'Throp Captures Strauss Cup

News item: Winthrop House outpoints Lowell, 1745 to 1411, to capture its second successive Straus Cup. Interpretation, How to Win The Straus Cup Without Really Trying:

The scene is the Winthrop-Mather tackle football game of 1975, Year 1 of the Winthrop intramural dynasty. A minute remains with Winthrop down by six. Quarterback Diamond Jim Durham, in one of his last mentally stable moments (he decided to get married a few months later), calls the "sleeper" play. As the team huddles up, players on the sidelines start calling madly that there are twelve men in the huddle, although there are really the legal eleven.

Wide receiver Bob Bowman hurries to the sidelines but stops, as planned, a yard inbounds, and feigns idle conversation with other bench warmers. Winthrop comes to the line of scrimmage, and Durham fades back to pass. Bowman streaks down the sidelines, unnoticed by the Mather defense. Durham throws long. Bowman, all alone at the twenty, grabs it, but juggles it until reaching the goal line. He then drops the ball. Final score: Mather 13, Winthrop 7.

A week later it's the touch football championship, and Winthrop is locked in a scoreless tie with Lowell. In the final play of the half, Lowell is deep in its own territory with the length of the field to go for a touchdown. Coach Rich Brody instructs Winthrop defenseman Bob Phoopher to drop back and allow his man any reception as long as it's not a touchdown. Phoopher remembers these words, and starts the play forty yards off the line of scrimmage. He remembers as the pass goes up and he's still ten yards closer than his man to the defending goal line. He remembers as he turns--and sees his man catch the pass in the endzone for the only points of the game.

Touch Football

A year later, it's the touch football championship again, this time against Adams. In the key play of the game, Winthrop is deep in its own territory, and quarterback Alan "Doble House" Dawes drops back to pass. He's caught by a defender on the one-yard line, but referees Frank Crimmins and Jim Gostylo--both Winthrop House members--signal safety, giving Adams House two points and the ball.

Winthrop goes on to lose the game by one, but all is not lost. At the Straus Cup dinner, Dawes receives the Brian Bolwell Award for lack of alertness and general mental lethargy, while Crimmins and Gostylo share the Benedict Arnold Award.

Winthrop did, of course, win some championships: A and B squash, B and coed volleyball, ice hockey, wrestling and fencing. In addition, the coed touch football team completed its third consecutive undefeated season. Final Straus Cup Point Standings Winthrop  1745 Lowell  1411 Eliot  1329 Quincy  1086 Kirkland  1061 Mather  922 North  916 Currier  821 Leverett  678 Dunster  632 Dudley  617 Adams  568 South  308