High School Whiz Beaulieu Turns Down the Big Time, Stays Close to Home to Play Basketball for the Crimson

If you want to find the most valuable hoopster playing basketball at Harvard, you might be well advised to stroll on past the varsity workout at the IAB and take a peak through the curtain to the court where the freshman team practices.

You'll find Frank Konstantynowicz, a slick playmaker, and his backcourt mate Bob Allen, a towering guard of 6 ft. 4 in. who can still shoot the lights out. They're joined by a host of burly forwards like Mark Hadley, Andy Duda, Peter Clancy, and Roger Crosier, who has been forced out of action by an injury so far this season.

But the best of the whole bunch, the brightest gem among this group of talented freshmen gathered up by Satch Sanders to insure a winning future, is high school whiz Joe Beaulieu.

An All-Everything player in his schoolboy days at Don Bosco Tech here in Boston, Beaulieu was one of the most sought after high school basketball players in the country last year.

Only two weeks before the made his final decision, he was still seriously considering national hoop powers like Notre Dame, Stanford, Maryland, and South Carolina, along with local schools like Boston College, Holy Cross and Harvard.

His family situation dictated that Beaulieu stay close to home, so he finally limited his options to schools in the Boston area. Other considerations led him to choose Harvard as the Massachusetts college he would attend.

"I came here for the same reasons everyone else came here," he said yesterday. "It's just a matter of trying to get the best education possible, and I guess the prestige had a little bit to do with it too."

While being courted by other schools, Beaulieu heard a lot of negative things about the Crimson basketball program, which has produced losing teams and drawn a lot of criticism in the last few years.

"But I didn't get a bad opinion of Harvard or Sanders," the Boston native said. "The players on the last few losing Harvard squads weren't recruited by Sanders, and besides, if you have confidence in your own ability, you don't worry about the past situation when you come into a place."

In fact, Sanders' presence was a major advantage for Harvard in the recruiting battle. The Harvard coach had seen Beaulieu play as early as four years ago, and the high school player attended Sanders' basketball camp after his freshman year. And it didn't hurt that Beaulieu, a Celtics fan, had idolized Sanders for a decade.

The high school star was counseled that Harvard was a bad route to choose for a hoopster who has aspirations of making it to the pros. "If I do turn out to be good enough for the pros, if I work enough and develop while I'm here," Beaulieu said yesterday, "you certainly can't ask for someone with better connections than Coach Sanders. I don't think this atmosphere will be detrimental."

And what about next year, when Beaulieu breaks into the varsity ranks? Sanders, like any coach, is cautious. "It's all up to Joe. The young man is obviously very talented," Sanders said yesterday. "He could be a starter right away, there's no question about that. The odds are on his side. But the other players won't step aside easily. He'll have too prove that he's worthy."