1941

One of the joys of growing old is playing "Remember when..." with one's peers/classmates. As I filled out a ticket application for this year's Cornell game, I was reminded again of the 1940 Fifth Down game and its many interesting principals. In my mind's eye I could see the unflappable Bob Krieger splitting the uprights for the only score till the last seconds. I could see Don Norton batting down the fourth-down Cornell pass in the end zone. He could have caught the ball if he knew Cornell would get another chance. I could see Lou Young, the dynamic team leader, arguing fruitlessly with the referee Red Friesell, who became an instant celebrity on the sports dinner circuit for his glaring mistake. And I could recall the student march on President Hopkins' House to urge him to accept the Cornell offer to cancel their tainted victory. Great memories of a great-hearted football team whose special defensive tactics upset a Cornell team which had a winning streak of 18 games and a high national ranking.

I also thought of the later lives of some classmates on that memorable team. Stu May, the walk-on from a small Brooklyn school who beat the odds and won a position at tackle. After three years' service on an Atlantic destroyer escort, he built a fine business manufacturing frames for eyeglasses. Monty Winship, another fine lineman, was a navy flier and then became a respected psychiatrist in the Connecticut area. John Kelley, a great end and varsity hockey player, distinguished himself in WWII as a Marine officer. Imagine the memories he has of his presence on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo harbor when the Japanese came aboard to sign their surrender.

Jack Guenther was a Thayer graduate, served in a navy construction battalion, and predictably went on to a career as a construction engineer in the Niagara Falls area. Bob O'Brien, another lineman, was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines and won a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in the Pacific. He went on to Harvard Business School and built a career as an insurance broker, sadly ended by his death in 1983. Ray Hall also died too young in 1989. Ray was a runner and punter on the team. After graduation he joined the Air Corps, trained in Tulsa, Okla., and returned there after the war for a career in insurance. Ray's first wife, Sue Sullivan, died and he married Hope McMillin, the widow of Leslie McMillin '39. Dan Dacey, a hard-nosed guard out of Boston Latin, served as an infantry captain in both WWII and the Korean War. He worked for New England Telephone Cos. in the Boston area and retired there in 1981.

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