No Patriots at Harvard

The Boston Patriots want to play football in Soldiers Field, but Harvard has said it will not permit the Stadium to become an arena for professional sports.

The University fears the label of "professionalism" on its athletic program, a label which Harvard and the entire Ivy League considers a greater curse than losing teams.

It can be argued that renting the Stadium to the Patriots would not professionalize Harvard athletics at all -- the University of Pennsylvania shares Franklin Field with the Philadelphia Eagles, and no one would cry that Penn is the kind of sports powerhouse that should not be allowed to compete in the Ivy League.

Even if sharing the Stadium would not change the face of Harvard sports, it would create more trouble than it is worth. The parking problem, for example, would be nightmarish.

Many people who come to Harvard games live close to the Stadium -- Patriot fans would be converging from the center city and the most distant suburbs, and most would bring cars. Collins suggests converting some of the green area near the river into asphalt parking space. That would certainly serve the Patriots well, but what about the University?

The landscape would not be the only thing to suffer -- Harvard sports would feel the pressure as well. The field itself would take a heavy beating two days in a row, and would not be in as good shape, according to the sports information director at Penn. And while thousands park their cars in the area on Sunday afternoons, what would happen to the students who enjoy using the tennis courts and other facilities?

About the only argument in favor of sharing Soldiers Field is money. Unofficially, the Patriots might offer something like $200,000 per annum for the field, and they would bear the expense of building 200,000 seats in the open end.

Soldiers Field, however, does not need 20,000 more seats, and could probably never fill them. The Stadium seated 57,166 until 1951, when the University decided to raze the seats in the open end because they were costing more than they were worth in added revenue.

The question then is whether the inconvenience of Sundays filled with professional football and professional football fans are worth $200,000. We think not.