Home Town Boys

As the hot dog salesmen at today's Harvard-Davidson football game will attest, there is nothing worse than an empty seat. And the 30,000-odd empty seats which will line the inside of the Harvard Stadium today are testimonial not to Davidson's winless record or afternoon parietal rules, but instead to just poor scheduling. The seats will be vacant as they were against Ohio University because only 10,000 people are interested in watching such a football game. Undergraduates will attend primarily because of the free ticket plan; the absence of young ladies, however, may make the Saturday night dining hall look about as crowded as a Sunday morning breakfast.

The Harvard fan, and the more vociferous subway alumnus who might ordinarily be counted on to help fill the Stadium just aren't interested in intersectional contests like today's game. They want to see the varsity play some local school, such as Boston University or Boston College. Two months ago only a derisive sneer and a clenched fist would have met that suggestion, for both had been playing big name football teams. But while B.U., now the owner of Braves Field, seems apparently headed for stronger opponents and bigger gates, B.C. has just announced a policy of de-emphasis.

A Harvard-Boston College game would be a natural rivalry, one that could match Princeton and Yale for spectator interest and fill the Stadium to its 40,000 capacity. Certainly B.C. with low pressure athletic policy, a lighter schedule, and high admissions standards is close to Ivy Colleges, and probably purer than some of the non-Ivy colleges now on the varsity schedule. Davidson openly offers athletic scholarships, while Ohio University will accept any athlete who applies. The addition of Boston College to the schedule might help community relations, removing some of the resentment caused by the current hands-off policy which is written down in local newspapers as Harvard snobbery.

While the obstacle of greatly different athlete admissions standards has been removed by the B.C. announcement, local authorities still fear the possibility of a post-game riot. Post-game riots, however, start more easily in small, congested arcas like a basketball or hockey arena where feeling has run high, and B.C. has played Harvard in both places without trouble.

Outside of improving undergraduate interest, the game and its resultant full Stadium would cut an athletic deficit which at the last announcement had reached a new high. Scheduling on a purely business basis would hurt the College's athletics badly, but if other factors are the same and student interest would be improved, there is no reason for barring B.C. from the Harvard schedule.

The schedule is now complete for the next two years, but by 1956 the B.C. deemphasis will have been in effect for two years and a game with Boston College, coupled with a strong seven game Ivy schedule will make an appealing eight game slate, something better than a schedule of nine games, two of which are played to an empty Stadium.