South Mountaineer Volume 20, Issue 25

              Vol. 20 — No. 25
APRIL 18, 1978
BETHLEHEM, PA.
Trackmen Defeat Eight Opponents,
Set Sights On Outdoor Championship
Carew Corporation
Constructing ACC
SRD Havekottef Jarrell, Hellek jaer
Program   (    Establish Engineer Records
The Carew Corporation, of
York, Pa., has been selected to
design and construct Lehigh's
new $3.7 million Athletic and
Convocation Center in the Saucon
Fields athletic complex.
Preliminary work on the
structure already is underway.
The Athletic and Convocation
Center will be used for commencements, concerts,
theatrical productions, basketball and wrestling,  and  other
Women 9-2
Lehigh women's athletic teams
are moving toward another
successful season with nine
victories in their first 11 starts.
Tennis opened with four
triumphs in four appearances
while softball was 3-1 and
lacrosse 2-1.
major events. It will have 6,000
seats with space for team areas,
storage and news media
facilities, and adequate lighting
for color television productions.
E. Bruce Hirschman, vice
president of Carew,- says his
corporation's design ^ and construction responsibilities include
the entire basic structure;
foundation, steel framework, roof
and walls. He says that except for
some custom framing and floor
decking, most of the construction
is a standard Carew Systems
Building, which will be
manufactured at the .York plant
and shipped by truck to
Bethlehem.
Humphreys and Harding, Inc.,
New York, N.Y., is construction
manager for the Athletic and
Convocation Center.
May 8
Annual Student
Recognition Day
ceremonies, at which
Lehigh men and women
are honored for academic
and athletic achievements,
are scheduled Monday,
May 8.
Flagpole awards begin
the day's festivities at 11
a.m. on the campus green
in front of the University
Center. In case of rain the
ceremony will be held in
Packard Lab auditorium.
The SRD evening
banquet is scheduled for
Grace Hall. This is a move
from Windish Hall where
recent SRD dinners have
been held.
Lehigh trackmen, their sights
set upon the 1978 East Coast
Conference outdoor championship, have defeated eight opponents without a loss since
returning from a spring vacation
training trip to Bermuda.
Coach John Covert's squad,
which won ECC indoor honors at
Philip Rauch Field House last
February, shoots for the outdoor
crown May 5-6 at West Chester
State College.
The Engineers began their
schedule rolling up 149 points in a
seven-team meet on the Saucon
Valley Fields in which Columbia
had 123, East, Stroudsburg 88,
Temple 87, Bloomsburg 82, Colgate 78 and Trenton State 8.
This was followed by victory in
a triangular at West Chester in
which the Engineers scored 87
points against; 70 for the host
Rams and 35 for Bucknell. All
three of these squads are expected to be among the contenders in May 5-6 title competition.
Two Lehigh records fell during
the Bermuda trip. Junior Tom
Havekotte, of Smithtown, N.Y.,
did 6-8 in the high jump to better a
mark of 6-7 set by Bob Planker in
1970 and Gene (Buddy) Jarrell, of
Media, Pa., hurled the javelin
229-11 to top a standard of 227
established by John Vargo just
last year.
Still another record toppled last
weekend in the C.W. Post Relays
as Dave Hellekjaer of
Washington, D.C, reached 165-7
in the discus to surpass a mark of
161-4 established by John
Dlengwarth in 1964. His heave
gave him third place in an event
won by four-time Olympic
champion Al Oerter, of the New
(Continued on Page 2)
Atlanta Writer Profiles Whitehead
(The following column was
written by Furman Bisher, sports
editor of the Atlanta, Ga.,
Journal-Constitution, where it
appeared Feb. 26 following an
NCAA football preview at Kansas
City attended by John Whitehead,
Lehigh, other leading coaches,
and top college football writers
across the nation. The Journal-
Constitution is one of the country's best papers with a Sunday
circulation in excess of 500,000. A
similar column, authored by
Bisher, also was featured in The
Sporting News.)
KANSAS CITY — Once you
discover this is about an institution more noted for wrestlers
and engineers than football, don't
quit yet.
Though its center of student
frenzy is a place called Grace
Hall, where the wrestling teams
create the stir, and the football
stadium seats only 17,000 and is
seldom filled more than twice a
year, and the big rival is
Lafayette, give it a chance.
Lehigh University is a campus
aged with dignity and located in
the industrial community of
Bethlehem, Pa. The student body
averages about 3,000 males, 4,000
overall. Lehigh's main purpose in
life is to graduate engineers. In
Atlanta, it is mainly known for
the production of a quarterback,
Kim McQuilken of the Falcons.
Its national championships ran to
wrestling until last season, which
leads up to John Whitehead.
At first glance, John Whitehead
appears to be a jolly chef who has
nibbled much of his own wares.
In a forum of coaches famed as
Joe Paterno, Paul Bryant, Barry
Switzer, Billy Dooley and Emory
Ballard, he's a "whozzat guy?"
The story goes that he came
from Indian blood that originated
in Oklahoma. His grandfather
came drifting through the East
ages ago dropping off a member
of his clan here and there, one of
the dropees being John's father,
who became a coal miner in
Summit Hill, Pa. When John was
four, his father fell down a mine
shaft and was killed, leaving 10
children. When John was 10, his
mother died, and he spent the
rest of his boyhood in an orphanage.
East Stroudsburg State is just
another line of small type in the
Sunday football scores, overshadowed even by Slippery Rock
and Juniata. That was John
Whitehead's alma mater, four
years a varsity center there. Two
years on the line with the
Shenandoah Presidents of the
Penn Pro League failed to spring
him from the vagueness of the
"little world."
Twelve years he coached
around the high school leagues
and finally landed at Lehigh as an
assistant 11 years ago. When the
head coach left for the excitement of Colgate—the U., not
Palmolive-Peet—he became
Head Coach Whitehead of
Lehigh.
"After racking balls in a pool
hall, and life in an orphanage, I
was head coach at Lehigh
University," he said, standing
among the all-star cast of
coaching stars appearing at the
NCAA's second "College Football
Preview." "After I leave here, at
least maybe you'll know where
Lehigh is and how to spell it."
John Whitehead qualified for
his invitation the hard way.
Overcoming its dedication to
higher goals, Lehigh stands today
the national champion of what
the NCAA designates as Division
II football. Division II means the
budget is small, scholarships
few—in Lehigh's case, none—
fame miniscule, and Kim
McQuilkens rare and far between.
"Our   recruiting   budget   is
South Mountaineer
Editor—Joe Whritenour
The South Mountaineer Is edited
by Lehigh's OFFICE OF PUBLIC
INFORMATION, Sam Connor '49,
Director.
Business matters, including
circulation, are directed by the
LEHIGH UNIV. ALUMNI ASSN.,
Jim Nlemeyer '43, Executive
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An alumnus may receive The
South Mountaineer upon request to
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An application for 2nd class
mailing privileges is pending at
Bethlehem, Pa., zip code 18015.
The South Mountaineer is
published five times in October, four
times in January, three times In
September, November and
February; twice in December,
March and April and once In May.
$20,000," the coach said. Notre
Dame's telephone bill is probably
larger. "We had a varsity squad
of 62 players and five fulltime
assistants, and it costs a student
about $6,700 a year to go to
Lehigh."
At the end of the season, Lehigh
had won nine of 11 games and was
flattered to be designated as a
delegate at-large to the Division
II national playoffs. Pioneers
who won the West had a better lot
than what followed for Lehigh.
The Engineers became a "road"
team in the elimination process.
First, they traveled to Massachusetts and beat the University
by a basketball score. That won
them a trip to California, where
in the suburbs of Sacramento
they beat UC-Davis, 39-30.
The prize for that was a trip to
Wichita Falls, Tex., where in the
Pioneer Bowl, righteously
named, they came head to head
against Jacksonville State of
Alabama, big, fast and the
favorite. This was for the whole
bag of beans.;, The guys from
Lehigh won it again in big
numbers. Lehigh, the guys with
horn-rimmed glasses and the
library callouses, NATIONAL
CHAMPS!
This one won John Whitehead
another trip—to Kansas City,
where on a Thursday morning he
found himself sweated at the head
table with Barry Switzer of Big
Red Oklahoma on one side and
Lavell Edwards of Brigham
Young and the air circus on the
other, and he dressed out in his
maroon blazer.
"I was a bad guy in high
school," Whitehead said to his
audience of national press, "a
pugilistic guy. College took care
of the rough edges, but winning
the national title isn't going to
change me, and it isn't going to
change anything at Lehigh."
What John Whitehead appreciates above all is the chance.
With the chance, he turns it into a
seat up front with the legends and
the coaches who are common
figures in the TV dens of
American homes. From here,
though, it's back to Lehigh
University, where engineers
come first not NFL draft choices,
and the challenge of doing it
again.
I can't help but think as I write
this, of the coach from Montana
State who sat in John Whitehead's chair here last year,
extolling the virtues of buffalo
meat and the wilderness life.
He'd won the Division II title and
his life looked booked solid for
him. Just before his season ended
last November, there came from
Montana State the surprising
announcement that Sonny
Holland had resigned. Still
winning nicely, but leaving.
Thrills, apparently, didn't come
often enough in Bozeman, Mont,
and Division II.