Bed Sheets to the Wind

I've always been a conformist.

I cut off all the collars on my button-down shirts so I can wear those cool nehru jobs that everyone seems to be strutting around in these days. I know all the words to every Bee Gees song. I eat so much yogurt I have little cultures running through my veins. I cried when Elvis died.

So when I heard that "toga parties" were the latest rage on campus, I figured I just had to have one. So I invited all my friends from the various Harvard sports teams, coaches and players alike. And we had some time, let me tell you.

Everyone really let loose at my toga party. It's as though all that frivolity and all that linen seem to inject a kind of truth serum into the otherwise close-mouthed athletic celebrities at Harvard. I know I really shouldn't, but I've just got to let you in on some of the deep dark secrets they told me.

Basketball coach Frank McLaughlin: "You know, I get sick and tired of wearing those corny plaid three-piece suits all the time. I'd really feel much more comfortable in a dashiki and clogs during home games."

Baseball star Mike Stenhouse: "We have an unbelievable team and nobody ever comes to watch us. I sell Italian Ices in the stands between at-bats just to get the feeling that we're playing at home."

Squash player extraordinaire Mike DeSaulniers: "I'll shave my beard off when I lose my next match."

Swimmer Bobby Hackett: "How do I break it to Coach Joe Bernal that I'm allergic to chlorine?"

Hockey coach Bill Cleary: "I'm looking forward to playing at Boston University's Walter Brown Arena this season. At least my teeth won't be chattering by the second period."

Field hockey scoring machine Sarah Mlezcko: "If I could only skate..."

Soccer coach George Ford: "If I had a dime for every time I said 'We couldn't put the ball in the net,' I could buy Pele and never have to say it again."

Football quarterback Larry Brown: "The multi-flex is so incredible. Sometimes I have dreams of centering, blocking, throwing, and receiving a pass all on the same play."

Football captain Steve Potysman: "How come they never pronounce my name correctly when I make an interception?"

Cross-country coach Bill McCurdy: "You can't expect me to say witty things when everyone else is. I'm really 22 and quite boring."

Basketball co-captain Bob Hooft: "My high school gym in Winnemuca, Nevada is like the Spectrum compared to the IAB."

Golfer Spence Fitzgibbons: "The only reason I took up the game was to learn how to color-coordinate my clothes. It didn't work. People still think I'm the Eliot House superintendent."

Diver Jamie Greecen: "One of these meets I'd just like to bag the pike position and do a ten-meter can-opener."

Football coach Joe Restic: "If there was a center eligible rule in the Ivies we'd win the league championship each year."

IAB director Kevin McCall: "Hey, isn't that a university sheet?"

Chairman of the Standing Committee on Athletics and Government professor James Q. Wilson: "The biggest bureaucracy isn't in Washington, D. C. It's here at Harvard. Just try getting into a pickup game at the IAB on Friday afternoons.

You'll have to excuse me if I didn't get some of the quotes right, but what can you say about a guy who wears a contour sheet and a down vest to his own toga party?