The Legend of Dillon

At nine in the morning on a raw November day, Soldiers Field stretches out like a remote desert, seemingly much farther than its actual distance from the hub-bub of rush-hour Harvard Square. Inside Dillon Field House, the citadel of Crimson athletics, everything moves at a calm, leisurely pace, but the air is full of energy being stored. And under the bright lights of the training room, amid the smell of bandages, tape and salve, Jack Fadden is at work. He tapes and talks, talks and tapes, massaging his patients' bodies and minds. Jack Fadden has been doing the same kind of thing in Dillon Field House on and off--mostly on--since 1920.

The Harvard University directory lists John Patrick Fadden as a Physical Therapist in the Department of Athletics, and if you think that's the whole story, you probably think Ted Williams was born to be a fisherman. After nearly 60 years with Harvard athletics, Fadden could be a legend simply because of his longevity. That, however, is not the case.

The trainer's patient that November morning was Harvard offensive tackle Mike Durgin, who was nursing a sore shoulder. While Fadden had stepped away, a visitor asked the hulking senior about the white-haired and bespectacled old man's secret. Durgin smiled and pointed to his head. "I've learned more from that man than anything over there," he said, gesturing in the direction of the Yard and its classrooms.

Few who have been associated with Fadden in his tenure here (or during his 1950-1965 stint as trainer of the Boston Red Sox) disagree. The Fadden Treatment involves part blarney, part ego deflation, part sympathy and a healthy does of medical expertise. Combine these virtues with the vantage point of 81 years of varied and usually fascinating living, and Fadden begins to seem like a legend.

But even though he's heard all that before, Fadden doesn't take it very seriously. "I'm no magician," he laughs, "I'm the only self-confessed quack who works for Harvard." And then he laughs some more.

The route Fadden took to Dillon Field House was fairly simple: Born in Boston to Irish-immigrant parents in 1899, Fadden went to assorted schools in the area until he began studying physical education with Dr. Tommy Richards, the doctor for the Harvard football team. Richards brought Fadden to Cambridge in 1920.

He enrolled as a member of the Harvard class of '32, but had to leave after two years because combining work and study proved too difficult. (The class of '32 later gave him an honorary degree.) So he worked for Harvard--and still does.

Fadden has treated everyone, the famous All-Americans like Chub (later Massachusetts Governor) Peabody, and football, baseball and hockey star Barry Wood (later a world-famous surgeon) to the less-heralded jocks, like those football-playing Kennedy brothers Jack, Bob and Ted. "I've seen from the ridiculous to the sublime athlete here," he says.

But for all the renown coming from his association with Harvard athletes, Fadden probably is best known for the years he spent with the Red Sox, Ted Williams especially. The often-surly Splendid Splinter always held a special fondness for Fadden either because of the trainer's amazing ability to rehabilitate Williams' many injuries or because of Fadden's sometimes-brutal honesty.

The first story most people hear about Fadden, in fact, has to do with the aftermaths of William's famed expectorations at the Boston press corps. Williams reportedly said to Fadden, "Jack, everybody has had something to say to me about this little incident. But you haven't said a word about it. You seem to know a little bit about everything."

"I know quite a bit, but I'm no child psychologist," Fadden deadpanned.

It's not just the wit that keeps the bruised athletes interested. Fadden has been around the world, by his account, 15 times and has a trip to China (his second) planned for after the football season. A widower, Fadden always travels by himself and never in tour groups. "I wouldn't learn anything talking to people on tours. I talk to the local people--whores, priests, chiefs of police, racketeers--I talk to them all." And then brings the stories back to Dillon--always in time for fall football practice.

Fadden has been around so long that some of his more unorthodox training procedures seem almost ordinary by now. His aversion to whirlpools is well known, if not widely shared, among Dillon regulars. "These guys who take two showers a day or use the (whirlpool) bath, they're losing all the oils in their skin. They'll get all itchy for sure. Me, I take one bath a week." And then he laughs.

His success, he says, came because "I'm not a frustrated doctor, not a frustrated coach, and not a frustrated player." He makes frequent reference to the doctors who advise him on his treatments, usually passing much of the credit their way.

But after 60 years, the secret has long been out about Jack Fadden. He's been sick through some of this season, so he hasn't been around as much as usual, but the Fadden influence is never far. Whether it's the plaque for the Jack Fadden award, presented annually to the Harvard athlete who has overcome the most physical hardship to contribute to his team (last year's winner was Julie Cornman) or just the memories of those whom he has touched, John Patrick Fadden is a beloved part of Harvard athletics. Perhaps the highest tribute came from former Crimson quarterback Jim Kubacki, a Fadden award winner, who said once that "every athlete at Harvard should get hurt, so they can get to know Jack Fadden.