Charles 'Tink' Gunnoe

The class of '64 produced some of the biggest athletic superstars in Harvard history, but their senior spring could best be called "That Championship Team" Season. The baseball, tennis, lacrosse and track teams all captured Greater Boston. Ivy or Eastern League titles, while golf turned in a winning record and the heavyweight crew looked like Olympic material. Depth proved essential as the Crimson won an unprecedented 79 per cent of games, meets and races.

The '64 team was the last to take any part of Ivy League lacrosse honors until the 1980 squad took the title during a phenomenal season which culminated at the National Championships.

Tink Gunnoe '64, star midfielder for the team that tied Dartmouth and Princeton for the Ivy title, recently recalled the 12-6 trouncing of Dartmouth that secured Harvard's share of the crown. "The whole team played in a way that just embarrassed the whole Dartmouth team, "he remembers, calling it a wonderful win." The victory was even sweeter for Gunnoe since his best friend from his Towson, Md. hometown and four-year collegiate foe captained the Indians that year.

The ambidextrous Gunnoe, who lived with Capt. Pete Wood in a "not completely preppy" Eliot House, until recently figured Crimson lacrosse, He notes, however, that the game was not played under the same conditions then as it is today.

The 1964 squad used wooden sticks, which tended to break and splinter. "We spent an inordinate amount of time fiber glassing and restringing them, Gunnoe says, comparing the sticks to surfboards in terms of the care and personalization they received from their owners.

Nor were they mass-produced. Coach Bruce Munro purchased the sticks from Bachrach-Raisin on the squad's annual pre-season trip to Baltimore. Bachrach-Raisin's exclusive source was an Indian tribe on an island in Canada, which maintained a corner on the American market in men's lacrosse sticks until the plastic version became preferred in recent years.

No one could be happier than Gunnoe that Briggs Cage has finally undergone its much-needed renovation. He remembers practice in the dust-storm atmosphere of the old Briggs as "awful, gruesome, grisly." Lacrosse had the 9 p.m. practice slot for one month before heading south on its spring trip. Preseason's highlight was getting out on the Business School field the day before the trip.

Gunnoe recalls this practice situation as being a real disadvantage to the team, which found itself facing Southern rivals who had the edge of weeks of outdoor practice already under their belts. "We would spend Saturday in a round robin with M.I.T., Williams, Babson, and U-Mass, discover our passing was all away, and on the next day play Navy, then the number one team in the country, Gunnoe says. The ex-lacrosse champion adds that he feels Harvard's current team is struggling with the same problem. "There's an honest to--God spring in Baltimore, but nothing in Massachusetts," he says, pointing to the 1980 squad's spring-trip loss to Johns Hopkins and the much closer game between the two in the nationals as evidence of a New England team's climate handicap.

Certain big breaks helped Gunnoe develop his lacrosse talent in high school, most conspicuously an Asian flu outbreak which "decimated" the St. Paul's 1960 varsity. "It knocked out the entire midfield." Gunnoe modestly explains, "and I started looking good." By senior year he had proved his scoring ability and looked forward to playing lacrosse in college.

In 1964 coaches did not recruit heavily for promising freshmen. Harvard coach Bruce Munro, Gunnoe recalls, "didn't recruit in any way, shape of fashion." Instead it was Associate Dean Burris Young, then an English teacher at St. Paul's who encouraged Gunnoe to apply. Ironically, Gunnoe lived in Mass Hall his first year, a members of the last class of freshman to live there before Young took up his ongoing residence there.

The class of '64 was also one of the last to graduate into a society relatively untouched by the Vietnam War. Gunnoe refers to his years as "the halcyon days, prior to the war building up...People felt they could do most anything they wanted to after graduation." There were wider possibilities for draft deferment then, before the crunch came in 1966. "Options tightened with the war, but we were full of possibilities." Gunnoe remembers.

A Social Relations concentrator, Gunnoe continued to play lacrosse for Baltimore-and Boston-area clubs, after he hung up his Crimson jersey. A Knee injury inflicted during a 1965 rugby match forced him to curb his activity, but Gunnoe still manages to run or swim nearly everyday.

Now a psychologist at Children's Hospital in Boston and in private practice, Gunnoe catches an occasional Lacrosse game at the same Business School field where he established himself as a Harvard legend. He calls the 1980 team, of which many members are returning this spring, "clearly the class of Harvard lacrosse--they looked very, very talented."

The 1964 squad used wooden sticks, which tended to break and splinter. "We spent an inordinate amount of time fiber glassing and restringing them, Gunnoe says, comparing the sticks to surfboards in terms of the care and personalization they received from their owners.

Nor were they mass-produced. Coach Bruce Munro purchased the sticks from Bachrach-Raisin on the squad's annual pre-season trip to Baltimore. Bachrach-Raisin's exclusive source was an Indian tribe on an island in Canada, which maintained a corner on the American market in men's lacrosse sticks until the plastic version became preferred in recent years.

No one could be happier than Gunnoe that Briggs Cage has finally undergone its much-needed renovation. He remembers practice in the dust-storm atmosphere of the old Briggs as "awful, gruesome, grisly." Lacrosse had the 9 p.m. practice slot for one month before heading south on its spring trip. Preseason's highlight was getting out on the Business School field the day before the trip.

Gunnoe recalls this practice situation as being a real disadvantage to the team, which found itself facing Southern rivals who had the edge of weeks of outdoor practice already under their belts. "We would spend Saturday in a round robin with M.I.T., Williams, Babson, and U-Mass, discover our passing was all away, and on the next day play Navy, then the number one team in the country, Gunnoe says. The ex-lacrosse champion adds that he feels Harvard's current team is struggling with the same problem. "There's an honest to--God spring in Baltimore, but nothing in Massachusetts," he says, pointing to the 1980 squad's spring-trip loss to Johns Hopkins and the much closer game between the two in the nationals as evidence of a New England team's climate handicap.

Certain big breaks helped Gunnoe develop his lacrosse talent in high school, most conspicuously an Asian flu outbreak which "decimated" the St. Paul's 1960 varsity. "It knocked out the entire midfield." Gunnoe modestly explains, "and I started looking good." By senior year he had proved his scoring ability and looked forward to playing lacrosse in college.

In 1964 coaches did not recruit heavily for promising freshmen. Harvard coach Bruce Munro, Gunnoe recalls, "didn't recruit in any way, shape of fashion." Instead it was Associate Dean Burris Young, then an English teacher at St. Paul's who encouraged Gunnoe to apply. Ironically, Gunnoe lived in Mass Hall his first year, a members of the last class of freshman to live there before Young took up his ongoing residence there.

The class of '64 was also one of the last to graduate into a society relatively untouched by the Vietnam War. Gunnoe refers to his years as "the halcyon days, prior to the war building up...People felt they could do most anything they wanted to after graduation." There were wider possibilities for draft deferment then, before the crunch came in 1966. "Options tightened with the war, but we were full of possibilities." Gunnoe remembers.

A Social Relations concentrator, Gunnoe continued to play lacrosse for Baltimore-and Boston-area clubs, after he hung up his Crimson jersey. A Knee injury inflicted during a 1965 rugby match forced him to curb his activity, but Gunnoe still manages to run or swim nearly everyday.

Now a psychologist at Children's Hospital in Boston and in private practice, Gunnoe catches an occasional Lacrosse game at the same Business School field where he established himself as a Harvard legend. He calls the 1980 team, of which many members are returning this spring, "clearly the class of Harvard lacrosse--they looked very, very talented."