Ruminations of a “Faculty Brat”

AS RECALLED BY JIM FULLERTON ’58

Coach Fullerton joined the Northwood faculty in 1931, and I was born in late 1940. Due to WWII, I never knew “Coach” until he returned from overseas in 1946. Mom prepared Joan, my older sister, and me to enthusiastically welcome home our hero. She stressed he would be attired in an Army officer’s uniform. The doorbell rang and I scooted to open the door and leapt upon the uniformed entrant. He turned out to be a taxi driver with an appropriate cap.

Until 1951, we lived tucked behind Huttlinger House, by St. Agnes church. To be close to the action at school, Coach built a home later to be occupied by the Friedlander family and now Mr. Broderick. A few years ago, during an ECAC tournament, I was quartered at Huttlinger House and learned a Northwood-connected family was living in our former residence.

During those years, Northwood’s culture was driven by Ira and Bertha Flinner in the manner of Britain’s renowned public schools. It was a close fit to Melvil Dewey’s Lake Placid Club standards for decorum, plus. Faculty were not to be dating in public, smoking, drinking or anything that might reflect negatively on the school. Imagine all those being taboo. Dad met his wife-to-be in Placid, but marriage during the school year was out of the question, so off to Saranac Lake to elope in mid-winter, 1935. He remained a faculty floor proctor through the school year. As children, we knew we could be seen but never heard.

Before matriculating as a 2nd former I romped around the campus, observing football and soccer (shoveling snow off fields was a regular occurrence), learned of Dad’s passion for hockey, attended basketball games in what is now the library, learned rudiments of skiing at Whitney, watched students jumping at Intervale, spent the bulk of my free time playing shinny at (the Lake Placid) Club’s hockey boxes often with other students, and in the short spring season while swatting black flies and digging out from mud, I followed students playing baseball, track, tennis, golf, and crew. Access to all Lake Placid facilities was a supreme benefit.

We had other faculty brats such as Jamie Murphy and Bo Deek’s boys; enough for six-man football. Then Mo Hunt, the new Headmaster, arrived with his two daughters and our boy’s world changed forever.

Northwood had its share of quirkiness. Most visible was the transport of students to the Arena. Until 1954, the Grey Ghost, an antique Mack bus then of great proportions and stability was in use. In 1954 the school acquired a used yellow Studebaker bus, possibly the only one to come out of the factory. In the early ’50s, Coach was driving the Grey Ghost to practice and the brakes failed (his excuse) to perform as the bus roared down Northwood Road, turned a sharp left on Mirror Lake Drive and smacked into a snowbank. Undeterred, all hands pushed the mirage out and practice held. Later, in a Studebaker taking the hockey team to Canton, Coach was suddenly sightless west of Saranac Lake when its hood popped up blinding “bussy”. With plenty of tape to hold down the hood and off we continued. Though somewhat shaken, Coach remained in charge. Another strange vehicle, the “scrag wagon”, was an early ’50’s 11/12 seater wood International. Anyone seated more than one row behind the driver froze their feet and other extremities, it sure does get frigid in the mountains. “Character building,” as Coach would elucidate.

More quirkiness — Northland Pro hockey sticks always had Northwood markings to help curtail theft and to give players an advantage by identifying friendly sticks by blue paint from blade heel up 12” on the shaft.

As a student I recall Bo Deeks teaching the ancient Latin language. As a 2nd former I lasted less than a week. Too immature to handle a classic. Next up was Dave Hicks’ French class — hockey’s second language at the time. Speaking French, Mr. Hicks welcomed our class of four. That was okay but as a 13-year-old trying to understand the real difference in genders, I was astonished by the fact French words can be masculine or feminine. Oh!? Really? Took a while for our joint frustration to come to terms.

Some real old timers may recall Herb Gutterson, a new Northwood faculty member in 1948. Years later I sat in Mr. Gutterson’s English class at another of my schools; I attended two private and two public over a five-year span. The Lawrenceville Tournament bored me as I’d participated in it four of five years at two schools.

The dog’s life was personified by Coach Fullerton’s German Shepherds. These playful purebreds enjoyed nipping ski tips, chasing soccer balls, and above all being between opposing football linemen on the gridiron. Occasionally other faculty mutts, like John Howard’s two hunting dogs, came on the scene. A cab driver ran over one of our puppy shepherds leaving my distraught sister to arrive home screaming in despair and the cabby zooming off into the dark behind the school kitchen. One bad memory tucked away.

Spring sports were usually marred by black flies and the late arrival of decent weather. Likewise, fall sports could be shortened with heavy wet snow. Crew in 1954 had to walk the shells into the near ice-crusted water of Mirror Lake as the dock was deemed unsafe. Brr.

The big sport was and is hockey. It was played before Coach Fullerton arrived in ’31. In 1936 Northwood established the first prep school tournament with eight schools participating. Northwood won the first two Lawrenceville tournaments and was not invited back so tournaments resumed in the early 50’s. Counting 1931/’32, then hiatus during war years, and resuming and up to the ’54/’55 season, Northwood won an outstanding 86% of games including 7 of 11 Northwood Tournaments. In ’53 Belmont Hill came to town to show the mountain boys how to play hockey. Their team included two Cleary boys, Bob and Bill, who later starred at

Harvard and helped win Olympic Gold at Squaw Valley in 1960. Perched high in the Arena was the boy’s father, who assumed Belmont Hill would crush Northwood. A lesson was learned by the Boston boys as they suffered a huge defeat. A little humility and respect for an opponent works wonders.

Hockey had one difficult moment when goalie Jim Hurst of Burrillville, RI, a player who my sister was infatuated with, took a blue line shot to his mouth. I was standing behind the team bench and can still see the shot lined up to Jim’s kisser. Our backup goalie had never played before yet courageously entered the game. Masks were not in vogue and the two-piece helmet was nearly useless as I learned in Lawrenceville following a concussion, amazed to learn I had scored a goal. All a blank. Mouth guard? Chewing gum?

Can anyone name another secondary school that had two coaches inducted to the US Hockey Hall of Fame? Take pride in the legacy. It has only become better but had to start sometime.