A Beginning and an End

"I'm sorry, this is a charter," the student driver said as he slammed the Harvard shuttle bus door in the face of a couple of wet, Quad-bound students last week. Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, could only smile faintly to his precious bus cargo, a group of influential Harvard alumni known as the University Resources Committee.

I couldn't help but think that Epps looked like a worried camp counselor underneath his cool veneer. For two hours, he was to be in charge of these Big Guns, a select group of men and women Harvard asks to go out and beat some equally select bushes for the University's upcoming capital fund drive.

Athletic Director Jack Reardon met the bus in front of Blodgett Pool to begin a tour of the Soldiers Field facilities. We had just come from Agassiz Theater in Radcliffe Yard, where the committee had heard a group of student actors sing selections from a Gilbert & Sullivan show. The need for increased funding for the arts (i.e., the "pitch") preceded the entertainment.

As Jack Reardon began his own spiel on the majesty of Blodgett Pool and its King, Olympic medalist Bobby Hackett, my mind began to drift back to freshman year. It seemed hard to believe it had been four years since the Class of '79 first invaded Cambridge. We have changed and grown, but so have Harvard athletics, the question concerning both is--has that change been for the better?

A look around Blodgett symbolized the physical changes. My memory clicked back to the big Princeton-Harvard swim meet in the antiquated IAB pool, and how it signalled the competitive end of a facility steeped in history. In stark contrast, Blodgett is almost too modern and impersonal.

The Indoor Track and Tennis Building (ITT) was next on the agenda and equally impressive. I hoped that the committee would meet track mentor Bill McCurdy and imagined how he would jolt them with one of his always refreshing comments. "Hey, I'm Irish, so just keep the green flowing in my direction," he might have said.

Section 18 Gone

As we moved onto rennovated Watson Rink, I couldn't help but mourn the loss of Section 18. Watson looks absolutely sensational today; every one of the 2800 seats is a good one: reconstruction has eliminated the old blind spots. Committee member Andrew Heiskell, publisher of Time Magazine, kept muttering about how impressive it all was as construction workers tried to look busy. There was talk of being able to use the rink for events (like graduation) forced indoors by inclement weather, and I wondered why it couldn't be made into a mini-Boston Garden, with portable ice and a basketball floor.

Even Watson's new press facility is sparkling, although it will miss the special aroma of Bill Scheft's cigars and the lived-in quality of his tobacco juice excretions. But somehow Section 18 just won't be the same: it has lost the special character and flavor. It looks too sterile, and I can't imagine some future John Arnold or Fritz McLoughlin unwrapping an ugly, ten-pound fish and hurling it onto the back of some unsuspecting Dartmouth goaltender.

Reardon mentioned the addition of women's locker facilities in the new rink: and I thought back to freshman year, when "Title IX" was the reading assignment for the ninth week of a course. But today federal legislation has dramatically altered the manner in which Harvard constructs its facilities. Reardon has tried to run his office as a model of compliance, and the nickname "Cliffie" isn't heard too often around 60 Boylston St. I wish I had a nickel for every freshman in the fall of '75 who would have snickered at even the mention of a women's ice hockey Beanpot or an Ivy championship women's soccer team.

Exeter?

Committee member Peter Brooke asked Reardon about Harvard's basketball facilities as he surveyed Watson Rink (complete with an elevator and special seating section for handicapped people, another legislative initiative of the '70s). After all, Brooke said, Exeter has a beautiful, four-court arena which is bigger than the IAB.

Here Reardon finally mentioned a coach--Frank McLaughlin--"an aggressive guy we brought in from Notre Dame." He discussed the basketball banquet at Quincy Market, where Reardon announced that about $1 million of the projected $2.5 million needed for a new 3500-seat facility was already in the coffers. He even talked about how former Marquette coach (now NBC commentator) Al McGuire had publicly berated him (on behalf of friend McLaughlin) for the small number of seats, and how President Bok had put a napkin in front of his face at the remark.

Despite all this, Reardon exhorted the committee to seek the funds for a hoop facility that could be built in what is now a parking lot adjacent to Blodgett Pool. Mention of the 200-plus intramural basketball teams at the College, Business, and Law Schools was enough to drive home the point that Harvard's biggest athletic need for the '80s will be in the roundball sport.

Condemned

As we passed by Soldiers Field on the bus ride back to the Yard, Reardon told the sad tale of how the oldest concrete stadium in the country is in danger of being condemned. An architectural engineering study has revealed weaknesses in its support system, and funds will have to be raised to prevent its decay and demise. Reardon told the committee that "parts of Baker Field at Columbia have been condemned, and it's very embarrassing to a school (not to mention its athletic director) to have it happen."

Reardon also discussed Harvard's future home-and-home football series against West Point, a rivalry he hoped would give the Athletic Department a sorely needed 'big gate.' He then dropped a surprising bombshell--Harvard and Boston College are currently negotiating to meet each other in what could be Bean-town's football version of Michigan-Michigan State.

What about Harvard sports in the 1980s? What will it be like when the Class of '79 returns for its Tenth Reunion in 1989 (assuming that there still will be enough energy left for the transportation of alums to Cambridge)

Slowly but surely it seems that we are watching the return of Harvard sports. The new facilities give Harvard the physical base to lure the top-echelon high school student-athlete in swimming, hockey, track and field, and (if one considers the amazing training and medical equipment on hand in renovated Dillon Field House) football. Basketball and other sports may not be far behind. How will the Faculty respond to this projected growth in athletics? Will it be supportive or, as in the 1950s, will it rebel and lower funds and emphasis?

These are difficult questions, and I can't pretend to have an answer to them. However, I react strangely when I hear about the high school All-American hockey player who was just accepted with a 375 verbal SAT score (you get 200 points for signing your name). I don't feel good when I read about hallowed high school athletes who quickly succumb to the pressures of life off the field at Harvard. They withdraw from Cambridge, perhaps never to be heard from again. They come here thinking that it will somehow all fall into place for them as it did in high school, where they were walking idols. But the Beaulieus and the Cuccias walk away disillusioned and disenchanted, swallowed up by an intellectual environment where passing and shooting aren't worth any points on an exam.

Balance is the key word here. Excellence in athletics can go hand in hand with excellence in the classroom, but one cannot sacrifice one for the other. Sports must continue to be an extension of the learning and maturation process at Harvard, and not an end in itself or a vehicle for alumni to recall vicariously their past glories.

The students who sang for the University Resources Committee in Agassiz that day probably got into Harvard for any number of reasons other than their acting or singing ability. But the high school kid who is tops in drama won't see his name bandied about in local newspaper headlines. The Boston Globe goes so far as to publish a list of Harvard's (and other area colleges') top high school "recruits" in football, basketball and hockey. But turn to the arts section of that same paper, and you won't find a list of orchestra recruits, acting recruits or singing recruits.

Perhaps we make too much of a fuss over sports in our society. I'm not one to talk, of course, because I think of myself as a sportswriter and read the sports page of any newspaper first. But I begin to question why I do this when I witness the contrast in emphasis placed by society on the arts and athletics--those two areas where man openly displays his emotion, his heart, and his soul.

Is the high school drama student getting passed over for the jock who can bring athletic glory to fair Harvard and dollars into the fund drive campaign? I hope not, for Harvard's admissions standards should not be lowered for athletic prowess at the expense of true diversity. I am encouraged by the agenda of the University Resources Committee, and hope that the equal time it spent studying athletics and the arts is a fair barometer of the relative weight that should be placed on extracurricular activities at Harvard.

On the bus ride back to Johnston Gate, I tried to make sense of what I had just experienced. So this was how it felt to be an influential alumnus of Harvard College, to rub elbows with a Winthrop, a Chase, a titan of industry or a baron of the financial world. Soon I would be entering their world and their value system; the thought made me feel uncomfortable for a moment. It was a feeling similar to the one I had when the driver couldn't let the Quad students on the bus and out of the rain.

Epps thanked me for coming as he herded the group in the direction of University Hall. "We're late for our meeting with Dean Rosovsky on the Core Curriculum. I'm sorry, Jon, but I'm afraid you won't be able to join us."

But that was OK. The fact that the Dean of the Faculty didn't want me along for his 'talk and tour' made me feel very much like a Harvard undergraduate again, and my personal uneasiness slowly dissolved amid the bustle of my classmates in the Yard