In the autumns of 1953, 1954 and 1955, Dartmouth’s football team won a total of eight games out of 27 played. Then, in 1956, coach Bob Blackman’s second season, Dartmouth had its first winning record since 1949. The team included nine members of the class of 1957, including Monte Pascoe and Jim Parkes, both gone now. With help from All-Ivy center Bob Adelizzi, no longer hobbling on new knees, here’s an update on the others. 


Ron Fraser had a long career in education as a teacher, coach and school administrator and then ran a regional bus company in the Chicago area, where he continues to live. Back problems and surgery have kept him off the tennis court lately, but Bob remembers Ron’s “great hands and his toughness.”


According to Bob, John Donnelly was “a true entrepreneur,” working with small venture capital startups in need of help. More recently, he gave his time to advising young CEOs about the complexities of management. These days he sits on boards, including Maurice Pinkoffs, John Griffin’s company in Houston.


Bob Rex remains interested in Dartmouth athletics. In addition to serving as secretary/treasurer of the Friends of Dartmouth Football, he mentors four student athletes. He’s also a justifiably enthusiastic golfer with a 9 handicap and introduced head football coach Buddy Teevens ’79 as the speaker at the annual Homecoming dinner at the Norwich Inn.


Retired from a long career in teaching and coaching, Lou Rovero lives on the Connecticut coast not far from his original hometown of Putnam. 


After earning his law degree from Harvard, Mike Brown had a career in professional football and is currently the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals. Looking back, he considers Blackman one of the best teachers he had at Dartmouth. “To be a successful football coach,” he says, “you have to be a great teacher.”


Congratulations to Joe Stevenson on receiving the 2011 Gift Planning Chair of the Year Award at the Class Officers Weekend last October. Joe has been conducting public interviews with musicians and conductors for the North Carolina Symphony as a member of its board.


It’s not uncommon for good news and bad to mix together. Pete and Muffin Carothers’ farm on the New Haven River in Vermont was pretty badly beat up by Hurricane Irene. The good news is that “FEMA did okay by us,” and Habitat for Humanity volunteers and church friends helped with the clean up afterwards. Pete’s conclusion: “The entire experience contained many blessings along the way.”


Bob Shirley reports that of the 18 remaining classmates who went on to Dartmouth Medical School, nearly half were at their 50th DMS reunion last summer. In addition to “Meats,” Bill Gallagher, Maury Tannenbaum, Bob Vogel, Erv Philipps, Paul Raslavicus, Nick Tschetter and Tom Watt were in attendance. 


According to Bill, Wikipedia’s entry for “beer pong” includes references to a letter from Meats to The Dartmouth Review, explaining the game’s Dartmouth origins at the Phi Gam house. We take our historians where we find ’em.


—Michael Lasser, 164 New Wickham Drive, Penfield, NY 14526; mlasser@rochester.rr.com