Charles & Bettina Darrell
Fritz Stude saw a couple of hoodlums with BB guns – started a Team. West Point got Butch’s Lacrosse stick that Navy learned to fear 10 years later.
Captain of the 1962 Lacrosse Team
Charles Cavendish Darrell
Butch and Ace Adams Army’s Coach in 1962
Butch was a nice guy — but on the Lacrosse Field he gave no Quarter.
My father played lacrosse in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. The Johns Hopkins Team represented the USA against a Canadian Team and won two of three games. Due to the world-wide depression, England and Australia could not make the trip.
My Father Joseph Cavendish Darrell – 4th from right front row, Fritz Stude is next or 5th from right, while the 6th man is Jack Tumbull. Coach Ray Van Orman is 2d row far right and next to him is Jimmy Benson, a long time John Hopkins trainer. Lacrosse was a Demonstration Olympic Sport in 1928 and 1932, but never became an Olympic Team Sport.
My father’s name was Joseph Cavendish Darrell and my uncle’s name was Francis Sterett Darrell. Like the rest of us Darrells they got stuck with weird nicknames- my father was “Cabbage” and my uncle was “Mickey.” I have never been able to get much on the 1932 Johns Hopkins Olympic lacrosse team from google, but Johns Hopkins University periodically publishes an article on that event and I have several of them at home.
The participation medal given to each member of the Lacrosse Demostration Team.
In 1947, the goalie of that Olympic Team, Mr. Fritz Stude, saw a couple of young hoodlums get into trouble and started a team for kids, so they’d have something better to do than shoot out street lights with BB guns and I joined the team at age 8.
One of the players, a couple of years older, was Tom Mitchell. He went on to star at Boys Latin, graduating in 1956. In February 1961, I was down at Navy for exchange week-end.
Late on Saturday afternoon Tom Mitchell, then a Firstie at Navy, barged into my room and said, “Get your stuff Darrell, we’re going to a party with hot women and cold beer!” I don’t remember the hot women, but around 2 AM, Mitchell and I staggered back through Bancroft Hall on our knees.
“Mitchell,” I said, “I can’t believe they let you get away with this. Where did I go wrong? West Point is nothing but a jail.”
That spring Tom Mitchell was the Navy star and won the Turnbull Award as the nation’s best attackman.
Jack Turnbull, one of the all-time great players was later an Air Force Officer killed in Europe during World War II. The award that Tom Mitchell won in 1961 as the nation’s best attackman is named for Jack Turnbull.
In 2006, my father and my uncle Francis Sterett Darrell were inducted into the Boys Latin Athletic Hall of Fame as part of the first group to enter, so even though they had been a rival to my school, I was invited to the ceremony.
I noticed that Tom Mitchell was not on the list, so, not having seen or heard of him since 1961, I nominated him and he was inducted last fall (2008).
He came all the way from Las Vegas and brought several old Navy players and coaches with him to the induction.
Even though we were fierce rivals in 1961, we were bound together by participation in that game.
Jimmy Benson, the long time JHU trainer, was still at Hopkins in 1959, and during my summer leave that year graciously helped me rehab the left knee ACL I had torn against Rutgers that spring. Thanks partly to his efforts and to those of the West Point doctors and trainers, I was after a second knee operation Yearling year, able to play my Cow and Firstie years. Lacrosse was the only thing I did even moderatelly well at West Point, so I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to play.
My brother Kent “Skip” Darrell (ex-64), another one of those goofy nicknames, flunked out of West Point in math at the end of his Plebe year and enrolled at Johns Hopkins. In the 1963 Hopkins-Army game, he scored 4 goals in a 10-9 Hopkins victory. There was an article in the New York Times about it. As a fellow goat, you will be pleased to know that, having flunked out of West Point in Plebe Math, he has been teaching it at St Paul’s School in Baltimore to high schoolers for 37 years! In my humble opinion, he is the best teacher in Maryland.
I can’t think of anything for my Cullum file. Those familiar with my academic and military reputation at West Point would just laugh at any positive remarks about my Cadet days and shout, “Liar!” (Editors Comment – None of us would ever say anything negative about Butch he was and is a great Classmate. For some of us who were with him in the last sections, his attitude eased the pressure to achieve pro status.)
The 1961 Army-Navy Lacrosse game was certainly the highlight of my athletic career, however, so I would appreciate it if you’d add the picture of Coach Adams being thrown into the Severn along with my remarks about it to my “page”.
Coach Ace Adams being chunked into the Severn River after the 1961 Army-Navy Lacrosse game, won by Army 10-8.
This game, played in the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, was the first lacrosse game ever to be televised nationally. “Ron Hannon” ’61 seemed to come up with every ground ball and Dick Buckner ’61 hit a Navy defenseman so hard I felt the ground shake.
One of the best lacrosse pictures I’ve ever seen is in our yearbook of “Mac Howard” taking a shot in that game. Rusty Broshous scored two goals when we needed them most. Our victory enabled Army to share the National Championship with Navy- we had dropped a game to Virginia earlier.
As you can guess, we were jubilant. As soon as coach hit the water, we all jumped in after him still in uniform. “Holy Cow (or perhaps words a little stronger)! The tide’s out!” shouted Dave Harkins. We were facing a six foot high sea-wall. Fortunately, our ever-faithful bus driver Jake knew what to do. He retrieved a rope and life-saving ring from Halsey Field House and fished us out one by one.
For What They Gave on Saturday Afternoon 