Springfield College - Massasoit Yearbook (Springfield, MA)

Page 33 text:

Football is more profound than one may think. Football consists of more than hitting, tackling, blocking and running. It's more than just friendships, respect, hatred, love and pos- sibly, for many, a self realization. In beginning the year, most collegiate foot- ball players set their goals high. For instance a player may set a goal of all conference or all New England or the epitomy of collegiate football of All-American. He may at the same time believe that he will never be that All- American. But just shooting for it may facilitate his becoming a better ball player. Improvement is proportionate to how high one places his ideals and how diligent he works toward reaching them. If a football player or any person ever reaches his goals he will never realize the extent to which he could have arisen, had he placed his goals higher. Now in this fast moving world people are using the won loss record exclusively as cri- terion for a successful year. This won loss disease is taking away from the human ele- ment involved in football. It is taking the spotlight off of the emotions, the friendships, the hatred and love, the hardships, the desire, the joy and the self realization. The nineteen seventy chiefs were sucessful. We started the seventy season, which began in winter, conditioning and spring football with optimism. Spring football ended with a bit of disappointment having a few injuries includ- ing one great ball player, George Adams. We began preseason again with optimism; and again in a scrimmage which we went, we lost. George Adams, Tony Dicoco and Paul Woods were never to play in the '70 season again. This was quite a blow to the Chiefs. After a disappointing defeat at the hands of Central Connecticut in a preseason scrim- mage, we went to improve and improve. We broke through a lot of happiness together. Then in the end we carried ourselves through a lot of disappointment... together. We remained one through the entire season. We grew through the entire season. Even though we lost our last three, we learned and grew from understanding our mistakes. The seventy season was a successful one, a very successful one. We learned a lot about ourselves and football. We are thankful for the opportunity and this in itself is a win. The 1970 football campaign of the Spring- field College Chiefs started with unprec- edented optimism, but at the end of a long, hard pre-season there arose a question mark in the minds of many. Although SC had beaten UR I in a pre-season scrimage. Central Connec- ticut had thumped the Chief in a similar en- counter and it was evident that going into the opening game with Cortland State the Chief was not to have the services of several key people: George Adams, Tony Decocco, Paul Woods, and Chris Lynch lined the sidelines not to return for the rest of the season. While many questioned, the Chiefs own hopes were undaunted and at the end of the first game, the game ball went to Coach Dunn with the score Chiefs 21 — Red Dragons 12. In the season's opener it appeared that the Chiefs had both offensive and defensive bal- ance, but in the next game the defense was to sit the bench as Amherst could only fumble, punt, and throw intercepted passes. The of- fense did its job and led by Paul Ingram erased a few records with 543 total offense yards and the Lord Jeffs were beat by the largest score ever in this series 47-14. The Chiefs rolled on to win the next two. A late game surge by Albright was not enough to counter three quarters of Chief dominated football, and SC was again on top this time 27-24. Colby was a different story; the young Mules were no match for the growing Chiefs and the score showed it, 49-7. The Chief won yet he lost. John Kozlowski was to join the non-returning injured along with Kevin Dunne