I don't know about you, but my hometown never issued a Proclamation honoring me ;-).
The city of Manvel, Texas (population 5,179 as of the 2010 census) did exactly that for Dartmouth freshman Hunter Hagdorn after he was named the Ivy League football Rookie of the Year. Find a story HERE.
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Drum roll please.The contest to win copies of a reading of Mark Bernstein's book Football; The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession drew a surprising number of entrants. More surprising yet? The range of answers, including one 2015 ;-)
The question was: In what year did the Big Green assume the lead in Ivy League football championships that it still has not surrendered?
Dartmouth won its first title in 1958, the third year of formal Ivy League play. That tied the Big Green with Yale and Princeton with a grand total of one. Yale then assumed sole possession of the lead in 1960 with its second championship.
Dartmouth won its second Ivy League title in 1962 to grab a share of the lead with Yale. It has since been tied on several occasions but has never trailed in the title race since.
Dartmouth won No. 3 in 1963 only to see Princeton match the Big Green with its third championship in 1964. The Tigers never passed Dartmouth and the Big Green opened some distance by winning it all the next two years.
The last of three consecutive championships gave Dartmouth a 10-5 lead over nearest competitors Yale and Princeton after the 1973 season. Yale challenged by winning six championships in eight years to run its championship count to 11 in 1981 but the Big Green shared that fall's crown with the Bulldogs to bring its all-time total to 12.
Dartmouth stretched the lead over its nearest competitor to 17-12 in 1996 when it won for the fourth time in seven seasons, but the Big Green's struggles over the next 15 years or so allowed Harvard and Penn to roar back into the all-time championship hunt.
With Dartmouth stalled at 17, the Crimson won eight titles between 1997 and 2014 to get to 16. Penn, meanwhile, got to 16 by winning seven times between 1998 and 2012.
Harvard and Penn won their 17th championships in 2015 and would have tied Dartmouth if not for the Big Green earning the third piece of the title to run its all-time total to 18.
While Penn finally matched Dartmouth this fall with its 18th, no one has been able to look down on the Big Green since 1962 when Dartmouth won title No. 2. The Big Green has been tied but never passed in more than five decades since.
Here's the year-by-year championship picture, courtesy of Wikipedia (which I'm guessing some of you might have visited ;-)
| Year | Champions | Conference Record | Overall Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | Yale | 7-0 | 8-1 |
| 1957 | Princeton | 6-1 | 7-2 |
| 1958 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 7-2 |
| 1959 | Penn | 6-1 | 7-1-1 |
| 1960 | Yale | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1961 | Columbia | 6-1 | 6-3 |
| Harvard | 6-1 | 6-3 | |
| 1962 | Dartmouth | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1963 | Dartmouth | 5-2 | 7-2 |
| Princeton | 5-2 | 7-2 | |
| 1964 | Princeton | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1965 | Dartmouth | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1966 | Harvard | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| Dartmouth | 6-1 | 7-2 | |
| Princeton | 6-1 | 7-2 | |
| 1967 | Yale | 7-0 | 8-1 |
| 1968 | Harvard | 6-0-1 | 8-0-1 |
| Yale | 6-0-1 | 8-0-1 | |
| 1969 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| Yale | 6-1 | 7-2 | |
| Princeton | 6-1 | 6-3 | |
| 1970 | Dartmouth | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1971 | Cornell | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| Dartmouth | 6-1 | 8-1 | |
| 1972 | Dartmouth | 5-1-1 | 7-1-1 |
| 1973 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 6-3 |
| 1974 | Yale | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| Harvard | 6-1 | 7-2 | |
| 1975 | Harvard | 6-1 | 7-2 |
| 1976 | Brown | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| Yale | 6-1 | 8-1 | |
| 1977 | Yale | 6-1 | 7-2 |
| 1978 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 6-3 |
| 1979 | Yale | 6-1 | 8-1 |
| 1980 | Yale | 6-1 | 8-2 |
| 1981 | Yale | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| Dartmouth | 6-1 | 6-4 | |
| 1982 | Dartmouth | 5-2 | 5-5 |
| Harvard | 5-2 | 7-3 | |
| Penn | 5-2 | 7-3 | |
| 1983 | Harvard | 5-1-1 | 6-2-2 |
| Penn | 5-1-1 | 6-3-1 | |
| 1984 | Penn | 7-0 | 8-1 |
| 1985 | Penn | 6-1 | 7-2-1 |
| 1986 | Penn | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 1987 | Harvard | 6-1 | 8-2 |
| 1988 | Cornell | 6-1 | 7-2-1 |
| Penn | 6-1 | 8-2 | |
| 1989 | Princeton | 6-1 | 7-2-1 |
| Yale | 6-1 | 8-2 | |
| 1990 | Cornell | 6-1 | 7-3 |
| Dartmouth | 6-1 | 7-2-1 | |
| 1991 | Dartmouth | 6-0-1 | 7-2-1 |
| 1992 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 8-2 |
| Princeton | 6-1 | 8-2 | |
| 1993 | Penn | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 1994 | Penn | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 1995 | Princeton | 5-1-1 | 8-1-1 |
| 1996 | Dartmouth | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 1997 | Harvard | 7-0 | 9-1 |
| 1998 | Penn | 6-1 | 8-2 |
| 1999 | Brown | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| Yale | 6-1 | 9-1 | |
| 2000 | Penn | 6-1 | 7-3 |
| 2001 | Harvard | 7-0 | 9-0 |
| 2002 | Penn | 7-0 | 9-1 |
| 2003 | Penn | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 2004 | Harvard | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 2005 | Brown | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| 2006 | Princeton | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| Yale | 6-1 | 8-2 | |
| 2007 | Harvard | 7-0 | 8-2 |
| 2008 | Brown | 6-1 | 7-3 |
| Harvard | 6-1 | 9-1 | |
| 2009 | Penn | 7-0 | 8-2 |
| 2010 | Penn | 7-0 | 9-1 |
| 2011 | Harvard | 7-0 | 9-1 |
| 2012 | Penn | 6-1 | 6-4 |
| 2013 | Harvard | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| Princeton | 6-1 | 8-2 | |
| 2014 | Harvard | 7-0 | 10-0 |
| 2015 | Dartmouth | 6-1 | 9-1 |
| Harvard | 6-1 | 9-1 | |
| Penn | 6-1 | 7-3 | |
| 2016 | Penn | 6-1 | 7-3 |
| Princeton | 6-1 | 8-2 |
While no one picked 1962 as the correct answer a handful of entrants in the contest went with 1963.
A random drawing from among those who chose 1963 resulted in winners CB and BA.
Congratulations. You will be receiving instructions on how to download the book via email in a few minutes.
For those interested in a last-minute gift idea, Kyle Tait's reading of Football; The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, is available through Audible at this LINK.
