We have seen all of the numbers concerning Dartmouth football over the past few weeks: 0-10, 7-33 and 1883. I am going to get right to my point and agree with fellow writer Christian Kiely '09: Buddy Teevens '79 should be replaced as the head football coach at Dartmouth College. I have not come to this position easily, so please allow me to explain myself. College sports are about winning, and the numbers speak for themselves. The team that Teevens has fielded over the past four years has simply failed to produce wins. I understand that Ivy League football is not the Big Ten or the SEC, but at any major college level, seven wins in four years simply does not cut it.
Sure, there are examples of coaches at the College that have had many more chances to win than Teevens. For example, Bob Whalen, the men's baseball coach, has been at the College for 19 years and not won a single Ivy League championship. This fact does not excuse Teevens, however, simply because football has historically been the flagship sport of Dartmouth College. By tolerating the level of futility demonstrated on the gridiron since the beginning of his tenure, Dartmouth is doing an injustice to its students and alumni. I personally know Dartmouth alums who refuse to go to football games, because they do not want to deal with the insufferable torments of other Ivy League fans. The bottom line is that in major college athletics, you keep your job by winning, and Dartmouth has not been winning under Buddy Teevens.
Far from firing Teevens, however, I believe the College would benefit by promoting him. Teevens has proved himself to be a worthy candidate for the position of athletic director, as a driving force behind the construction of Floren Varsity House, the $14 million, 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art building that has revolutionized the way athletes train at Dartmouth. Teevens clearly knows how to help student-athletes at Dartmouth succeed, but for some reason has not been able to translate this into effective coaching. Buddy Teevens has done magnificent job as an administrator and shown great ability to mobilize alumni in fundraising efforts. In my opinion, he would be a perfect candidate to be Dartmouth's next athletic director.
The tenure of Josie Harper, Dartmouth's current athletic director, has been marked by both successes and failures. Since she took over as athletic director in 2002, Harper has seen several of Dartmouth's athletic teams reach high levels of achievement, most notably skiing, men's soccer, men's and women's ice hockey and women's lacrosse. It is difficult to measure the actual impact Harper has had on each of these sports as each of the head coaches in these sports have been in place since before Harper's tenure.
Two college sports, for better or worse, dominate the national landscape. Football and men's basketball get more national television time than probably every other NCAA sport combined. If you turn on ESPN on any random night from September through February, you are likely to see a college basketball or football game. Athletic directors are judged, perhaps unfairly, on how these teams perform. Josie Harper has had direct and measurable impact on each of these sports, as she hired both coaches. Since 2005, Terry Dunn's second year as head coach of the Big Green, the men's basketball team has never finished above second to last in the Ivy League and averaged almost 19 losses per season.
Harper, however, in an interview with The Dartmouth in 2007, defended her choices of coaches saying, "[this is] one of strongest coaching staffs we have ever had here, with particular attention to the men's front porch sports [football and basketball]." Harper stubbornly defends her choices of Teevens and Dunn.
I have a vision of a Dartmouth College that can be an athletic powerhouse in the Ivy League. In order to accomplish this, however, there needs to be more accountability. The athletic director needs to hold the coaches more accountable for the performance of their teams, and the administration needs to hold the athletic director more accountable for the overall performance of the college's athletic programs.
Don't get me wrong -- I think Josie Harper has done a fine job as Dartmouth's athletic director -- but Buddy Teevens could do better.
There are two facets of being a great college coach: the on-field performance of the team and the off-field administration of the program. On the field, Teevens has produced the worst years in the history of Dartmouth football. Off the field, he has done some very impressive management. This clearly qualifies him to be Dartmouth's next athletic director. The choice is obvious: Dartmouth needs to remove Buddy Teevens the football coach, yet keep Buddy Teevens the administrator.
The original version of this column stated that the Dartmouth football team's record over the last four years was 7-34. In fact, the team's record over that period was 7-33.
