On The Silver Screen

Yet another friend of BGA has shared a link to a scene from the 1951 film Father's Little Dividend featuring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor. CLICK HERE to go directly to a 45-second scene that will bring a smile to every Dartmouth football fan's heart. Just watch until they leave the room then come on back here!

Green Alert Take: Can't speak for the other two sports mentioned in the clip but the football results Tracy takes great pride in are accurate. The writers apparently did their research ;-)

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If Harvard coach Tim Murphy's ears perk up when he hears a certain Dartmouth fight song, there's a reason and it has to do with his previous stop, as head coach at the University of Cincinnati.

Searching for the exact words of the fight song As The Backs Go Tearing By, I found a link to the following page in Cincinnati's UC Magazine:

As the backs go tearing by, on the way to do or die;
Many sighs, many cheers, mingle with Miami’s tears,
As the backs go tearing by:
Making gains on steady gains, echoes swell that sweet refrain
Cincy’s going to win today, Cincy’s sure to win today
As the backs go tearing by.

The intro to the song says this: The composer of this piece is unknown.

Here are the original lyrics from the Dartmouth reunions songbook:

As the backs go tearing by,
On their way to do or die,
Many sighs and many cheers
Mingle with the Harvard tears,
As the backs go tearing by.
Making gain on steady gain,
Echo swells the sweet refrain
Dartmouth’s going to win today!
Dartmouth’s sure to win today,
As the backs go tearing by

John Thomas Keady

The page includes the writer of the lyrics: John Thomas Keady '05 (that's 19 05).

Turns out Keady played football and baseball at Dartmouth, coached baseball and basketball at his alma mater (along with one season as an assistant football coach) and then compiled a 56-22-3 record as head football coach at Lehigh (1912-20) before moving on to Vermont (17-17-1 in four years) and then (Case) Western Reserve (14-9-2 in three seasons).

High up in a story in the (Nashua) Telegraph written after "Tom" Keady's death in 1964 was this:

A graduate of Dartmouth, class of 1905, he wrote the lyrics for the college's grid song, "As the Backs Go Tearing By."

A little more searching reveals the music was composed by Carl W. Blaisdell, according to a listing on a page maintained by Georgia State University.

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An emailer shared a note this morning that the Wall Street Journal has an interesting column headlined In Defense of Football. The intro tells the story:

It's a rough, sometimes dangerous sport, but critics exaggerate football's risks

 There are a lot of numbers and studies cited in the story including these:

Scientists at the University of Montreal tracked a group of middle-aged men who had played contact sports in college 30 years before and sustained concussions while doing so. According to a 2012 study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, the researchers found no evidence of cognitive impairment beyond the effects of "normal aging."

And these . . .

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health . . . surveyed 3,439 men who played in the NFL for at least five seasons between 1959 and 1988, and found that they actually live longer than the general population. Not surprisingly, the biggest health problems were found among the largest players—they were at elevated risk of heart disease. Claims that NFL players suffer a suicide rate of six times the national average have circulated widely on the Internet, but they have no foundation in fact.

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While former Dartmouth assistant Chris Wilkerson is gearing up for his first season as head football coach at the University of Chicago, the very successful former Dartmouth assistant he replaced apparently isn't quite ready for retirement after all.

Dick Maloney has been named defensive coordinator/recruiting coordinator at RPI. Find a story here where Maloney says:

"I am thrilled and honored to join Coach (Ralph) Isernia's coaching staff and the Rensselaer Community. To help mentor and coach the high quality RPI student-athletes is a natural continuum from coaching at Penn, Dartmouth and Chicago."