The Richard (Dick) Whiting collection contains material and information primarily related to the 1965-1966 Springfield College Football Team. Dick was a member of the team that, for the first time in the College’s modern history, went undefeated and untied. Dr. Ted Dunn coached the team with Scott Taylor and Gary Wilcox serving as Co-Captains. A DVD, Team rosters, schedules, team statistics, photos of team members, co-captains, and coaches introduce the researcher to a remarkable season. Of particular interest is a letter written by the co-captains to the team members preseason in which Scott and Gary predict the undefeated, untied outcome and spell out how it will be done, game by game. As Dick said, “for something that happened only once in 100 years, this was an incredible prediction.” Another special item is a poem by E. G. Wright titled “The Big Game” given to Dick by Coach Dunn with a handwritten note from Ted to Dick about an upcoming exam. The date that Ted gave the poem to Dick is unknown. Game programs for the Amherst, Northeastern, and Wagner Games are in the collection along with playbooks for the Wagner Game. In addition to awards and honors given to team members, the First Naming of the All Decade Team is included with several players named from the ’65-’66 squad. Within the specific game folders there are game highlights and/or programs and the photos of the coaches. In addition, there are articles or scripts used for the narration of the Dick’s video. Reunion material is also included along with the aforementioned DVD narrated by Dick Whiting and created from the contents of the collection. A ‘Save the Date’ film refers to the 50th anniversary of the season, celebrated during Homecoming 2015.

In addition to the folder files is a well preserved Scrapbook that was assembled by Dick Whiting’s mother, Josephine. The Scrapbook contains, for the most part, newspaper articles about the season and the players and coaches. Miscellaneous and unrelated articles are of interest are also included in the Scrapbook. For example, Jack Lamabe ’65, G’68, who was relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a clipping with Bob Cousy present when Governor Volpe proclaimed Saturday (date unknown), Dr. James Naismith Day. Olympian and Springfield College graduate, Kathy Corrigan is also featured in articles. Kathy grew up in Weymouth, MA near Quincy, MA. where Dick attended high school. Glen Olds’ retirement is noted along with tuition data. Most articles, however, are about the remarkable season including how close we came to playing in the Tangerine Bowl. The University of Maine was selected over Springfield College for a bid to play in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, FL., December 11, 1965.

Dick narrated the video found in Folder 1 of the collection (also contained in the Springfield College Football Collection) using some of the contents from the collection. The video was first produced in 2000 and in 2005 was converted to the DVD for presentation at the 2005 Reunion. Dick also narrated the “Save the Date” film for the 50th Football Reunion held during Homecoming 2015 (the film is found in Folder 15 with other reunion material).