It Could Happen This Fall
It happens every summer to a college coach of a varsity athletic team. He plans for the on-rushing season, frets over formations and plays, prepares for the long hours of practice sessions and optimistically hopes for a better season than the previous fall. Secretly he might even harbor the possibility of accomplishing the ultimate goal - the undefeated season. He represses this, the fondest of dreams , quickly. He _knows that the odds are greatly against such an achievement. Everything has to go right, EVERYTHING, - top performances all year long and the right personnel, all remaining healthy, mistakes by the opposition at the right moment and what is called the breaks-of-the-game all going the right way. So the coach goes back to his more conservative hope that his charges will improve on last year's record. For football coach Don Miller and soccer coach Roy Dath, even this kind of optimism is toying with the ultimate goal. For Trinity to improve on its 1967 football and soccer performances would mean undefeated seasons. Miller's eleven finished 1967, 6-1-1, missing an undefeated season by one point and an undefeated-untied season by three points. Dath's amazing charges missed an undefeated season in the last scheduled game,
Coach Miller looks at his charges.
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finishing 8-1 and made the NCAA university regional playoffs for the third time in four years. In post-season play, Trinity defeated Army in the regional playoff before losing to Long Island University in the national quarterfinals. It was the 16th winning season for Roy Dath, and the eighth that his hooters have finished missing an undefeated record by one loss. The 1956 team went undefeated. For Don Miller the 1967 season was the best for a first year coach in the history of the game at Trinity. But what about 1968? To predict either the soccer or football teams will go undefeated next fall is whistling in the dark. But it is not a wild suggestion to report that both have the potential of achieving the ultimate dream of their respective mentors. Dath will have a good nucleus coming back in the fall. Five lettermen return as backs including Captain Roger Richard. Veteran goalie Bob Loeb also returns and there will be eight lettermen returning as forwards, including such stalwarts from 1967 as Peter Wiles, Alan Gibby and Abdillahi Haji. But the team will have big shoes to fill in the loss through graduation of high scoring Mike Center and outstanding defensive back Alan Griesinger. Likewise Coach Miller will have a veteran team returning but with some big holes to fill, particularly on offense, where three starting backs and four linemen were lost through graduation. Included among the missing will be quarterback-halfback Kim Miles and running back Larry Roberts who together out-gained all of
Coach Dath in conference.