College Football Hall of Fame coach Dick Farley, not known for
handing out compliments during his storied tenure at Williams,
opened his appreciative remarks at a dinner in his honor in Lasell
Gym last November hours after the Ephs blanked Amherst 20-0 on
Weston Field, with a compliment.
Farley's legendary career at Williams was being recognized by
nearly 300 former Eph players, coaches, friends, and family, but as
always Farley put everything into perspective when the cheering
stopped and it was time for him to speak.
Farley opened his remarks by saying, "Chris Suits is here and I'd
like to ask him to stand up. That's what a Rhodes Scholar looks
like." It was a matter of fact statement, one of countless ones
uttered by Farley at Williams, but the message it carried covered
all of Lasell Gym. As dedicated as Dick Farley was to preparing his
Eph teams to perform to their full potential – he knows that
at Williams College academics always comes first. You don't get
admitted to Williams to play football if you are not a strong
student first.
Chris Suits '81 is one of 18 Eph varsity athletes who have earned a
Rhodes Scholarship and one of 36 Ephs overall.
"I'd never seen Williams nor even been within a couple hundred
miles of it before arriving in September 1977," said Suits.
"I wanted a good small school in the East."
Suits came to Williams on the recommendation of a friend of one of
his relatives who had a father who had graduated from Williams. It
was not a short trip. Suits grew up in Ellensburg, Wash., an
agricultural town of about 10,000.
As a junior high school student Suits saw Bill Bradley of the New
York Knicks playing on TV and he learned how Bradley had won a
Rhodes Scholarship. He decided that he would make that one of his
goals.
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| Chris Suits '81
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Suits majored in both the history of ideas and classics at
Williams where he encountered two of his favorite professors. The
class on Homer's Odyssey (Greek 401) in the spring of his sophomore
year taught by Meredith Hoppin was his favorite Williams class.
Greek professor John Stambaugh became his favorite professor.
"Stambaugh was a very humane man, great teacher, and scholar,"
noted Suits.
Suits still stays in contact with Professor Hoppin and visited her
last November while back for the 2007 Amherst game and Homecoming
festivities. It was Hoppin who recently assisted Suits in making a
career change.
After years as a partner in Deep Springs Capital Partners, a
private partnership engaged in operational and financial advisory
services based in Washington, D.C., and Denver, Suits had decided
to pursue a degree in religion with the hopes of writing and
teaching religion. Hoppin served as a reference for Suits on his
application to Columbia University, where he enrolled this
fall.
"He was a Jekyll and Hyde kind of kid," said Dick Farley. "He
didn't project the usual football player image off the field with
his studious looks, but on the field he was tough and aggressive
and quite vocal. He made all of our calls in the secondary and was
a three-year starter at safety."
"You knew he was serious about whatever he did at Williams by
watching how much time he put into watching film of our opponents
on his own," said Farley.
For a coach like Dick Farley who always had his football team
prepared from hour upon hour of reviewing game film, old game
plans, and copious notes to notice that a player was looking at a
lot of film and analyzing the game in detail gives you an
appreciation of how dedicated Suits was to performing well in
whatever he did.
Suits's plan of earning the most prestigious of scholarships
– the Rhodes -- almost did not come to pass. Candidates for a
Rhodes Scholarship can choose to be interviewed in their home state
by the state committee or in the state where they attend
college.
The Rhodes process has two stages -- a written application and an
in-person interview. The written application required a short
"intellectual biography", which Suits called, "the hardest part."
Actually getting to the in-person interview proved to be harder
than expected. "I almost missed my interview in Seattle because of
weather," recalled Suits. "SeaTac [Seattle/Tacoma Airport] was
fogged/snowed in the day I was supposed to leave. I made it to the
interview with about 30 minutes to spare after coming all the way
across the country." The Rhodes decisions were made at the end of
the same day as to who would represent the State of Washington for
further consideration, so there was no way to re-schedule.
Fortunately for Suits the weather cooperated.
While at England's University of Oxford Suits studied Russian
literature, including all the history, language, philology, etc.
needed to get at it, which seems like quite a lot, because it
is.
"I still remember Dick Farley's credo: 'The easy way [trying
to avoid a block by the fullback at the corner] is usually the
wrong way.' It covers a lot of ground off the field too,"
states Suits.
Suits had drawn some interest from an NFL scout his senior year,
but by his own assessment he was not a serious threat to play at
that level. He was by then a key member of the Eph defense as a
three-year starter and the call leader of the secondary.
Suits's Eph football highlight came in his senior year in the game
at Amherst, which he feels helps erase a mistake he made in the JV
game his freshman year vs. the Lord Jeffs. Suits always felt bad
that he gave up a game-winning TD in that first year contest.
He turned the tables on the Lord Jeffs though in his senior year
when they Ephs were leading 7-3 early in the third quarter with
Amherst driving. Eight straight plays by Amherst gained yardage and
they now had the ball on the Eph 5-yard line and on the verge of
taking the lead and establishing momentum.
The Lord Jeffs tried to fool the Ephs with a play-action pass.
Perhaps the Amherst coach who called the play did not know he was
going to try and fool a future Rhodes scholar or a player on the
Ephs team that had watched film after film of the Amherst offense
just to be ready for – everything.
The Amherst QB lofted a pass to the corner of the end zone that by
design was supposed to be wide open, but what the ball found was a
perfectly timed run by Chris Suits who picked the ball off to
preserve the Eph lead. "The years of drilling and films to get a
good read on the guards paid off," said Suits. "An offensive tackle
at Amherst told me later it was the only gutsy call their coach
made all year." Gutsy yes, effective no.
Chris Suits and the Ephs walked off Amherst's Pratt Field with a
10-3 win.
