1969?
Reading Mike Mulligan's letter brought back some great memories that I
wanted to share.
I was a senior
on the '72 team (that beat Amherst, Williams,
Bowdoin, Dartmouth,
UNH, Villanova, Swarthmore and Haverford, among others) and Mike was a freshman
(one of the famous all-freshman midfield line that year), so we overlapped
for one year.
Mike reports
that "1975 marked the beginning of Midd's recognized dynasty in this sport".
There is some justification for this, as this was the first year Midd could go to the ECAC, but my telling of the story is
somewhat different, as my perspective is three years earlier.
In my time one
measured how good a lacrosse team was by their "New
England" ranking. There was no DI, II, and III in this
lacrosse poll, and Midd was ranked along with U Mass,
Harvard, Dartmouth,
Yale, Williams etc. I do not remember our ranking
senior year, but, if it had been in the top 5, I probably would have.
My freshman year
of 1969, when I played on the then freshman team, our varsity was 13-1, and
ranked #2 in New England, among all lacrosse
teams in all divisions. Midd's only defeat was to undefeated U Mass, by a
score of 8-5. U Mass ended up ranked #1 in New England.
All-Americans Ralph Sexton '69, midfield, Dave Bahnson
'69, defense, and Rick Moore '69, goalie, were the stars along with Brad Bruce
'72, an outstanding freshman midfielder from Holderness (and later
All-American/North South Selection- all divisions). Midd
played U Mass at Midd that year. The varsity lacrosse
field was also the varsity soccer field in the fall, and the field did not
drain well. That field is now under the parking lot for the Center for
the Arts. It had been raining the day(s) before the game, so the game had
to be moved to the practice lacrosse field (now the practice football field
that has lights). The freshman team supplemented the grounds crew to
spread sand and hay to try to soak up the water. A
great game to watch.
So my
perspective is that the great Middlebury lacrosse tradition started with the
team of 1969.
I must say I did
not know very much then or now about the records of the Midd
lacrosse teams before 1969. It is certainly possible that someone else's
perspective claims that the great Middlebury lacrosse tradition started
with the team of 1965, or whenever.
George Cady
'72