HONOR AND PRAISE

Harvard won. On Saturday, November 20, 1937, Yale sent one of the greatest teams in its history on to the turf of Soldiers Field. That team was soundly and squarely beaten. It was beaten by eleven men and their replacements who on that day were eleven All-Americans. They were All-American football players incidentally. Primarily they are Harvard men and students, for the high esteem in which members of the team are held off the field gives proof of their "all-roundness," while as a group they boast as notable an academic record as any comparable body in College.

Harvard football teams have always been comprised of men who were primarily students and incidentally football players. In 1934 Harvard received a sound trouncing from Yale on the gridiron. Football here was at a low ebb, both with regard to achievement and morale. Then, if never before, voices from all sides insisted that with the new commercialization in college competition Harvard could not win unless some modification of the "student first" rule took effect. Perhaps not proselytism in all the materialism of the term, but some arrangement to make it easier for stars to come here. On November 26 the Crimson joined others in expressing this view.

Anybody who mounted this stand was addressing his remarks ultimately to one man, Bill Bingham. Bill Bingham had for all only one answer, No! In January, 1935, came the news of the appointment of Dick Harlow. The uninformed, not knowing much about Harlow at that time, raised their eyebrows. On January 7, the Crimson joined others in open doubting Bill Bingham's sincerity. The athletic director had only one answer, a thousand times No!

In 1935 and in 1936 Yale beat Harvard. Again earlier this year the Loreleis raised their seductive wail: "make it easier for stars to come to Harvard." Bill Bingham is a young man, one whose hairs are rapidly turning gray, one who still had only one answer, No! At 1:30 o'clock Saturday he would have said it, and he would have said it again two hours later. If he had, if he did, he was not alone. Twice 10,000 men of Harvard would join him then in one triumphant chorus, No!

To Bill Bingham and Dick Harlow, who has cooperated with his chief in every way, all honor and praise. Harvard athletic contests have been played in the past by men who were primarily students and incidentally athletes, they are so played today, and they must and shall continue to be so played.