Dartmouth Honors an Increasingly Rare Species: the Dedicated Coach
On the twentieth of this month—the night before the Harvard game—the College will name some of the best athletes in Dartmouth's history as Wearers of the Green. You might call the event "Wearers II"; the first took place four years ago, when 500 All-Americans, Olympians, Hall of Famers, and professionals were honored. This year's ceremony, which takes place in Boston, will include 43 athletes and 29 coaches.
As a DCAC staffer, I was told to write up a summary of each coach's career. When the list was given to me at the beginning of the summer, many of the names sounded only vaguely familiar: Otto Schneibs, Fat Spears, Christina Wielgus. On the other hand, to write just a few paragraphs on coaches such as hockey's Eddie Jeremiah was a daunting task of compression he coached for more than 25 years, and had several championship teams and a pro career of his own.
For others, such as Harry Hillman (a track coach from 1910 to 1945) and Ed Hoehn (tennis coach from 1938 to 1963) there was litde to go on. Often the archives contained litde more than sets of numbers (meticulous record keeping began at Dartmouth only a generation ago).
The key was to narrow my focus and find a single anecdote that would represent what each coach meant to the generations of Dartmouth men (and, in a few cases, women) and mix the numbers with the memories. Slowly, after many phone calls and trips to the College archives, the coaches began to emerge.
I learned, for instance, that track's Hillman was a five-time Olympic medalist and that tennis's Hoehn coached by taking on his team in matches every day. (Hoehn cited exhaustion as a reason he retired.) My favorite Jeremiah anecdote, and the one most typically "Dartmouth," has the coach leading hockey practice on a pond in Grantham while waiting for Hanover's outdoor rink to freeze. The team had to search for lost pucks in the surrounding woods, and they contended with testy ice fishermen who found that the fish didn't bite when the team was thundering across the ice.
All of the coaches had touched countless lives through their instructions and examples, through admissions (and rejections). As I flipped through the class notes of this magazine, I wondered how many of the boldfaced names had some treasured recollection of a coach's inspiration, or the memory of being forced to choose another pursuit.
Some alumni might well remember the spring bus trips that the baseball teams used to take with Coach Tony Lupien: two-week sojourns through the southern and mid-Atlantic states that were for all the world like the real minor-league experience. They learned how to live through eight-hour bus rides and then play ball, all the while catching up on their reading.
Others might remember the early years of women's basketball under Wielgris, when the team sold sandwiches to pay for road trips, and crowdless games were played with the bleachers tucked away.
Dartmouth's current coaching staff still produces memorable experiences. But ours is a different time. In this age of overglorified college athletics, many schools have the Coach Über Alles who collects a six-figure salary (not counting endorsements and television shows). While Dartmouth coaches aren't earning that kind of cash or glory, the climate has changed in the Ivy League. Pressure on coaches to bring home winning records is greater than ever. One wonders what swimming's Sid Hazelton, who spent his summers between 1921-39 teaching children at Storrs Pond, would think of college athletics today Or soccer and lacrosse coach Tom Dent, a born soccer player from Scotland who had never even seen lacrosse before he came to America—but who studied it for years and agreed to coach it in 1926. Few coaches in today's contracthappy ranks would dare begin leading a sport that was new to them; after all, they might have to lose a few games, and losses mean less money.
I have a feeling that all the coaches who will be inducted into Wearers of the Green this month would make the sacrifices demanded in today's society because of their love for their sports, their athletes, and their pupils. It isn't just sentimentality that gives me this feeling (though I'll admit to a certain degree of that). There are two common threads in the 29 diverse coaches I got to know last summer. One is a genuine respect for the fundamental values that are learned in any demanding endeavor such as athletics: dedication, commitment, a sound work ethic, a willingness to make personal sacrifices, good sportsmanship.
The other thread is a great affection for the student-athletes under their tutelage, an affection that kept these coaches young even while it produced a gray hair or two. It's a personal commitment of that level that raises anyone—coach, athlete, artist to the status that will be conferred on these coaches and players this month.
Even though I joined the game a little late, it was great getting to know them.
An iceman with warmth, Hockey Coach Eddie Jeremiah '30 shares the goal with captain Warren Cook '67.
