That Championship Season

It's Sunday so you've got the time. CLICK HERE to read a 2007 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine story revisiting the legendary 1970 Dartmouth football team that outscored its opponents, 311-42, with six shutouts in a 9-0 season. The Big Green finished 14th in both major college polls and won the Lambert Trophy for Eastern supremacy over Penn State.

A couple of excerpts from the story, starting with a quote from Tom Price ’71, a defensive end who would go on to become a cardiologist:

"There was nothing like walking into somebody's stadium, knowing there was nothing the other team could do to win. We knew we were the better team on both sides of the ball."

And this:

(Coach Bob) Blackman was among the first college coaches to use computers to track the tendencies of opponents. And when it came to of-fensive play-calling, he was the Lex Luthor of his day, notorious for conniving, diabolical offensive schemes that featured reverses and lateral passes. To avoid penalties Blackman often went to the referees before the game to warn them about any trick plays he might use that day.

"He was obsessed, an organized genius," says Dan Radakovich '71, an offensive lineman who is now an attorney in Chicago. "He was the most organized person I ever knew. He broke it down so you could know your function, and it all fell into place. If it wasn't perfect, it wasn't good enough. Every aspect of the game—from the way we dressed, lined up, played, everything—had a purpose." 

And this:

"They were the last great Ivy League team. They could have played with anyone in the country," says Ed Marinaro, the storied Cornell running back turned actor who sang the "Hill Street Blues" in 1970 when he and the Big Red faced Blackman's Green Machine.

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EXTRA POINT
With the Canadian border now open,  Mrs. BGA and I headed up to Quebec yesterday for lunch in Magog, a picturesque town on Lac Memphremagog. Per Wikipedia, 92.2 percent of the population speaks only French. Apart from our servers and a few clerks, we didn't hear a word of English. On the way up I91 just south of the border we once again marveled at this sign we've seen many times before:

What I never knew before was that the sign should mark the border between the United States and Canada, but  doesn't. The story holds that a little “potato whiskey” during a 1772 survey contributed to the border instead being a crooked line between a half mile and a mile north of the 45th parallel. (LINK)

With the mercury closing in on 90 degrees, we expected to see a good number of personnes on the beach at Memphremagog and were stunned to see so many in the water with snow still covering the trails at Mont-Orford Ski Resort in the distance.

If you are in Hanover and have a free day, Magog is a ridiculously easy two hours north of Hanover on a stretch of I-91 with so little traffic that we sometimes didn't see another car for 15 minutes. I think you'll find it a fun excursion ;-)