Harvard to Host Patriots, Eagles In Charity Game

Professional football league teams will clash in Harvard Stadium again this fall.

The Corporation has decided to lend the Stadium to the Cardinal Cushing Fund for a Labor Day charity game between the Boston Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sargent Kennedy '28, secretary to the Corporation, said yesterday.

"Official Harvard policy is not to allow non-Harvard organizations to use the Stadium," Baaron B. Pittenger, director of sports information, said yesterday, "but we will make an exception in the interest of community relations."

"The Patriots have in the past requested use of the Stadium for their regular season contests," she said. "This Harvard refuses. Exhibition games are never granted directly to the Patriots, but to the charitable organization that makes the request."

The Cardinal Cushing Fund is "Catholic-related, but non-sectarian in practice," Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to the President for civic and governmental affairs, said yesterday.

The Fund's projects include work with unwed mothers, retarded children, and homes for the aged, Whitlock added. In Cambridge, the Fund finances the Catholic Charitable Bureau.

Last year the Patriots used the Stadium for two games, Pittenger said, one played for the Cushing Fund and one for the Shriners.

"Since the Stadium is tax-exempt, we won't use it for profit," Whitlock explained, "and the Corporation prefers not to have it used by groups not related to Harvard, but it has often been used for charity."

According to Pittenger, the Patriots first used the Stadium in 1960, playing against the Dallas franchise which later became the Kansas City franchise. "That year marked the only time that allowing the pros into the Stadium caused a conflict," Whitlock said.

The Patriots wanted to use Harvard Stadium for an indefinite period, he said. "Had we allowed that, the Stadium would have become taxable."

The Patriots, who have used the Stadium for charity functions four or five times in the last eight years, are not the first to play there, Whitlock said. The Stadium has been used for the Mayor's Charity Field Day for about 20 years, and for the Boston Latin-Boston English high school Thanksgiving game for a century.