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Jordan Explains His Words

Council Report Hopes Coach Will Consider Connotations More

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

Coach Lloyd P. Jordan clarified several "semantic difficulties" with his statements on athletic policy in an interview yesterday with Student Council President Richard M. Sandler '52. The Council accepted Sandler's report last night.

Sandler said that to several words and phrases "the coach attached a different connotation from that which is commonly held". In accepting the report, the Council suggested that "in the future he (Jordan) would consider a bit more carefully the accepted connotation of words."

In his conversation earlier, Jordan said that the athlete should not be penalized by some "unfounded stigma" attached to giving a scholarship to a scholar-athlete. According to Sandler, Jordan claimed this does not denote subsidization "which is generally interpreted as meaning giving scholarships and other financial aids purely on athletic prowess."

Professionals Needed

In using the term "football is big business said he did not mean attracting large gate crowds by hiring football players. He told Sandler that football management and coaching could not be done by amateurs "in an off-hand manager." To do so, Jordan said according to Sandler, "is to ignore the complexity of the operation."

The word recruiting was another "misinterpreted word." Sandler said. To Jordan, "recruiting means selling Harvard to the prospective player on its positive merits--the value of a Harvard education, the superlative athletic plant and medical facilities, etc." The Crimson coach did not mean luring player with bonuses or "promises of spending money," Sandler said.

The Council initiated the report, Sandler said, "because many students were concerned about the comments attributed to the coach by various newspapers."

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