Egg in Your Beer

Pick a headline any Boston sports page's football headline early in the yearend if it's optimiable, it'll be about the "great" Harvard freshman football team. This year, last year, any year, it'll say, "They're strong, They're fast;" According to the sports writers, "Harvard is building for the future."

It's unfair to say these august gentlemen are perennially mistaken. In 1948, for example, when 111 men reported to Henry Lamar for the first week of practice, he said, "This current squad is one of the best I've ever had." That included 16 years of local coaching and presumably, Mr. Lamar wasn't fooling.

From the viewpoint of 1947, '48, or '49, 1950 is the future; this year could have been the year they were taking about. Where, then, are the titans that are supposed to appear?

Some of them are out on the football field, scrimmaging three times a week for Mr. Jordan. Others are conspicously absent.

The first team that comes up for inspection is the '51 eleven, which played in 1947. The team won four of its six games and amassed 146 points. Three of the outstanding members of this team, Bonder, Jim Lowell, Nick Callahan, have accelerated and Ed Stearns, star quarterback, has enlisted in the Air Corps. Three others, John White, Carl Botten-field, and Bob DiBlasio are unable to play because of injuries. There are a couple more who just aren't playing, and even one who transferred to the B.U. School of Physical Education.

The roster of '52 includes two names which immediately strike the eye, Bill Fitzpatrick and Charley Walsh. Injuries and other interests have taken a heavy toll when they include a man who ran 75 yards for a touchdown against Yale and a man who was strong both offensively and defensively.

A man was lost to the draft from the '53 lineup, two others to academic strains and a third to a swimming pool. Others, of course, decided not to play football.

Sixteen men have been listed here in passing. They once were headlines.