Of Meteors and Bears

Somebody has got to stop it.

It has gone up and down the East Coast leaving battered athletes and demoralized college campuses in its wake.

It is not a meteor or Hurricane David. It is the Yale football team. And it is threatening to do something that has not been done in recent memory--keep the Ivy season from going down to the last week before the championship is determined.

After four league contests for each team, the Ivy standings read like the disparate income brackets of the haves and have nots in Iran under the Shah.

The only showdown between haves is the Cornell (3-1)-Yale (4-0) tilt in Ithaca. Yale's defense has rivalled the Ayatollah's for cruelty, allowing only 25 points so far in Ivy play on an average of 141 yards per game.

Cornell has showed the rest of the league how to play offense, averaging 424 yards per game with its rotating quarterback system.

Another have, Princeton (3-1), takes on the ultimate have not, Penn (0-4), but no one takes the Tigers too seriously as threats for taking the Ivy crown. It's not that the Tigers are that bad, but they have to play Cornell and Yale in the final two weeks of the season, and how can you take a team from the same city as ETS too seriously when it comes to sports?

And then there's Brown. Don't get me wrong, I love bears. I've outgrown Teddies, but watching Yogi and Boo Boo going after "pic-a-nic baskets" in Jellystone Park is still a lot of fun.

But someone at Brown has forgotten that "Bruins" is supposed to be only a nickname and has dressed up some real live big brown ones to play the offensive line. How else can you explain so many creatures over 240 pounds on an Ivy football field?

It has worked, too. Brown is close behind Cornell in offense and ranks third in the league in defense.

For Harvard, this game realistically has to be viewed as the start of a streak to make the season respectable. With a 1-3 mark so far in the league and a 1-5 overall, the Crimson faces the prospect of two losing seasons in a row in the Ivies and a third consecutive overall campaign of .500 or worse.

HARVARD 21 BROWN 20; As Martin Luther King said: "I have a dream." As Aerosmith said: "Dream On."

CORNELL 27 YALE 24; Some one has to keep the season interesting and there's an offensive giant sleeping (what else is there to do?) in Ithaca. The home field advantage will be decisive.

PRINCETON 10 PENN 3; Why is Princeton 3-1? Why is Princeton 4-1? DARTMOUTH 14 COLUMBIA 7; Listen here, New Yorkers. Country boys can whip you any day. Friday 3:00  Saturday 10:00  Saturday 3:00 1. Harvard (bye)  Harvard 4. Princeton  Princeton 5. Dartmouth    Ivy League Women's 2. Brown  Brown  Soccer Championships 7. Penn 3. Yale  Yale 6. Cornell