Dartmouth Big Green (1952)

The latest dip into the bag-o-random gives us the 1952 Dartmouth Big Green, during a real dry spell for the program. 

The Team: Dartmouth went 2-7, the second of six straight losing seasons. The wins were over Rutgers (decades before that meant anything) and Columbia. A funny aside: As the Ivy schools were making plans for formal league play later that decade, they agreed in '52 to abolish spring practice. Even though Dartmouth played six Ivy teams that year (the exception was Brown), the Aegis yearbook trotted out the lack of spring practice as a reason for Dartmouth's poor record (another being that classic old-time chestnut, "bad breaks"). The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine was a little more blunt: "While there are no All-Americans on the squad, there are nonetheless some fairly talented players; but for some reason they don't function together as a unit, or the spark in most cases doesn't seem to be there."

I forget if I've run this photo before (probably), but this is a spectacular shot, between the action,
the expression on the player's face and, of course, the official's peaked cap.

Legendary sportswriter Dick Schapp was a Cornell undergrad when
he covered the Big Red-Big Green game for the Cornell Daily Sun.

The Players: It appears what few strengths Dartmouth had were on the line, as guard Pete Reich and tackle George Rambour were named to the United Press' All-New England team. Jim Miller did most of the passing at quarterback when not handing the ball off to Russ Smale, who in a 38-14 win over Columbia caught a 43-yard TD pass, returned a punt 60 yards for a score and intercepted a Lion pass.

The Coach: I touched upon DeOrmand "Tuss" McLaughry in this post about his Brown "Iron Men" teams of the 1920s. He guided Dartmouth from 1941-42 and 1945-54, serving as a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943-44. In 12 years with the Big Green, he had only four winning records, the last in 1949. For those Upper Valley residents who remember the McLaughry real estate clan, yes, they are descendants of Tuss, who lived in the area until his death in 1974.

Tuss McLaughry (standing) takes in the action in '52.

Tuss and captain Pete Reich, an all-New England lineman.

The Uniforms: I've discussed these in a few other posts, but green and silver was the order of the day. Different fonts were used on the home and road unis. Cornell used a similar helmet design, which sometimes makes it challenging to figure out which team is which in those grainy black-and-white newspaper photos.

The Fallout: After two more dreary seasons, McLaughry was let go and Dartmouth brought in Bob Blackman, who turned the program around in a jiffy and won seven Ivy League titles.

Delaware Blue Hens (2000)

The latest pulls from the grab bag and the random number generator give us the 2000 Delaware Blue Hens, one of the better non-title teams in that program's esteemed history.

The Team: The Hens went 12-2 overall and 7-1 in Atlantic 10 play, sharing the league title with Richmond (which Delaware defeated 24-17, which leads to this thought: Since the Hens defeated the Spiders in the regular season, why did they have to share the league title? Why not use tiebreakers, a la the NFL?). Delaware outscored its foes 570-238, surpassing the 40-point mark eight times. The topper was an 84-0 nail-biter over West Chester, a poor D-II team that was shut out four other times that year. (The Golden Rams must have been hard up for cash to take that body bag game.) 

The Hens crushed Portland State and Lehigh in the I-AA playoffs before falling to Georgia Southern, 27-18 in the semis.

A 2000 (Wilmington) News Journal front page spreads the good news. 

The Players: Three Hens — Brian McKenna (LB), Jamin Elliott (WR) and Jeff Fiss (OL) — were named I-AA All-Americans and all A-10, and McKenna was named A-10 defensive players of the year. Matt Nagy (QB), Chris Phipps (OL) and Mike Cecere (DL) also made the all A-10 first team. Nagy remains the school's all-time leader in passing yardage (8,214) and passer rating (146.74; what, you thought that Flacco guy held all the records?).

The Coach: Tubby Raymond, of course, is an all-time legend, going 300-119-3 from 1966-2001. Some fun trivia about Tubby:

1) He was the head baseball coach at Maine from 1952-54 and Delaware from 1956-64, going 164-72-3.

2) He played two years of minor league baseball.

3) He loved to paint and created pictures of senior players every year.

4) His son Dave was the original Phillie Phanatic. These days, he's a motivational speaker.

The Uniforms: Like Raymond, Delaware's unis were a constant, having undergone minimal change since the 1950s save advances in helmet/jersey technology. After Raymond left, the Hens experimented with their look more, adding stripes and giving their blue and gold a noticeably lighter tone. You can see last seasons unis here for comparison.

The Fallout: Delaware fell to 4-6 in 2001 as Raymond struggled to earn his 300th win. But his successor, K.C. Keeler, took the Hens to the I-AA national title in 2003. Keeler also won a title at Sam Houston State (2020-21), making him the only coach to win FCS titles at different schools.

Penn Quakers (1990)

This week's random team is the 1990 Penn Quakers, during a speed bump amid their 35-year run of dominance of the Ivy League.

The Team: Penn went 3-7 overall, 3-4 in Ivy play. After a 16-6 opening day win over eventual co-champ Dartmouth, the Quakers lost their next three games (all non-league), then beat Columbia to go 2-0 in Ivy play. But Penn dropped its next three games to fall out of the race.

The Players: Despite the blah record, Penn came up with the Ivies' only I-AA (FCS) All-American that year, offensive lineman Joe Valerio, who played for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1991-95. He also was used as eligible receiver in short-yardage situations, and thus has one of the most unique stat lines in NFL history: 4 catches, 7 yards, 4 touchdowns — 3 from Joe Montana. And you can see 'em here.

Back in the "junk wax era" of early 90s sports cards, many fly-by-night companies
came, spat out a set or two, and vanished almost as quickly as they came. Two of those quickies, Wild Card and Star Pics, put Valerio in their prospects sets ... and even used the same photo!

Valerio was an all-Ivy first-team selection, as were Joe Kopcha (LB and Rob Sims (P). Mohamed Ali (WR) and Eric Poderys (DL) earned second-team nods.

The Coach: Penn has had five coaches since 1981: Jerry Berndt, Ed Zubrow, Gary Steele, Al Bagnoil and Ray Priore. Steele, who went 9-21 from 1989-91, is the only of the bunch to not win an Ivy title. In fact, every other coach on the list won at least two championships.

The Uniforms: Penn continued to use the same style it had worn since 1981; the only difference  was a reduction in the sleeve stripes. The split-P logo looks great even on a bad team. Penn wore white jerseys for its home opener against Holy Cross, a rarity even today outside of Georgia Tech or LSU.

Penn's Harry Austin performs a suplex that
would put Scott Steiner's to shame. Almost.

Stripes were on their way out by the early '90s, and 
Penn's uniforms reflected that trend.

The Fallout: The Quakers endured one more bad season under Steele before turning to Bagnoli, who went 7-3 in 1992 and went undefeated in '93 and '94 on his way to becoming one of the GOATs of FCS football.