The Sporting Scene

The easiest way to think of Arthur Valpey right now is as an eminently intelligent businessman who calculated the odds on a given situation and made the smart play. There was every reason for him to go to Connectient: his contract was due to run out next fall, he was faced with a schedule which is sure to produce few victories; and in that situation, the Provost could not be expected to guarantee a contract renewal at this early date. Valpey, being young, has to think of the future. All these considerations made the decision clear.

But Harvard will not only be losing a coach who has a keen eye for his professional future. Art Valpey has managed to build up, through a fairly dismal two year period, a respect and affection in associates that has been remarkable.

This correspondent cannot speak for the players, but in every dealing with the press Art has shown himself a rare bird indeed among the men who make their living from athletics. This has nothing to do with being willing to talk to newsmen, either professional or amateur. No coach nowadays can afford to cut himself off from the press, and the fact that Valpey realized this is in itself nothing extraordinary.

It was the way he spoke to newsmen that made the difference. From the day he arrived, he was always ready to trust the student correspondents. He never needlessly withheld information, never made a pretense of secrecy.

Showed Stature in Victory

Valpey made the greatest impression on reporters in the post-game conferences in the Field House. He was under increasing pressure this fall as each game came and went, but his manner never changed. After the Holy Cross game, when most men would have been tempted to gloat a little. Art was so quiet you might have thought he didn't care unless you had seen him come out of the dressing room a few minutes earlier. By the time he got into the press conferences and saw Bill Osmanski who had, at that time, won only one less game than Valpey there was no jubilation. And after the Army game, he was equally pleasant towards a coach whose minions had just administered the worst drubbing a Harvard team ever took, in spite of the fact that Earl Blaik seemed singularly unconcerned over the number of Crimson-shifted players that had been hauled off the field on stretchers. To this day, he will go no farther than to characterize Army as a team which "plays out the whistle better than any other I've seen."

To his successor, Valpey will leave a complete file on every Harvard game in the past two years--how many times each play was run off by each team, what formations each team used on offense and defense, which spots in which line proved most vulnerable. None of this reference material was available to him when he arrived in Cambridge two years ago; but it doesn't seem to be in Valpey's nature to leave any part of a job undone.

Those who heard his speech at the Alumni meeting the night before the Princeton game were convinced that Valpey, unlike most of the men involved in present-day football, knew that the current situation in the colleges was unhealthy. They realized that he was a man who would not be afraid to lead a college that would follow him to a saner plane of operation.

It will be difficult to find another coach who can approach Valpey's intelligence on the big questions connected with his work, for that intelligence springs from more than technical competence. There will always be amateurism in college sports as long as gentlemen like Arthur Valpey are involved.