Though he came to college riding a dream of being a football hero, Dutch failed to make the Varsity travelling team his first year. He was one of 26 players to not make the team that year. He continued to practice with the team, acting as the opposition in practices and he sat the bench during home games, giving pep speeches. The 1928 team picture shows 25 players wearing the varsity jersey, Dutch is wearing a white sweatshirt.

His sophomore year he made the travelling team but still could not get into the starting lineup. Until a rainy day practice. Coach MacKenzie wanted Dutch, as offensive guard, to block the defensive halfback before he could touch their running back. The assistant coach who volunteered to be the defensive half dared Dutch to take him down. Taking the dare, Dutch hit the assistant coach with such fury that the coach flew into the air and landed on his backside a few feet back.

The demonstration earned Dutch a starting spot he would retain for his three remaining seasons at Eureka.

Size, however, was always a problem for Dutch. "I never thought seriously about retiring from the ... mayhem," he recalled, "but I managed to time my charge so that I was in one of the upper layers of bodies. The lure of sweat and action always pulled me back to the game - despite the fact that I was a scrawny, undersized, underweight nuisance, who insisted on getting in the way of the more skillful (such as my brother). As a result, I had a collection of the largest purplish-black bruises possible. More than once, I must have been a walking coagulation.

Those were the happiest times of my life."

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