Pete Lembo shares condolences for Buddy Teevens, recalls time at Dartmouth

South Carolina special teams coordinator Pete Lembo worked his way up from the FCS ranks before getting to the SEC. Along the way, he spent time as an assistant coach at Dartmouth.

Recently, legendary Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens died due to injuries he sustained after being hit by a truck while riding his bike. Lembo and Teevens never directly crossed paths while at Dartmouth. However, Lembo did share his thoughts on Teevens’ passing.

“It’s very sad, very sad,” Lembo said. “Dartmouth is a really special place to me. We spent three years up there and three of the best years in coaching for me, just being around some really special people. We were a close-knit staff and athletic department.”

Pete Lembo was a tight ends coach at Dartmouth from 1994 through the 1996 season. In that final season, the Big Green went unbeaten and won the Ivy League.

“So, I worked for a guy named John Lyons, who was Buddy Teevens’ defensive coordinator, and when Buddy got the Tulane job, John took over. Then I came in John’s second year, after his rookie season. So, it was a closely connected staff and a lot of great stories about their experiences.”

Lembo left Dartmouth to become an offensive coordinator and by 2001, he was the head coach at Lehigh. It was around the end of his time with Lehigh and his move to Elon that Buddy Teevens returned to Dartmouth.

“Then, later on, when I was the head coach at Lehigh at a young age, Buddy ended up back at Dartmouth, and we talked a few times, and he was a guy that really tried to contribute a lot to the game in his own way. Some of his views were a little bit different with tackling in practice. He’s famous for creating this robotic tackling dummy that people have used, and some different rules in the Ivy League, and so forth.”

As Lembo explained, Teevens gave a ton of his life to Dartmouth, a place that meant a ton to him and still means a lot to Lembo.

“So, you always respect people that take so much pride in what they do and want to give back to the game, and he gave a lot back to Dartmouth. It’s rare that you see somebody end up being the head coach at a place twice in their career. He was a great player there as well, and I know his heart was very much at Dartmouth, and he spent I believe upwards of 20 years of his career there,” Lembo said.

“So, very grateful for that, as somebody who cares a lot about that program and still has a lot of really dear relationships with people up in Hanover.”

Buddy Teevens left a massive legacy

Buddy Teevens got into coaching after playing quarterback at Dartmouth in the 1970s. By 1985, he was the head coach at Maine, where he spent two seasons before becoming the head coach at Dartmouth. He was there until 1991 when he went to Tulane. Later, he coached at Stanford before returning to Dartmouth in 2005.

Teevens is best known for his time at Dartmouth, leading the Big Green to five Ivy League titles and a 117-101-2 record there. As such, he’s the school’s all-time leader in wins. His five Ivy League titles are second most in school history.

As Pete Lembo noted, Teevens became known for several innovations in the game with player safety in mind. That included the “Mobile Virtual Player,” a tackling dummy that was designed to limit the number of collisions players suffered in practice.

Buddy Teevens was getting ready to return as Dartmouth’s coach for the 2023 season when he suffered a spinal injury while riding his bicycle. After battling his injuries for several months, he died in Boston at the age of 66.

Dartmouth will host Lehigh on Saturday.