art_dickrauchthecoach

    If you can picture a cool, stiff, hard plugging pupil of the famous Hugo
Bezdek spending his time studying ornithology, then you have a picture of
the coach of the Pottsville Maroons-- Richard (Dick) Rauch.
     That is just exactly what Dick Rauch does. All fall you will find him
plugging away getting this or that team in shape, scouting a bit here and there
and then as soon as his work is done he trots off to some barren frozen land
of ice and snow to study birds and their habits.
     The study of the bird is one big hobby with the Pottsville Maroons coach.
He has traveled throughout the west, into the far north of Alberta, New
Brunswick, Labrador and far into the Yukon, all to be at close range to birds, to
study them in their native haunts.
     Dick Rauch, besides being an ornithologist and football player and coach,
is a steel worker, an electrician and a graduate electrical engineer. Dick has
felt hard work and the real he-man kind too. For six years he labored in a
steel mill.
     The capital of our state is the place Dick calls home. It was there that he
was born, and the place where his folkds reside. Dick went to Harrisburg
Tech, entering there in 1906. He did not make the team until his senior year,
which was in 1909. He played center on that team.
     After being graduated from Harrisburg, he worked in the electrical mind
to go to college but was unable. Instead, he went to work in the Pennsylvania
Steel Mills at Harrisburg. He worked in the electrical department for six years.
     Then Dick decided to continue his education, and in 1916 entered Beth-
lehem Prep to brush up in mathematics so as to get sufficient credits to enter
State College. At Bethlehem Prep, Rauch was a three letter man, making the
grade in football, basketball and track. He played center on the football team,
guard in the cage game, and was in the 100 yard dash and weights in track.
     In 1916 Rauch entered State College and it was there that his real football
education began under the strict Hugo Bezdek. Rauch is a student of football--
it is just as much a study to him as is ornithology. He captained and played end
on the Freshman team. The following year he landed a berth at end for those
varsity and played the entire season in that position. At the end of the grid
season he joined the U.S. Army being placed in the ordinance department and
stationed at Pig Point, Va. He was discharged from the Army in August 1919,
and returned to school.
     That year Rauch started at center playing about half the year in that pos-
ition, and then was put in at guard. His place at center was taken by Larry
Conover, and Rauch and Duke Osborn were at guards in the east. He conti-
ued to play guard his last year 1929, with the exception of the last four games,
when he was shifted to tackle.
     They thought so much of Rauch up at State they did not want to see him
leave college and retained him as assistant coach in 1921. Dick learned a lot
from Bezdek that year and he improved himself a lot. In fact, so much did
he show promise that he was signed to coach the line at Michigan State Aggies
the next year. he also coached swimming at Michigan, being an expert
swimmer, among other things, and an examiner in the American Red Cross.
     In 1923, Rauch went to Colgate to coach the line and they liked him so
well over there that they gave him a contract for the following year. He could
have returned there this year and had a contract from that university, when he
accepted the Pottsville offer, and says that he has not regretted it in the least.
     One of the things Dick is a shark on in football, is scouting. He did the
scouting in every college he served.