THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE OF TILTON SCHOOL SPRING 2008

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THREE TEACHERS WERE THE HEAD COACHES DURING THOSE 10 YEARS: TED “GUMPY” GARLAND, RICK JONES AND ROD PAGE. THEY WORKED THEIR TEAMS HARD AND WERE PERSONALLY DEMANDING. Coach Jones responded 20 minutes to stretch and run their entire course flat out. The Hebron coach was in disbelief. He said to Rick, ‘Your team runs the course before the race’ With a poker face, Rick replied, ‘Yes, and as a matter of fact they will run the course a third time after the race is completed.’ The Hebron runners within earshot were in disbelief too. “Tilton lined up at the start line, took off and ran the entire 2.5-mile course as if it was a race. I held the stopwatch and clipboard, recording the times. The Hebron coaches had their watches running. All the Tilton runners completed the warm-up in less than 18 minutes. All of the Hebron runners surrounded their coaches to see the times of the Tilton runners. “Coach Jones called the team together and out of earshot of Hebron he gave them the race strategy. When the starting gun went off, Phil Adler ’67 was the designated rabbit. Phil was to sprint the first half-mile in two minutes. The intent was to pull the Cuneo brothers with him. The remainder of the team was to run at their own speeds. He called it the tortoise-and-hare strategy. “The teams lined up, and there was a lot of pushing and shoving in the front row instigated by Adler which was intentional. The gun went off – and Phil sprinted out at top speed as if it was a 100-yard dash. Watching the race unfold standing next to the Hebron coach, Jones’ strategy worked. Not only did Adler pull the Cuneo brothers with him but three other Hebron runners as well. At the quarter-mile mark before the runners disappeared, the Hebron coach looked at his watch and shook his head. He said at that pace his team will never finish the race. Adler pulled up after the half-mile mark and jogged the remainder of the course, coming in dead last. The Hebron runners were too winded to keep their normal pace, and the Tilton runners cruised past them to win the meet and break Hebron’s unbeaten streak. “To say Hebron was livid is an understatement. The Hebron Headmaster saw what happened to his unbeaten team and sulked off, head-down, to his office. After the race, the Hebron coach begrudgingly congratulated Jones and asked him if the Tilton team was going to run the course again. Rick said no – that was their reward for winning the race. If his team had lost, then they would have run it a third time. The Hebron coach shook his 12 | Spring 2008
Ted Garland Rick Jones Rod Page head and walked away. I rode in the front seat of the station wagon next to Jones on the trip back to Tilton. We could not stop laughing for two solid hours.” During the strongest years, the varsity team developed a tradition of locking arms as they crossed the finish line well ahead of any of the opposing team. The 1966 team, captained by Peter Dascoulias ’67, locked arms with seven others to take first in the Lakes Region Championships. Two of Tilton’s strongest runners, Chuck Vaughn ’68 and Joe McNulty ’68, as well as Wayne Mollitor ’68 and Cal Thompson ’69, became an imposing foursome that led their team to a New England Championship. As impressive as the three New England Championships were, the Tilton runners came very close to winning twice more. In 1961, the team came in second to Avon Old Farms, and again in 1965, the team came in second, taking first-, second-, and fourth-place finishes and losing to Hebron by one point. In 1966, the team lost again but only because a runner from another team pushed Bill Glidden ’67 off the course and into a tree. The pride these teams felt took many forms. Once, Coach Jones and his assistant were disappointed that the team underperformed in a dual race that it won, so as it started to snow and the sun started to set, the coaches had the team rerun the race in the reverse direction. Cold and tired as they were, no one said a thing. That pride also flowed from coach to coach. Jones was a graduate of St. Paul’s School, and the Tilton team competed against that of Jones’ old coach, Jose Ordones, who was quoted in The Tiltonian saying that Jones’ team demonstrated “a simply heroic effort for a group of boys.” I was a JV runner on the team and overheard that conversation between Jones and Ordones. Jones just beamed. One of the challenges at Tilton School in the 1960s was that being a boarder in a single-sex school could be tough. (Phil Adler summed up many of our feelings with a sign over his dormitory bed that read, “Even Hell is co-ed.”) Students gave up much of the fun that their counterparts enjoyed at home in order to get a better education and a stronger start for college. Being a part of the cross country teams in those years was a reminder of what Former Head of School Dick Baroody would say repeatedly years later: “Nothing of value is achieved without hard work.” BY KENDALL P. DIDSBURY ’67 WITH THE WONDERFUL ASSISTANCE OF DICK ELKINS ’67 Spring 2008 | 13
Page 1 and 2: Tilton THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE OF TILTO
Page 3 and 4: Tilton THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE OF TILTO
Page 5 and 6: Secret Spaces of Tilton School When
Page 7 and 8: The Tilton Athletic Fields Jack Cra
Page 9 and 10: The Ski Tuning Room “I remember s
Page 11 and 12: the mummy Recently, Rick Stewart an
Page 13: FOR THE STUDENTS WHO RAN CROSS COUN
Page 17 and 18: The Tilton/New Hampton athletic riv
Page 19 and 20: around campus Seniors Dinelle Dutto
Page 21 and 22: On October 8, 2007, nearly 300 Tilt
Page 23 and 24: The ghost of Charles Tilton appeare
Page 25 and 26: “An Open Mike” with Presidentia
Page 27 and 28: At halftime of the home Boys’ Var
Page 29 and 30: fall sports highlights GIRLS’ VAR
Page 31 and 32: were able to take their athletic ab
Page 33 and 34: The Perfect Ending to a Perfect Sea
Page 35 and 36: Born in Jamaica, Lu and his mother
Page 37 and 38: I have a special memory of getting
Page 39 and 40: coached 99 youth teams and was the
Page 41 and 42: New York City Friends, parents and
Page 43 and 44: 82 Gregory Orput writes, “It has
Page 45 and 46: Andrew and Ashley Sachs, children o
Page 47 and 48: traveling A LOT, mostly back to Tam
Page 49 and 50: its sale to Duracell, a division of
Page 51 and 52: ARTSat Tilton Poster design by Matt

THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE OF TILTON SCHOOL SPRING 2008

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