Ralph Renzi '43

When Sports Information Director Dick Quinn asked me to dash off my recollections of coaches at Williams I decided to limit them to what I knew from personal experience—four years of football and two of wrestling.

A. Barr 'Whoops' Snively was coaching freshman football back in 1939 when I trekked up from Pittsfield to Williamstown. Whoops was a father figure, with his slow, deliberate style of speaking, concentrating all of his attention on you; left arm around your shoulders, right hand gesticulating to underscore a point.

I remember that first practice on Cole Field, at the end of a scorching hot August day, with drills that had drained our energy. It wasn't much later we learned that Whoops favorite dictum was, "It doesn’t help until it hurts." The squad was gathered at the near end of Cole Field at the bottom of the hill below Cole Field House, where the outdoor hockey rink was located. Whoops lined us up and said, "When I snap this ball, I want you all to sprint to the far end of this field. Let‘s see who can be first."

I gave it all I had and managed to beat the pack, before collapsing, sweat streaming from all pores. That’s when he startled us: "Now let’s line up again. This is a race back to where we started." Unbelieveable! No, I wasn’t first—I had shot my bolt. At that point Whoops complimented us and said, "Now you can go to the showers," which were up the steep hill near where the run had started. It was many minutes before the hardiest even twitched. And we learned to love him.

Snively served as the head coach of three sports at Williams before moving on to the University of New Hampshire in 1948. He coached the Ephs' ice hockey team from 1932-48; men's Before the UNH Wildcats built the Whittemore Center they played their home ice hockey games in the A. Barr 'Whoops' Snively Arena.

Then there was Charley Caldwell of Princeton fame, a poker-faced gentleman who had mastered football to a science. Caldwell played football as a center, fullback and linebacker and was a baseball pitcher at Princeton, graduating in 1924. He pitched three games for the New York Yankees and when his baseball playing days ended he began coaching at Williams in 1928. He coached Eph baseball, basketball and football. Until Dick Farley arrived on the scene Caldwell was the all-time leader in wins at Williams with 76. He went 76-37-6 as the head coach of the Ephs from 1928-1942.

Under Caldwell no motion was wasted. On our kickoff, for instance, you were given a number—counting from left to right. That was your man to block. It didn’t matter how many of the opposing team members were closer -- your task was to block that guy only. I forget the game, but recall vividly, lollygagging down the field and losing sight of my man. We ended up returning the ball to midfield for pretty good field position. On Monday I learned that midfield was not quite good enough for Caldwell. We all gathered to see the game films, and Charley stopped the film and said, "I ran this film back and forth checking every man. The only one I couldn’t account for was Renzi. You missed your block, didn’t you?" What could I say—it would have been a touchdown from the kickoff if I had made the block.

Charley also applied his science to punt returns, with amazing success. We seldom ground out touchdowns; most were breakaway plays resulting from his applied science. I recall one favorite play, which started around the left but cut back to go through my position. I simply moved forward and braced myself. When my opponent tried to compensate for his over-shift he had to stretch over me while our carrier sped past, agonizingly beyond reach.

Summed up, it was love for Whoops, respect for Charley.

This was apparent at the last squad meeting of my two seasons with Snively and Caldwell, each of which ended with humiliating losses to Amherst. Whoops had convened us for a recap of the 1939 freshman season. He quietly thanked us all, singling us out individually, for doing a great job despite our loss. Many of us were bent forward, hands shielding faces, furtively wiping away tears. We had failed Whoops!

In 1942 our season again ended with a loss to Amherst—after opening with a win over Princeton – denying us the first perfect season in Williams football history. We straggled into the locker room, returned our equipment, and went our separate ways. We were sorry to have lost, but there was no emotional climax involving Charley.

In 1961 Caldwell was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (South Bend, IN) after leading Princeton to a record of 70-30-3 from 1945-1965, giving him a career record of 146-67-9.

My other coach memory is of 'Uncle Ed' Bullock in wrestling. Shortly after freshman football ended, at my compulsory gym class, Uncle Ed said, "You are strong and fast. I’d like you to come out for wrestling." He was a coach; how could I say no?

My first practice match was against a classmate who had been a 140-pound champ at his prep school.

Not having any wrestling knowledge, I tackled him; but I didn’t know any pinning holds, so all I could do was lie on him. The incident so discombobulated him that, from then on, he never was able to defeat me.

I hated wrestling. During my second season I used brute strength, to reverse my position, and pulled a cartilage on the right-hand side of my rib cage…a lump I still carry. When I reported it to Uncle Ed he said, "That’s nothing, I have two—one on each side." I responded, "You win the competition -- I quit!"

Bullock coached wrestling at Williams from 1924-60 and won three New England titles. He also coached soccer from 1924-56 and in 1937 he coached the Eph tennis team. He retired from Williams in 1960.

Ralph Renzi '43 was captain of freshman football and runner-up for most valuable player his senior year. Renzi worked at the Berkshire Eagle, served as the News Director at Williams from 1952-67; owned and operated Renzi's Bookstore on Spring Street for 16 years and from 1981 until July of 2004 he penned a popular weekly column "Street talk" for the Advocate. He e gave Dick Quinn a 2 x 3-foot poster of his Williams idol Jay Healy '68 and Quinn has never forgotten that kindness.