Help Us “Fill in the Blanks”

Written by Doug Goodnough

Did you know that the Hillsdale College baseball team had a record eight wins, eight losses, and one tie in 1913?

If you didn’t, look it up on our athletic website (like I did). You would also learn that Hillsdale won the conference championship that year under head coach Claude J. Hunt.

However, if you want to know the baseball team’s record in 1974, you’re out of luck. It’s not on the website, and a quick review of the 1974 Winona also comes up empty.

What’s my point? We have huge gaps in our athletic records, depending on the year and the sport. And I’m hoping to do something about it.

Actually, my quest began way back as an undergraduate student in the 1980s. One of my campus jobs was assisting Sports Information Director (SID) Pat Riepma, who also happened to be my baseball coach. Back then, an SID was viewed as a part-time position and usually was staffed by a full-time coach.

So student assistants like me became a vital part of the SID operation, and keeping track of statistics, game management, and record-keeping was often left to these students. I’m guessing this had been the practice for decades, before the “modern era” of college athletics ushered in the need for full-time SIDs who could dedicate the necessary time and attention to properly document and store these records. However, this temporary and transitory workforce probably led to a lot of inconsistent record-keeping practices.

In fact, during my sophomore year, I attempted to create a baseball media guide—apparently the first of its kind. When I decided to include the season and career program records, they were nowhere to be found. I asked Coach Riepma about it, and he admitted those records didn’t exist.

“If you want to have them in there, you’re going to have to look them up,” he told me.

Challenge accepted.

Over the next semester or so I spent most of my free time in the “old library,” also known as the Carr Library. That’s where most of the College’s archives were housed. I soon struck up a friendship with Dr. Jerome Fallon, who was managing the archives at the time. Most days I was probably his only visitor, and Dr. Fallon enthusiastically assisted me in my quest to build the Hillsdale baseball record book. I’m proud to say that the effort was successful and remains as a framework to this day.

Now, I’m trying to give the rest of the Chargers athletic record-keeping a boost. And I need your help. Do you have photos, rosters, stat sheets, newspaper articles, or other Hillsdale athletic information sitting in a box somewhere? If so, we would love to have it.

You can just mail it to our office (c/o Doug Goodnough, 33 E. College, Hillsdale, MI 49242), or if you have it scanned electronically, email it to me at [email protected]. Some folks have even dropped off scrapbooks or other items to our office that we can scan and return. That works, too.

This effort will hopefully assist in areas like our athletic Hall of Fame, and individual, team, and coaching records. It also allows alumni student-athletes from all sports and eras to have a full accounting of their time as Dales/Chargers.

Help us “fill in the blanks” for Hillsdale College Athletics.

Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.

Published in June 2025