50th Anniversary
Speech
Middlebury Men’s Lacrosse
Program 1949-2001
Alumni
Weekend
Saturday, April 14,
2001
We are here tonight to celebrate the Middlebury College Men’s Lacrosse program annual alumni weekend. More importantly though, we are gathered in this gymnasium, adjacent to a parking lot that some Middlebury lacrosse players used to call a field, to celebrate the 50 year existence of a program that all of us in this room grew to love. In his letter dated February 9, 2001, Coach Erin Quinn defined the people in this room as: “alumni and families, the current players and coaches and their families, former head coaches, trainers, and other personnel that have been associated with the program over the years.”
In addressing the 50 year
history of this great program, I realized that the words of our local poetic
hero Robert Frost held true, indeed there is a “road less traveled.” From its inception in 1949, the
Middlebury College Men’s Lacrosse program has had hundreds of its members create
a path for those of us who today played against Bowdoin College, under the
increasingly warm Vermont sun, on Middlebury’s own Peter Kohn field. Some of these members excelled at the
game of lacrosse and presently have their names on one or many esteemed lists of
Middlebury’s lacrosse records. With
an 89 point freshman season, on 54 goals and 35 assists, the great Jeff
Thompsen, a three time Second Team All American from the class of ’83, began his
4 year record breaking point streak, on his way to his present record of 310
points. The Middlebury College
Men’s Lacrosse program itself holds an impressive record. With our win today over Bowdoin, this
program has enjoyed 173 more wins than it has been shocked by losses. Our 50-year record stands at 393 wins,
220 losses, and 5 ties. But instead
of analyzing this statistical path that these great teams, players, and coaches
have paved for us, I wanted to address the “off track,” Robert Frost qualitative
path that this program has enjoyed.
And that path began in 1949.
Then a junior in college, Curt Cushman helped found the program of
Middlebury College Lacrosse.
Despite a 1-4 record in its opening season, the annual Kaleidoscope
publication summarized the new program in the concluding paragraph of its season
ending article with the following words: “Progress. Lacrosse now an official minor sport,
future hopes for Athletic Department subsidization and use of the old intramural
field space. The lacrosse
team-proof that you can’t keep good men down.” The following season, a recent graduate
of Middlebury College by the name of Hal Parker took the reigns of the lacrosse
program.
Throughout the 50’s, under the initial guidance of Mr. Cushman, coach
Parker, and beginning in 1954 with the onset of the Coach “Duke” Nelson era, the
Middlebury College Lacrosse program laid the foundations that account for our
success today, 50 years later. They
met stiff opposition, from both their opponents and the college who did not want
an additional and more expensive Spring sport, but they PERSEVERED. And it is that qualitative personality
or characteristic that has propelled past Middlebury teams to great
heights.
In the 50’s, the program had to battle fundamental issues just to play a
game. Because athletics did not
play such an integral part in the college’s survival, details were often
overlooked. So, to ensure that he
would be able to both teach his Saturday 8 AM Sociology class and coach his boys
against Yale, Harvard, or Tufts, Coach Hal Parker was flown from the local
Middlebury airport, by the legendary Al Quesnel, in a B-13 airplane, to his
respective destination. He would
meet his boys off the bus, coach the game, and be flown back to school. However, as lacrosse games can go,
sometimes it was not so easy. If
the game ran into overtime or the sun was setting, Coach Parker was forced to
leave because our local airport did not have the appropriate night flying
infrastructure. In that case, the
team captains coached the remainder of the game.
Even more daunting was the task of outfitting all of the players under what Coach Hal Parker called a “shoelace budget.” In his recent letter to Coach Quinn, Coach Parker spoke of the inability to pool the appropriate amount of resources. The team did not have the correct number of lacrosse helmets, so they improvised with the current model of football helmets. For gloves they used the equipment from the hockey team. And as if this predicament was not bad enough, the issue of sticks and their fragile nature created more headaches. The college provided each player with one stick, however, in a physical match, most notably against Williams College, sticks were frequently broken. If in the middle of a game, there was a stick handed to the respective player off the bench, or they used the ever-present wood saw to cut a former defensive stick down to an offensive length. Despite these and additional fundamental mishaps, as the 1958 Kaleidoscope article suggested, “the determination and persistence of the team helped to increase the stature of the program within the Middlebury College society.”
Beginning in 1959, and
throughout the 60’s the legendary international soccer icon Joe Merrone replaced
Hal Parker as head coach. Under
Merrone’s 11-year supervision, the Middlebury program maintained a .517 winning
percentage on 59 wins, 55 losses, and 4 ties. More importantly though, as the winning
percentage of this great program increased, the determination of the respective
teams heightened. In describing the
pre-season of Middlebury’s first undefeated team to-be on March 29th,
1965, Coach Joe Merrone suggested that: “there are a lot of question marks, but
if there’s a way we’ll find it.”
Two months later, after their record breaking season, in his annual
Middlebury College Lacrosse Newsletter which he defined as: “imparting news of
former letterman, news of lacrosse in general and news of the present team here
at Middlebury,” Coach Joe Merrone laid out the essence of Middlebury Lacrosse in
the form of a simple equation,: “The season was a great success, despite the
many handicaps, the squad worked hard at practice, worked well as a team during
games, had great spirit and hustle and in the end, did what 15 other Middlebury
Lacrosse teams failed to do- have an undefeated season.”
In a recent interview with
Duane Ford, an Honorable Mention All American midfielder and graduate of the
class of ’78, he said that like American society at the time, the Middlebury
College Lacrosse program was “loose.”
This “loose” program went onto win 4 consecutive ECAC championships,
including its first ever in 1975.
In addressing the program’s exceptional record over his four years, on 53
wins and 10 losses, Ford accredited coach Robert Pfeiffer and Dennis Daly’s
“different” style of play. It is
this style of play that epitomized the success of the program throughout the
70’s. In describing this
“difference,” Ford recounted that: “it was almost as if despite any
circumstances within the game, every square inch or space on the field, from
sideline to sideline was OURS.”
This aggressive mentality no doubt stemmed from the program’s dominating
defense. Ford remembered that: “We
doubled from everywhere, and that relentless defensive mentality carried over
into our team’s attitude.”
With his acceptance of the
head coach position of the Middlebury College lacrosse program, Coach James
Grube ushered in a new era. Under
his guidance, the program would win 5 ECAC titles in the eighties and in 13
years would carry a 116 wins and 51 loss record. In describing his success as a head
coach, but more importantly the success of the program, Coach Grube recently
spoke of the program’s ability to build upon successive generations of
players. He argued that as a coach
he saw it as his job to add to the tradition and respect that the former great
Dennis Daly had brought to the program.
By emphasizing and reinforcing the program’s values that had accounted
for its success thus far, Grube and his respective teams persisted in a “pursuit
of excellence.” Despite the
obstacle of representing the “team to beat” in the ECAC’s, the Middlebury
College Lacrosse program stuck with the sportsmanship and humility that had
defined the program in the past and achieved excellence amongst grace and
selflessness.
In addressing the success he
enjoyed as a player under Coach Grube, Scotty Seymour, an Honorable Mention All
American attackman and graduate of the class of ’88, suggested that Peter Kohn
has a large role in our success as a program. He argued that Middlebury’s teams rally
around the tradition and history that embodies Myronius Guttmnaous Kohn. And so today, despite the warm weather,
Peter Kohn traveled the Middlebury sidelines, searching for balls and wiping
sweat from our heads, offering us “moist towels” and suggesting that Coach Quinn
hand him the reigns. And even
despite Peter’s answer to my question of the meaning behind tonight’s gathering,
“I don’t want to be a hero or make myself big. I’m just myself. What difference does it make that the
field was named after me. I just
want to be everyone’s friend,” Peter Kohn offered a great hypothesis. He suggested that like himself and the
success he has enjoyed at this program, the Middlebury Lacrosse program has
succeeded in its 50 year history because it gives young men a chance to build
characteristics and personalities.
A persistent personality that was used to describe Curt Cushman’s first
Middlebury team in 1949, and the persistent characteristic that the 2001
Middlebury Lacrosse team wears on the back of their shirts every time we walk
onto the field.
Thank You.