Anatomy of a Defeat

At 14:36 of the fourth quarter in last Saturday's football game, Cornell fullback Phil Taylor took a pass from quarterback Dave McKelvey, got past two Harvard defenders, and scored on a 76-yard touchdown play that put the Big Red ahead for the first time all afternoon, 18 to 16. It hardly mattered that McKelvey passed to John Sadusky in the end zone for two more points; the varsity had lost after building up a seemingly insurmountable lead. The defeat, shocking and demoralizing in its suddenness, had a profound effect on players, coaches, and spectators that did not disappear for a long time.

The Crimson, paced by the running, passing, and receiving of halfback Chet Boulris, had raced to a 16-0 lead early in the second half. But Cornell slowly battled back. The Big Red tallied for the first time in the third quarter after an interference penalty gave them the ball deep in Harvard territory. The visitors scored again midway in the fourth period, on a 26-yard pass from McKelvey to Taylor after Crimson quarterback Charlie Ravenel had fumbled. Still, Cornell had failed on both its extra point attempts, and the varsity's 16-12 margin seemed safe enough. However, the Crimson failed to make a first down at a crucial point, and gave up the ball on the Cornell 24 with 24 seconds to play. Then the roof fell in.

Ravenel, cutting across the field diagonally, was the last man with any sort of chance to catch the fleeting Taylor. He ran doggedly, with a look of desperation on his face, and he was too late. The team dazedly lined up for the extra-point attempt. From the battered and bewildered aspect of the players you could tell that the try would succeed. The Crimson tried to mount an offense in the game's closing seconds, but the squad's determination was gone. As the gun sounded, Ravenel was tackled hard on an unsuccessful reverse.

The little quarterback was a pathetic figure. His jersey was torn, and he was smeared with mud and grass stains, the outward signs of an extremely hard-fought game. He walked off the field with his eyes down-cast and almost closed. A few friends sought to console him, but he did not seem to notice. He straightened visibly as he entered the locker room.

John Yovicsin began the long walk across the field to congratulate his opposite number, coach Lefty James of Cornell. He, too, did not look up as he made his way through the crowd. After the handshaking and fragmentary conversation he moved toward his next obligation, the weekly press conference.

In the locker room there was complete silence. "Nobody said a word," says Ravenel. "Everyone was too stunned to say anything." Many players wept quietly. "After a loss, everybody thinks about how he could have given a little more on every play," Ravenel explains, and full-back Glenn Haughie adds, "We all blame ourselves."

The press conference was like a wake. By the time Yovicsin arrived, James had taken his leave to catch the bus back to Ithaca. The assembled reporters, a much smaller group than usual, seemed reluctant to start the questioning. Finally a few queries came, about decisions, officiating, key plays, and injuries, and Yovicsin answered them all in a whispered monotone, his face expressionless as he spoke. As the conference ended, Yovicsin glanced at the game statistics. "We're on top of everything but what counts," he said, without humor.

Ravenel had a date for the game and for the evening. "I was upset," he says. "It hurts you to play your hardest and then lose. But the rest of the day wasn't too different than I had planned." Of course, he did not shrug off the defeat. "I must have thought 200 times--what if I had done this, what if I had done that. But I didn't go out and get drunk or anything," he says. Most of the other players spent an unusually quiet evening, with friends or dates or alone.

For Haughie, circumstances were a bit different. His parents had come to see the game, and "they helped me to forget--I couldn't be brooding while they were here," he says. "You have to forget, anyway. You can't go through the week with a tear still in your eye."

Yovicsin might have liked a quiet dinner at home with his wife and four children--"at least, as quiet as it can get with four children," he remarks--but the Yovicsin were entertaining friends from Pennsylvania. "My plans were already made. I went home and faced the company," he says. It is hard to be perfectly at ease after a defeat; "I don't really relax for 24 hours or more," Yovicsin admits.

Undergraduates are normally a resilient group, but the parties and dances Saturday evening were just a bit less noisy and cheerful at the beginning of the evening. But as the night progressed, happiness returned. The calm acceptance that is the heritage of the Harvard football fan had begun to assert itself.

By Tuesday, the incurable optimism always present during any football season, no matter how barren, had returned in almost full strength. The Columbia game was now only four days away; and the team had one of its best practices of the fall. Even the Ivy title was not lost. "If Bob Blackman can say Dartmouth is still in the running after a loss and a tie, then we certainly have a good chance," Haughie says. Ravenel predicts, "The Ivy champion will probably lose two games or so, and someone will beat Penn. We could be the team to do it."