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If the four men who compose this year's University pivot material measure up to their potential possibilities, or even to their past achievements, Coach Arnold Horween '20 should find little to worry about in the way the center assignment is carried out this season. With two University veterans of proved worth, a consistent first year performer, and a last year's second team star all available the Crimson coaches have an unusual amount of center material to chaw on in building up the 1927 University line.
R. W. Turner '28 has the first call on the team A position, and barring injuries, should be in at the kick-off in all the major Crimson contests this fall. Turner first broke into sporting headlines two years ago when he rose toward the end of the season to first string ranks, and in the desperate Crimson defense against a more powerful Yale eleven which brought forth the famed 0.0 tie of that year he stood out as the moot stalwart of all barriers in the path of the Eli progress.
Turner played football before coming to Harvard at Worcester Academy where he was a strong though not particularly brilliant performer. As a Freshman in the University, however, he was unable to play football. At the beginning of the next fall he was retained on the University squad but was not regarded as a very likely first team prospect. For several weeks he substituted in the center berth and then came the 34-0 defeat at the hands of Princeton. A complete shake-up resulted in the Crimson ranks, and Turner who had shown up to great advantages in a relief role was advanced to first team rating. In the subsequent victory over Brown he fully vindicated the coaches judgement in giving him the regular berth. A week later against Yale he reached new and unhoped for heights.
Every where in the thick of that tenacious battle to hold back a seemingly irresistible Eli machine. Turner was to be seen dropping Blue jerseyed runners, breaking up Yale interference, and batting down dangerous passes. When the final whistle had blown with the Bulldog still growling in front of the Crimson goal posts. Turner shared the chief honors of the day with Captain M. A. Cheek '26.
Last year Turner was forced to join the ineligibles because of scholastic difficulties. This fall, cleared of all academic entanglements, he is ready to resume his position of the late 1925 encounters. Despite his 195 pounds Turner is one of the fastest line men on the University squad and is particularly effective when playing out of the line, a style ofcenter play becoming more and more imperative with the increasing openness of attack now in vogue.
Turner's leading understudy at present is Dudley Bell '28. Bell captained his Freshman team and, after a year's lay off on account of ineligibility, was first substitute pivot last year. His playing improved greatly as the season progressed last fall and he became a strong rival to E. D. Gamache '27, star pivot of the eleven. Bell is a powerful defense player and an accurate passer. In addition to the two veterans mentioned above the University coaches have A. B. Bigelow '30, a strong and consistent performer on last year's Freshman eleven, and B. H. Dorman '29, first scrub center last November to fall back on Dorman was alternate pivot on his Freshman team two years ago, but last year at the beginning of the season he was started in the class ranks. Here his playing soon attracted the coaches attention, he was promoted to the Seconds and by the end of the season was he regular Second team center.
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