Rock Steady

It was 7:30 in the morning and the sun had yet to show its face above the roof of Chris's Superette. Exhausted from burning the midnight oil, I decided to take a break from my non-stop typing to check the morning fare on the tube.

Lo and behold, there was Jerry Mathers as "The Beaver." There's nothing quite as enjoyable as a 7:30 rerun of that immortal series "Leave It To Beaver." (For you Tony Dow fans, the show can be seen on Channel Five.) The Beaver (Beaver Cleaver) it seems, was being teased at school by several girls who thought he looked like a sheepdog (seriously).

It's a long story, and you're probably wondering what Jerry Mathers had to do with sports anyway. Well, in honor of this great televiewing find, I have decided to list entries for the first semi-annual Beaver Award, to be presented to the Harvard athletic contest that was least exciting to watch during the past semester. These will be listed in chronological order:

September 26: The season opener for the Crimson soccer team against MIT. The Engineers kicked the ball into their own net for a 1-0 victory for Harvard. Wide open offensive contest.

October 13: The fourth quarter of the Harvard-Columbia football game. Coach Restic poured in the reserves with the Crimson ahead, 57-0, resulting in a 0-0 deadlock in the final quarter. Almost as exciting as Ward Cleaver's cardigan sweater.

October 20: ABC's coverage of the Harvard band playing during halftime at the Harvard-Cornell game. As the band on the field saluted mediocrity by spelling, among other things, A-B-C, the announcers in the booth babbled on over the music about what a great tribute this was to the network.

November 24: The Game. Who could forget that total washout (in more ways than one)? But then who would really want to remember it? Yale 35, Harvard zip.

December 8: Satch Sanders's home debut, against UConn. Harvard was unfortunately blown out 80-52, and many of the fans left after the half. Far from the Crimson's many other hoop squeakers.

December 15: Harvard swimming versus Army. The Cadets didn't want to swim against the Crimson's J.V.s, so they got blown out of the water, 98-15. Harvard took every first, and all but one second place in that nail-biter.

January 11: Princeton takes on Harvard in hockey. It's bad enough that the Tigers have to play us twice every year, but this time they came into Watson Rink without five regulars. Yawn, snooze, Harvard 10, Princeton 1. Comparable to a Bruins-Seals game.

Send your ballots to Barbara Billingsley (as Mrs. Cleaver), care of your local station. If we missed your favorite sport or neglected an event from a sport mentioned that you feel was particularly uneventful, send it along to the above address. Do it before midnight tonight!

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the Beaver does resolve his hair crisis, thanks to father Ward and brother Wally's friend Eddy, who advises Beaver to insult the girls back with such lines as "Halloween's over, when are you gonna take off your mask" and........