The Spell of Dartmouth Football

By Michael Stroup | Monday, January 31, 2005

Dartmouth is, if nothing else, rich in tradition. It hovers just there in all that is Dartmouth, for better or worse, but most often for the better. The College has a long and distinguished history of excellence in all of its endeavors, especially athletics. It might seem odd at first to associate an academic institution of Dartmouth's caliber, claiming the pursuit of knowledge as its primary mission, with a robust athletic tradition. However, our beloved 'Ivy League' is, after all, an athletic conference in addition to everything else the moniker implies.

Courtesy Dartmouth College Library

— The starting lineup of the 1904 squard. Dartmouth Hall burned down that winer. It was rebuilt later in the year, but the hole in Dartmouth Row is visible here. —

Don't get me wrong,—those familiar with Dartmouth College recognize it as the premier undergraduate institution in the country. Dartmouth College, however, is more than its simply academics. It is a College whose alumni competed in every modern winter Olympics since 1924. It is a college with many current students competing at the highest level of international skiing, the F.I.S. World Cup. It is a college where N.H.L. draft picks play in front of small town crowds while the league experiences a lockout. It is a College that will soon have a two-million dollar facility for the nationally competitive rugby teams. It is a college where students play all manner of sports on a town green once the snow melts and the mud dries. Perhaps most famously, Dartmouth is where the green fields of autumn are home to America's game—football.

Dartmouth College Football: Green Fields of Autumn is a fantastic chronology of Dartmouth football by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Shribman, class of 1976, and Jack DeGange, former sports information director for Dartmouth College. Shribman worked with DeGange, who still lives in nearby Lebanon, New Hampshire, as an undergraduate during some of Dartmouth football's most impressive years in the 1970s. The book is an unapologetic celebration of Dartmouth football, from the photograph on the front cover, a circus catch by Andrew Hall '05 in the 2003 win at Harvard, to the back leaf, a crowd of over twenty thousand packed into Memorial Field for a contest with the Crimson.

The book is perhaps best served as a supplement to personal memories of Dartmouth teams of old, when the jerseys were adorned with Indians and the entire stadium would fill—visitor stands too—for a game against Harvard. Green Fields of Autumn hardly requires stamina to read in one sitting. Besides pictorial captions, with entertaining stories of infamous "fifths downs" allowed by inept officials and players with names like "Swede" returning to play after fighting wars overseas, the book has less than ten pages of actual text. The purpose is to strike a chord on an emotional and sentimental level, not to present a stuffy piece of academic scribbling. Still, the caliber of the research contained in the book is top-notch. The photographs that document the sport's birth in Hanover are impeccable, and the historical detail provided, even for contests waged almost a century ago, is excellent.

The authors start with the early days, in which Dartmouth played a football game named "Whole Division" which "included every student not physically incapacitated" and spanned the entire college yard, now known as the Green. After the first loss by an organized team at Harvard in 1882, by a score of 53-0, The Daily Dartmouth remarked in an editorial "If there is any game that Dartmouth can play better than foot-ball, it would be well to encourage it." In the 123 seasons since the inception of Dartmouth football, "there was a national championship...9 undefeated seasons, [and] 17 Ivy League championships," more than any other school in the League. It seems that The Daily Dartmouth was already in the habit of putting their foot in its mouth back in the nineteenth century.

The book comes at an important moment in the history of football and sports at Dartmouth. The game of football has changed, while the Ivy League has not, the authors point out. Dartmouth will never again win a national championship, at least not in Division I-A. Our team just finished a heartbreaking eight-loss season that tied a Dartmouth record for losses. Shribman and DeGange remind us, as sons and daughters of Dartmouth, that our College has an incredibly rich football tradition.

The forward pass, now a mainstay at all levels of play, owes its presence in part to former team captain Edward K. Hall 1892, who served on the N.C.A.A. rules committee from 1905 to 1932, the last twenty-one years of which he was the chairman. The committee developed the sport to embrace athleticism and speed over "mass play and brute strength." The authors claim, "to this day, there is no feature of college football, large or small, that does not reflect the genius of E. K. Hall." One of Hall's teammates, end Fred Folsom 1895, went on to coach the University of Colorado to a 41-16 record, which later named their stadium Folsom Field after him.

Courtesy Dartmouth College Library

— Dartmouth's first organized 'foot-ball' team. They only played one game, which, sadly, they lost to Amherst (1881). —

One of Dartmouth's most memorable victories was a 11-0 win in 1903, at the dedication of Harvard Stadium. It was Dartmouth's first win after eighteen games with the Crimson. Another win was not awarded to Dartmouth until two days after the game ended. Up three to nothing against an undefeated Cornell team in the fourth quarter, Dartmouth held them with only a few seconds remaining. However, "despite the protest of his head linesman, [referee] Friesell gave Cornell an extra play, and the Big Red scored...for an apparent 7-3 win." One of the most memorable reproductions in the book is a copy of the Western Union Telegram the apologetic referee sent two days later:

Lou Young: Captain of the Dartmouth Football Team
I want to be the first to admit my very grave error on the extra down as proven by the motion pictures of both colleges. I want to apologize to you, your players, Coach Blaik, all assistant coaches, and Mr. McCarter. I assume full responsibility. I want to thank you for the very fair treatment accorded me after the game. Lou, I am so sorry for you were such a grand captain and leader. Give my regards to President Hopkins.
WM H Friesell Jr Referee.

That fifth down, however, is not the "most memorable play in Dartmouth football history," according to Shribman and DeGange. That honor falls to the now-illegal "human steps" play used in 1965 against Princeton kicker Charlie Gogolak, one of the best kickers ever in the Ivy League. A photograph shows back Sam Hawken '68, wearing shoes without cleats, leaping off the shoulders of his defensive linemen. Although Hawken mistimed the play and jumped offsides, the rattled Gogolak blew his next attempt.

Through all the anecdotes, and photographs of athletes in antique leather trousers and thin helmets, David Shribman and Jack DeGange convey the spirit of Dartmouth football—the spirit of Dartmouth. There is something special about Dartmouth that goes beyond her football team's undefeated seasons, hall of fame inductees, N.F.L. alumni, C.E.O.s and captains of industry. "For there is nothing in this world quite like the fellowship of Dartmouth Night," and "nothing quite like the stories that these Dartmouth people tell. Dartmouth is, after all, not so much a college as a collection of stories about a college." And those stories, like her sons and daughters,

Though 'round the girdled earth they roam,
Her spell on them remains.

The Spell of Dartmouth Football

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