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| Dodds doing it the hard way at the ’79 Williams Winter Carnival. Note ski in upper left corner of photo. |
STORY No. 52
TOM DODDS
Age 55
Hanover, NH
Ford Sayre/Hanover High School/Williams College
John Fulton already told the tale of three apprehensive Hanover High athletes taking their first rides on the Dartmouth College jump. I will tell you how I suffered my worst ski jumping injury on the very same hill. Dartmouth Winter Carnival sometime in the early 1970’s. Though my memory is fading with time (and never was much good to begin with!) I do recall the typical several thousand strong boisterous (and drunk) winter carnival crowd. I was a distance marker on the side of the hill. I turned to watch Dartmouth’s very own Don Cutter floating majestically through the air pressing out over ONE ski. Quite remarkably I followed his flight and witnessed a beautiful one foot landing. Though I felt a sharp blow to the top of my head (from Cutter’s missing ski!) I believe I saw him make it past the fall line. At first I had no idea what had happened, was feeling no pain and then had the sensation of a curtain of warmth enveloping my head. The people around me became very excited. Ultimately I was stitched up suffering no ill consequences (though I am not sure we acknowledged concussions back in those days!).
Turn the dial forward to the 1979 Williams Winter Carnival. My senior year. My swan song. One of the last years of NCAA ski jumping! There I was at the top of the hill strapping on my skis for that final jump before the hometown crowd. I noticed a piece missing from my binding and I turned to my good buddy John Fulton (skiing for the University of New Hampshire) to get his opinion on the importance of that piece. He was not an engineering major. Together we decided the piece was nonessential. My teammate Jeff Hastings was nowhere to be found. The accompanying picture (with one ski above and behind me) made the local newspaper and suggests that the missing piece was perhaps of some structural importance. Needless to say I did NOT make it to the fall line!
I have many fond memories of that eastern college carnival circuit. How I wish we could have preserved that circuit for today’s young athletes.
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| Doing it the easy way with both skis at Junior Nationals in ’75 |
