19-0 against Brown and 49-7 at Pennsylvania. And what could the coach possibly say after such a season? "The positive side of things is that our guys played hard," offered Teevens. "They didn't quit."
With a new coach and a new system, perhaps the 1987 results aren't so surprising after all. "I think the players grasped our offense and our defense; now it s just a matter of execution in the future," Teevens explained. While the Pea Green freshman team went 1-5, the head coach is still confident that he has prepared some candidates for playing time in '88. "I was not as concerned about the wins and losses as developing the kids in the skill areas we need for success at the varsity level," said Teevens, who remains as optimistic as ever.
Airborne: Unlike Terry Phillis '88, pictured here flying above a pile-up during the Yalegame, the football team as a whole never managed to get off the ground.
