Senior Year
Winter 1966-67

Something some seniors wanted to forget was a mounting controversy over Bicker, led by a radical study committee report signed by Mike Miles, John Alexander, Steve Oxman, Mike Haroz, Sid Stein, Lee Mercier and Bucky Clarkson. Clinch Belser and Jim Edmundson responded for the ICC, and club presidents including Roger Liddell, George Wanklyn, Harry Williams, Perry Haines and Peter Sheahan added their comments. John Godine’s Terrace, Frank Upsham’s Cloister and Bruce Hazard’s Colonial were among the four clubs which expressed their doubts about the system.

In December, New York Mayor John V. Lindsay spoke under auspices of the Young Republicans. At a reception in his honor, host Kit Roland introduced Mike Schultz to the Mayor as “the man who really runs this place.”

While the gentlemanly protest continued into the winter months, seniors turned to other activities before a long-awaited vacation neared. Lee Mercier, Bob Booth, Lenny Brune, Randy Spence, and Jay Goodrich, among others, pitched in on the MFD. Bruce McLucas and John Huyler provided SCA flicks and Tim Leary for those looking for an escape of one kind or another. Triangle enthusiasts turned to Jay Kerr and Frank Strasberger for a “sham” show, and they provided it as billed. A Prince series turned up a group of students generally unconcerned about finding things to do: the married students, including Gene Cameron, Jack Seaquist, Jerry Ingram, Dave Martin, Hayward Gipson, Nick Bogard, Jim Daniel, Dave Bibb, John Ewing and Dubby Wynne.

But the big news of the winter, other than the weather, was a story that developed slowly but surely – the growing success of the basketball team. Ed Hummer, Gary Walters, Rob Brown, Al Adler, Larry Lucchino and Bill Koch formed the senior nucleus of a team destined to win and win big. The Tigers rolled over several early-season opponents, only to enter the Quaker City tournament and emerge with second-place honors behind second-ranked Louisville. Wins over Davidson and third-ranked North Carolina on their home courts shot Princeton to the first national ranking ever of an Ivy League team. The Tigers moved up to fourth on the charts before Cornell upset them in Ithaca near the season’s end. But they went on to win the championship the next weekend and moved on to knock off West Virginia in the NCAAs – only to lose to North Carolina in the semi-finals the next weekend. But who could argue with a 25-3 season? Least of all the seniors, among them Gary Walters, who joined Chris Thomforde on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The return from Christmas vacation brought several shocks, some better than others. Yale and Vassar were planning to merge, five undergraduates were hauled in on marijuana charges, but four seniors also hauled in Rhodes scholarships– Chuck Peters, John Alexander, Steve Oxman and John Tait. The quartet counted three more than either Harvard or Yale, and two more than any other university in the country. But the Vassar-Yale merger was the biggest blow. An organization called LIMP sarcastically lauded the university for its foresight in remaining an all-male institution, and advocated inter-dorm mixers and abolition of the marriage lectures for a starter. Press Club head Dean Pope reported the activities of LIMP men Bill Floyd and Tom Bell. The Prince joined the fun with a joke issue devoted to a Princeton/Walker-Gordon Dairy merger.

Bicker comes but once a year, and most seniors were glad of it. Quad took an enormous section, but otherwise all was relatively quiet on the Prospect front. Winter sports came to the fore, especially swimming, where Kris Brown, Bob Humber, Jim Edmundson, Bill King, Dave Van Voorhis, Jim Kremer and Bruce Brookens led the team to its best dual-meet season ever, predictably losing only to Yale. John Baker and Gordie Gladman sparked an up-and-down hockey season, and Joe Padula, Javier White and Dan Moore led the fencing team to second place in the Ivy League.

As the snows really came – and continued to come until late March – Peter Sandman and the Prince staff published a nationwide Where the Girls Are, Dave Gillingham organized a fast for Vietnam, Steve Oxman received the Pyne Prize, Dick Prentke organized crew practice, Tom Peppler lined up baseball, Marty Eichelberger ran and re-ran his lacrosse charges, Clinch Belser captained tennis, and John Faggi, John Trotter and the rugby team toured Nassau over spring vacation.

But by and large, the senior class disappeared in the winter months to the somber beckoning of the thesis. Dave Wright researched at Ann Arbor right up until the deadline, while other English majors sweated it out in the Libe: Rich Handelsman led the B-Floor crew, with Bruce Speidel, Alan Furniss, Ed Hummer, Bob Booth, Ted Gutelius, Dick Blumenthal, George Bassett, John Fisher, Roger Lichty, Chris Cook, Buzz Koslowski, George Potratz, Ari Snyder, Chic Sherer, Dave Lenson and John Hunter following suit. Dave Kastan received a fantastic offer from Chicago, and Doug Penick ground out his thesis two days late. Roger Liddell’s thesis was the first paper he ever turned in on time at Princeton.

Tom Tulenko took time out to win a trivia contest, and Dan Altman led a reform of the UGC culminating in a successful referendum before spring vacation. The Trustees formed a subcommittee to study Bicker, and the Faculty Committee on Undergraduate Life followed suit by proposing abolition of Bicker and the possibility of coeducation at Princeton as a major university priority.

© 1997 by The Class of 1967, Princeton University. Reprinted from the 1967 Nassau Herald.