A Dartmouth Football timeline

1867 Various institutions begin to adopt a special college color. The Dartmouth reports, "...Dartmouth claims green."

1876 John Ingham '77, Chalmers Stevens '77 and Lewis Parkhurst '78 erect rugby-style goal posts on the campus Green but Dartmouth isn't prepared to support the fledgling sport of football. The goal posts are torn down prior to commencement in 1878. In 1910, Mr. Parkhurst, now a trustee, donates the funds for Parkhurst Hall.

1880 The arrival of Clarence (Cap) Howland '84, familiar with the game, inspires creation of a football squad that practices but is unable to schedule a game.

1881 On November 16, Dartmouth plays its first game, defeating Amherst, 1-0 (touchdowns were valued at one point). Charles Oakes '83 scores the touchdown. His grandson, Abner Oakes '56, will later be a captain and coach of the Dartmouth men's hockey team.

1882 Harvard visits Hanover and beats Dartmouth, 53-0. The Dartmouth comments, "...if there is any other game that Dartmouth can play better than football, it would be well to encourage it."

1884 Yale, considered the best team in the country, is invited to Hanover and wins, 113-0. The "Yale Jinx" is born.

1890 Charles Gill, an All-America tackle at Yale, is Dartmouth's first paid coach, albeit for only three weeks. He returned to New Haven to coach the Yale line. Team captains continue in the dual role of coach.

1893 Wallace Moyle, a substitute end for Yale, is hired as Dartmouth's first "all-season" coach. Losses to Harvard (16-0) and Yale (28-0) are measures of the Green's improved play.

1894 In its first quest for national prominence, Dartmouth travels to Chicago. Playing the Chicago A.C. on Thanksgiving Day, Dartmouth loses, 4-0.

1895 William Wurtenberg, a four-year player at Yale, is Dartmouth's new coach. The Green plays a 13-game schedule (7-5-1), the most games in any season.

1901 Walter McCornack '97 becomes Dartmouth's coach. The Green (9-1) shuts out six teams and loses only at Harvard, 27-12, but scores for the first time in 17 games with the Crimson.

1903 Harvard dedicates the nation's first concrete stadium. Dartmouth beats the Crimson for the first time, 11-0, highlight of a 9-1 season.

1904 A scoreless tie at Harvard is the only blemish on Dartmouth's first unbeaten season (7-0-1) of the century. From 1903-05, Dartmouth builds a 23-2-3 record.

1907 A scoreless tie with Vermont keeps Dartmouth from a perfect season (8-0-1).

1909 A railroad wreck forces Dartmouth to complete its trip from New York to Princeton by trolley. The Green arrives two hours after the scheduled starting time and plays the once-beaten Tigers to a 6-6 tie.

1911 Frank Cavanaugh '99, already a successful coach at Holy Cross, returns to Dartmouth. Over six seasons, he guides the Green to a 42-9-3 record.

1913 The Eastern championship and an undefeated season are in Dartmouth's grasp after a 34-21 win at Penn but Glenn (Pop) Warner's Carlisle Indians uses passing and trick plays to thwart the Green, 35-10.

1914 Princeton plays its first game in Palmer Stadium and beats Dartmouth, 16-12, the Green's only loss of the season. Dartmouth caps an 8-1 season by beating Syracuse, 40-0, at Fenway Park in Boston.

1917 All-America guard Clarence (Fat) Spears '17 replaces Frank Cavanaugh, bound for service in World War I, as coach.

1919 Penn State visits Alumni Oval (located where Dartmouth now plays baseball) as part of Dartmouth's 150th anniversary celebration. Dartmouth wins, 19-13. Three weeks later, the Green takes a dramatic 20-19 decision over Penn at the Polo Grounds in New York but a 7-6 loss at Brown spoils an unbeaten season.

1920 Led by All-America halfback Jim Robertson, Dartmouth travels across the continent to dedicate the University of Washington's new stadium with a 27-7 win.

1921 A leg injury forces Jim Robertson to move from halfback to the line for his last game. He opens gaping holes as Dartmouth beats Georgia in Atlanta, 7-0.

1923 Jesse Hawley '09 succeeds Jack Cannell '19 as Dartmouth's coach. The Green begins a remarkable era of success with an 8-1 record. The loss comes to Cornell, 32-9, before a crowd of 14,000 in the dedication game of Dartmouth's Memorial Field.

1924 A 14-14 tie at Yale keeps Dartmouth from a perfect season (7-0-1).

1925 Prevailing strategy said that a team scored upon can choose to kick off. Cornell keeps kicking off. Swede Oberlander throws six touchdown passes. Dartmouth wins, 62-13. A week later, Dartmouth travels west and beats Chicago, 33-7, to claim the national championship with a perfect 8-0-0 record.

1926 Dartmouth beats Virginia Tech, 20-0, at Hanover for its 22nd straight game without a loss. A week later, Yale prevails, 14-7. The "Yale Jinx" continues.

1927 Dartmouth finishes 7-1. Halfback Myles Lane scores 18 touchdowns and a record 125 points in all. Lane completes his three-year career as the Green's all-time scoring leader with 307 points (48 TDs, 19 extra points). He then captains the 1927-28 hockey team.

1931 In 14 previous meetings with Yale, Dartmouth is 0-12-2 and trails the Elis, 33-10, in the second half. Bill McCall scores on kickoff and interception returns. A blocked kick produces another score. Dartmouth trails, 33-30, as McCall holds for Bill Morton's 34-yard field goal as dusk settles. Dartmouth "beats" Yale, 33-33.

1934 After successive .500 seasons, Dartmouth hires Earl Blaik as coach. President Ernest M. Hopkins advises, "Earl, always remember that football is incidental to the purpose for which the player is in college. But, let's have a winner." Dartmouth posts a 6-3 record.

1935 Dartmouth takes a 5-0 record to Yale Bowl. Seven times the Green is inside Yale's 10 but leads only 7-6. Then Carl (Mutt) Ray intercepts a pass and makes it 14-6. Dartmouth fans tear down the goal posts with two minutes to play. The "Yale Jinx" is ended.

1935 Dartmouth is undefeated in seven games. So is Princeton. In a driving snowstorm, not even a drunken fan who tries to join Dartmouth's goal line defense is enough. Princeton wins the famous "Snow Game," 26-6.

1936 Bill Osmanski's 76-yard interception return gives Holy Cross a 7-0 win over Dartmouth. The Green won't lose another game until Game Eight in 1938 when Cornell ends another 22-game unbeaten streak, 14-7, at Ithaca.

1937 Dartmouth finishes 7-0-2 but declines an invitation to play in the Rose Bowl. Says President Hopkins, "When our season is over, it's over."

1940 Cornell is undefeated and atop the national rankings. Dartmouth is 3-4 but leads 3-0 in the last minute when Referee Red Friesell loses track of downs and awards Cornell an erroneous extra play. The Big Red scores. The "Fifth Down" error is confirmed on film. The next day Cornell concedes its 7-3 victory, the only time a college game's result has been decided off the field. After the season, Blaik departs to coach at Army.

1943 In the midst of World War II, Dartmouth beats everyone but Penn, 7-6, to finish an abbreviated 6-1 season, Dartmouth's 43rd straight record of .500 or better.

1945 As World War II ends, Dartmouth's schedule includes only Division I opponents.

1948-49 Back-to-back 6-2 records, all against major opponents and built around Joe Sullivan, Jon Jenkins, Dale Armstrong and Herb Carey, crown Tuss McLaughry's 12-year tenure as Dartmouth's coach.

1955 Bob Blackman's extraordinary 16-year career at Dartmouth starts badly. In his first game as Dartmouth's coach, the Green leads Colgate, 20-0, then yields 21 unanswered points in the final period.

1956 Formal Ivy League play begins.

1957 A tie at Yale and a last-week loss at Princeton leaves Dartmouth a half-game behind the Tigers in the Ivy League title race and 7-1-1 overall.

1958 A 21-12 win at Princeton clinches Dartmouth's first outright Ivy League title.

1959 Dartmouth's scoreless tie with Brown at Memorial Field gives Penn the Ivy title by a half-game over the Green.

1960 A 20-0 win at Cornell is the 400th victory in Dartmouth football history.

1962 Led by quarterback Bill King and center-linebacker Don McKinnon, Dartmouth shuts out five foes, beats Princeton in the finale, 38-27, and gains its first undefeated-untied season (9-0-0) since 1925.

1963 After a 17-13 loss at Harvard ends Dartmouth's 15-game winning streak, the Green rebounds. A comeback 22-21 win at Princeton leaves Dartmouth and the Tigers knotted for the Ivy crown.

1964 Princeton visits Memorial Field for the first time and continues toward an undefeated season with a 37-7 win.

1965 Dartmouth returns the favor: Princeton has won 17 straight games since losing to Dartmouth in 1963. The Green is 8-0. At Palmer Stadium, Mickey Beard's 79-yard pass to Bill Calhoun clinches Dartmouth's win, 28-14. It's the Green's third undefeated season in four years. Dartmouth wins the Lambert Trophy as the East's best team.

1966 Undefeated in 11 straight games, Dartmouth misses a rain-drenched two-point conversion and bows at Holy Cross, 7-6. The Green still gains a three-way tie, with Harvard and Princeton (all 6-1), for its fourth Ivy title in five years.

1967 Pete Donovan's second-chance field goal beats Harvard, 23-21. Four weeks later his fourth period kick beats Princeton, 17-14.

1968 The permanent East Grandstand is completed, increasing Memorial Field's seating capacity to 20,416.

1969 Hank Bjorklund, son of a Dartmouth alumnus, runs all over the Green. Princeton wins, 35-7, spoiling an undefeated season for Dartmouth which shares the Ivy title with Yale and the Tigers.

1970 Behind All-America rover back Murry Bowden, the Green gathers six shutouts. Quarterback Jim Chasey and halfback John Short guide an offense that outscores the opposition, 311-42. Dartmouth rolls to a 9-0 record, the Ivy title and a second Lambert Trophy, and ranks 14th in nation. Chasey and Cornell tailback Ed Marinaro share the first Bushnell Trophy as the Ivy's outstanding players. Bob Blackman moves to the Big Ten (Illinois) after 16 seasons, 104 wins, and seven sole or shared Ivy titles.

1971 Ted Perry's field goals decide successive wins over Brown, Harvard and Yale. A week later, Columbia turns the tables: A last-minute field goal snaps Dartmouth's 15-game win streak, 31-29. A week after that, quarterback Steve Stetson outshines Marinaro, Cornell's Heisman Trophy runnerup. Dartmouth wins, 24-14, before the then-largest crowd ever at Memorial Field (20,819). Dartmouth and Cornell share the Ivy title.

1972 A 21-21 tie at Harvard and a 31-22 win at Cornell are keys as Dartmouth (5-1-1) edges Yale (5-2) for its fourth straight Ivy crown. Dartmouth becomes a coeducational college.

1973 After losing its first three games, Dartmouth wins its last six, including a defense-inspired 24-18 duel at Harvard, for its fifth straight Ivy title.

1974 The largest crowd in Memorial Field history (21,530) sees Harvard hold off the Green, 17-15.

1975 A 22-17 victory at Columbia makes Dartmouth the 11th team in college football history to win 500 games.

1977 A field goal at the Bowl by Nick Lowery, destined for an 18-year career in the NFL, hands Yale its only Ivy loss, 3-0. Jake Crouthamel departs with a 41-20-2 record after seven seasons as Bob Blackman's successor.

1978 Joe Yukica succeeds Crouthamel. Quarterback Buddy Teevens wins the Bushnell Trophy and Dartmouth wins its fifth Ivy title of the decade.

1980 Dartmouth and the Ivy League adopt a 10-game schedule.

1981 Shaun Teevens, Buddy's brother, is the leading receiver as Dartmouth has a piece of its 12th Ivy League title, this time with Yale.

1982 Dartmouth has its third Ivy title in five seasons under Joe Yukica, sharing the crown with Penn and Harvard.

1986 After five successful seasons followed by four of frustration (11 wins), Joe Yukica steps down. His successor: Buddy Teevens.

1990 Tailback Shon Page rushes for a Dartmouth record 1,087 yards and wins the Bushnell Trophy as the Green shares the Ivy title with Cornell.

1991 John Lyons succeeds Teevens at the Dartmouth helm. Page's rushing record lasts one year. Tailback Al Rosier powers for 1,432 yards and keeps the Bushnell Trophy in Hanover. Dartmouth, 6-0-1, is the outright Ivy champ.

1992 The Jay Fiedler era explodes: The junior quarterback passes for 2,748 yards and 25 touchdowns, both Dartmouth records, and wins the Bushnell Trophy. The Green wins its third straight Ivy title.

1993 Fiedler's last game is his best. Dartmouth trails Princeton, 22-8 with 9:37 to play. He passes for one TD, then runs for another. A conversion pass ties the game, 22-22. In swirling snow, his 38-yard pass to John Hyland with 1:12 left gives Dartmouth a 28-22 win. He finishes with 6,684 career yards passing, 58 touchdown passes, and 7,249 yards of total offense, all Green records.

1995 A 23-7 win at Harvard is Dartmouth's 600th all-time victory. But, when Princeton kicks a field goal with four seconds left to gain a 10-10 tie at Hanover, the final game deadlock gives the Tigers (5-1-1) the Ivy crown and pushes Dartmouth (4-2-1) from a possible four-way title tie to fourth place. A year later, the overtime rule is in place.

1996 Having played the first game at Princeton's Palmer Stadium in 1914, the Green also plays the last, beating Princeton, 24-0, to complete Dartmouth's first 10-0-0 season and fifth undefeated-untied campaign and 17th Ivy League title.

1997 A Dartmouth unbeaten streak--beginning early in the 1995 season and reaching 22 games--ends against Lehigh. Dartmouth finishes 8-2 with a three-year run with a 25-4-1 record, matching the 1969-71 teams for wins (25-2-0).