FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[frank uible]

Watching Turkey Day games on TV ain't nearly as genuine as watching Turkey Day games from the brisk out-of-doors.

[banfan]

Must be a good HS game near by, Frank. I appreciate big rivalries more when I am an outsider.

[Bartman]

Frank were you at the Harvard Princeton game in Cambridge when Charlie Gogolak was the attraction?

I was just scrolling the board and saw the reference to Charlie Gogolak who played for Princeton from 1963-1965 and brother Pete played for Cornell. My Father took me to the Princeton games in the 1960's and I saw Charlie kick in his prime at old Palmer Stadium. Dartmouth actually set up a human pyramid to try to block his kicks before that became illegal(http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartlife/archives/18-2/football.html)! Charlie was on a Princeton team in 1964 that was nationally ranked and undefeated(last time for Princeton) with College Football Hall of Famer Cosmo Iacavazzi as star FB and LB(the best players played both ways back then). Cool games back then when the Ivy League was real major college football. This team was honored at halftime of the Harvard-Princeton game this year for 50th anniversary.

[polbear73]

It was a great time for Ivy football. Also in the early 60's Dartmouth under Bob Blackman was ranked nationally. Billy King was their star quarterback.

[PolarCat]

The 70's were pretty special for the Dartmouth Indians, too.  In 1970(Blackman's last year) Dartmouth won the Lambert Trophy, interrupting Penn State's 8-year dynasty.  En route to the Lambert, they shut down Ed Marinaro and Cornell, in a game that featured one of the classiest early examples of trash talk.  After tackling Marinaro early in the game for a loss, Dartmouth's LB stood up, took off his helmet, extended his hand and said to the future Heisman runner-up "Mr. Marinaro, my name is Murry Bowden, and you will be seeing a lot of me today." 

The following year (the first season for HC Jake Crouthamel) the Indians defeated Marinaro-led  Cornell again, in a barn-burner of a game, to share the Ivy League title with Big Red.

The alma mater at that time was "Men of Dartmouth" which admonished the listener to "give a rouse, lest the old traditions fail."  But fail they did.  The painfully non-PC Indian mascot was replaced by the insipid "Big Green", the wonderful cheers (Wah Hoo Wah), and fight songs / drinking songs ("Son of a Gun for Beer") soon followed, students stopped coming to games, and an era ended.  There were still great players (future Bengal Reggie Williams, future Chief Nick Lowery, and the father of future Seahawk Russel Wilson come to mind) and the Big Green won the Ivy title again in 1978, 1981 and 1982 but football in Hanover wasn't the same. 

[amh63]

There is another school out west that dropped the Indian mascot to become a "tree"...redwood?  Yes the PC correct Stanford...??  Do not know which school gave up their mascot first.
My experience wrt to the wild men up north was the big weekends at Smith and Mt. Holyoke.  The frats at Amherst often hosted the men from The Big Three and the Indians of Dartmouth.  Wake up and find bodies sleeping on couches everywhere.  Still, did get rides back from relative sober Dartmouth drivers after dropping off dates at members of the Seven Sisters.

[PolarCat]

There is another school out west that dropped the Indian mascot to become a "tree"...redwood?  Yes the PC correct Stanford...??  Do not know which school gave up their mascot first.
My experience wrt to the wild men up north was the big weekends at Smith and Mt. Holyoke.  The frats at Amherst often hosted the men from The Big Three and the Indians of Dartmouth.  Wake up and find bodies sleeping on couches everywhere.  Still, did get rides back from relative sober Dartmouth drivers after dropping off dates at members of the Seven Sisters.

I think Stanford is actually the Cardinal - not the bird, the color.  Go figure.

Thanks for reminding me about Dartmouth's epic road trips, which also went the way of the dinosaur.  Not just to Smith and Mt. Holyoke (though I have fond memories of each  ) but Skidmore, Wellesley and Wheaton (the latter 2 when the Indians took on the Crimson).  I think it was 1973 when Sports Illustrated did an article about the Harvard-Dartmouth game; describing the hordes of beer-soaked wild men descending from the wilds of New Hampshire to rape and pillage the innocent and unsuspecting denizens of Cambridge.  SI could say what they liked: I remember the women of Wellesley were always pretty excited to have the Dartmouth guys arrive in town; the rugged Marlboro Man types were a nice break from the insipid tea drinking Cantabridgians they were stuck with the rest of the year.

BTW I was reminded that Dartmouth's very first intercollegiate football game was against Amherst. 

[polbear73]

Oh yes, the days before co-education.  It's a wonder we survived those road trips.

[amh63]

Glad my wife does not read this board!  Road trips....no trips to Vassar or visit the ladies of Radcliffe?  Think 'Cliffes were still around in the '70's.   History indicate that Vassar thought about joining up with Yale in the pre coed days.  Today, Wellesley  has  many  academic programs with MIT..class sharing.
Anyway, Polarcat...your football remark jogged my memory a bit.  Somewhere, I heard that in the dark ages of football...before the coining of the Little Three....that there was an initial "little three" in football....Dartmouth, Williams and Amherst being the schools.
Also the "little" and "big" are evolving terms as related to school size over the years..  When Amherst's Prez was "sworn" in, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees remarked that not too long after Amherst was founded, it became larger than Harvard in enrollment...for awhile.

[wcrosby]

There is another school out west that dropped the Indian mascot to become a "tree"...redwood?  Yes the PC correct Stanford...??  Do not know which school gave up their mascot first.
My experience wrt to the wild men up north was the big weekends at Smith and Mt. Holyoke.  The frats at Amherst often hosted the men from The Big Three and the Indians of Dartmouth.  Wake up and find bodies sleeping on couches everywhere.  Still, did get rides back from relative sober Dartmouth drivers after dropping off dates at members of the Seven Sisters.

I think Stanford is actually the Cardinal - not the bird, the color.  Go figure.

Thanks for reminding me about Dartmouth's epic road trips, which also went the way of the dinosaur.  Not just to Smith and Mt. Holyoke (though I have fond memories of each  ) but Skidmore, Wellesley and Wheaton (the latter 2 when the Indians took on the Crimson).  I think it was 1973 when Sports Illustrated did an article about the Harvard-Dartmouth game; describing the hordes of beer-soaked wild men descending from the wilds of New Hampshire to rape and pillage the innocent and unsuspecting denizens of Cambridge.  SI could say what they liked: I remember the women of Wellesley were always pretty excited to have the Dartmouth guys arrive in town; the rugged Marlboro Man types were a nice break from the insipid tea drinking Cantabridgians they were stuck with the rest of the year.

BTW I was reminded that Dartmouth's very first intercollegiate football game was against Amherst.

Reminds me of a Dartmouth-Harvard game I went to at the stadium once.  Harvard band's halftime show was "Top 10 reasons Dartmouth is in New Hampshire".  Reason #1 was "The animal husbandry laws are more lenient there..."

[polbear73]

Road trips originating in Brunswick were measured not by miles, but cases of beer.  I don't think anyone was excited to see us. 

[gridiron]

I'm guessing the activity on this board will continue to wind down now.  However, the sun never sets on NESCAC football, as I ran into folks over the holidays sharing thoughts.

Ran into a Williams alum and former player from back in the 70's.  His take is that Coach Kelton is just not the right guy for the school right now and a change needs to be made soon.

Also ran into the parent of a current Amherst player.  His take on the success of the program was Coach Mills' recruiting capabilities.  His take is he is more of a salesman than an X's and O's type of coach.   Expressed some concern that the Director of Admissions is moving on and has had a huge impact on the competitiveness of the program in recent years.

[amh63]

FYI....the AD at Tufts will move into the Development area at Tufts in July.....hopes to start some athletic fundraising in the future.  Changes seem to be happening.

[madzillagd]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/01/us/concussion-lawsuit-high-school-football/index.html

Now it moves to the high school level.  Since there isn't the same money to be had from the hs level as the NFL & NCAA, I wonder if this will bring about more changes in how things are done versus just a payout for the lawyers.

[frank uible]

gridiron: Did he say why he thought Kelton was not the right guy right now?