Paul Scheper

Paul Scheper is the Harvard football team's secret weapon. Or rather, a weapon that has been kept a secret for virtually all of the 1981 season.

After making the shift from flanker to split end during the preseason, to accommodate Ron Cuccia's move to quarterback, Scheper expected to see a lot of balls coming his way. Instead, the team's fastest player (4.55 in the 40) has caught just nine passes through nine games (a rib injury kept him out against Holy Cross), including three for touchdowns. His season was typified by the Princeton game, in which he caught three passes--two of them were nullified by penalties and on the third, an official ruled that he caught the ball out of bounds. Statistically, Scheper's senior year has been a frustrating one.

"The coach came to met at the beginning of the year," Scheper says, "and said I had the best hands on the team. And that they wanted to move me out to split end. He said, 'We're going to get you the ball a lot.' I was told I was going to get the ball and I'm not getting the ball. It's got to touch my hands so I can do something with it.

"I was psyched at the beginning of the year about the position change. I thought sincerely that it would help the team. My goal when I came here was to win an Ivy title, and I thought my moving to split end would help the team do that. All the years I've played football the team has always come first, and It's no different now."

Scheper is a victim of circumstances more than anything else, a pass receiver on a team that runs the ball a lot and runs it well. Harvard head coach Joe Restic has no reservations about the way Scheper has handled split end ("He's done a fine job"), but the combination of a strong running attack and the fact that Cuccia--no dropback passer--hasn't been able to get outside to throw, has kept Scheper running fruitless patterns all year.

"You can't do everything," Restic says. "You do the thing you do best, and when you run the ball as much as we do, you can't get the ball out to [the split end] 10 or 15 times a game. We haven't been able to get Cuccia to the outside as well as I thought we would, and you have to get outside to get the ball to that receiver."

There was a time in Paul Scheper's football career when he got the ball a lot. At Granada Hills High School outside Los Angeles, he set a school mark with 53 pass receptions in his senior year, and was All-San Fernando Valley as a halfback. That put him in some pretty hefty company. John Elway, a starter and potential Heisman Trophy winner at Stanford, was the quarterback at Granada Hills when Scheper was there. Tom Ramsey and Dave Laufenberg, quarterbacks at rival high schools, now practice their specialties at UCLA and Indiana, respectively. When Scheper returns to California in the summer, he plays in a seven man passing league with Ramsey and Laufenberg.

"I think I could play somewhere like UCLA," the 5-ft., 9-in., 178 lb. Scheper says. "I wouldn't start, but I would play a lot."

Granada Hills High is important to Scheper for a non-football reason as well. It was there that he met Gigi Railla, his wife of three months. "I was the star football player and she was the star cheerleader," Scheper laughs. Theirs, however, is not the typical high school-sweetheart romance.

"We were just really good friends in high school," Gigi says. "The football players and the cheerleaders went to parties together and to the beach together, all in a big group." Adds Paul: We were in a couple of classes together, so I'd go over to Gigi's house to study sometimes."

After Scheper left Northridge, Ca., for Harvard, the two stayed in touch. "We'd write letter," Gigi says. "We got to know each other through writing and phone calls." When Paul returned to California for Christmas vacation, the pair started going out, and they've been together ever since. Until they got married August 22, however, it was mostly romance by long distance. In fact, when Paul asked Gigi to marry him on February 12, 1981, it was, believe it or not, over the phone. Actually the two had discussed marriage previously, but Paul wanted to check up on a few things--like apartments--when be came back after intersession, then call after intersession to make it official. Still Scheper says. "In every sense, I've respected Alexander Bell immensely."

Married life has forced Scheper to put himself on a rigid schedule since he has to be athlete, student, husband and make some money all at the same time. While Gigi, a licensed nurse, works full time at Cambridge Eye Associates, he works 15 hours a week before classes with Chet Stone, the Harvard equipment manager. In between classes he tries to sneak into the library for some studying ("So Gigi and I can be home together at night"), make time to meet his wife for lunch, go to football practice and come home to Peabody Terrace to have dinner and do the dishes. "You know, the best investment I've made since I got to Harvard was paper plates," he says only half-kiddingly.

"Paul's been a pretty good house husband," Gigi says. "He cleans. Of course, I've trained him pretty well. We do things together."

Our whole motto was unity in all phases of life," Scheper adds. Which translates into housework for Paul, and a lot of football games to go to for Gigi. But that's okay, because she loves football.

"Every game, every play, I jump up and start screaming," she says, "After he scored the touchdown against Brown, I yelled, 'Why don't you throw it to him more. Everybody around me started laughing. I love football so much, especially seeing Paul out there. Except for kick-offs-I don't like watching those because that's when you can really get hurt. I get the weirdest feeling in my stomach sometimes, worrying about Paul getting hurt."

As Harvard's self-proclaimed number one fan, Gigi has been to every game this season except for William and Mary and she had to work that day or she would have gone. At the games, Gigi almost always sits with halfback Scott McCabe's mother, with whom she has become very good friends. In fact, the whole McCabe family has sort of adopted the newlyweds, having the Schepers to their Westborough home for dinner and weekend stays. "We call them our Massachusetts surrogate family," Gigi says.

It was only logical that McCabe and Scheper should hit it off, as the two of them are always crowing around loosening people up. "In the senior class, I'm called the character," Scheper says. "And when I get with McCabe, everybody says, 'Oh no, there goes McCabe and Scheper."

"We've definitely got the reputation of being the characters on the team." McCabe says, "the guys who keep everyone loose. It doesn't affect our intensity. It's just the way we are.

"That Scheper. The kid is just crazy, you know."

They knew it back in Northridge. During Scheper's senior year, his high school baseball team played for the Los Angeles City Championship under the lights at Dodger Stadium. When Granada Hills won the game--"the highlight of my high school career"--Scheper went more than just a little crazy.

"He poured Dodger dirt all over himself," Gigi laughs. "He was out there rolling in the Dodger dirt." Says Scheper: "I wend nuts when we won." Craziness aside, it's interesting to note that the entire starting nine from Scheper's team is still playing baseball, four in the pros and five in college. And Scheper was voted most inspirational by his teammates. "Just for the Dodger dirt," he grins.

Scheper is, of course, one of those who still plays baseball. As a starting outfielder for Harvard last season, he hit .267--he's a singles hitter--and hasn't made an error in three years of varsity competition. He's enjoyed his baseball experience at Harvard immensely, but football is still his first sports love, and in football, the thrills haven't come that often.

Sophomore year had two really special moments, both of them associated with his brother Dave, a starting center for two years on the Harvard varsity who graduated in 1980. "I respect him probably more than anyone in the world," Scheper says.

First, there was the Princeton game of '79, in which Scheper scored his only touchdown of the season. "It was a trap play right over my brother's butt." Scheper says. "I gave him the ball afterward. That was such a big thrill for me." Second, there was Harvard's amazing 22-7 upset win over undefeated Yale in New Haven. "I was more excited for Dave than anything else," Scheper says.

Last season was cut almost in half by a knee injury, and you know about this year. Scheper runs his patterns and returns kicks (by running back two kick-offs in the Yale game he will break the Harvard record for most career kick-off returns), hoping each week that this will be his big game. He's got extra incentive for the final game of his varsity career.

His father, who has never seen him in a varsity uniform, and Dave are driving all the way from California for The Game. Scheper would like nothing better than to score a couple of touchdowns for the family and help the Crimson knock off the Elis.

I've experienced many emotions during my Harvard football career. Disappointment, confusion...elation too," Scheper says. "I've been happy being associated with many of the players in Harvard football and with the game in general. But overall I'm kind of disappointed about my football experience. It's tearing my guts out that I'm not getting a chance to contribute to the team.

"I know I have the talent. I've shown before, what I can do. Circumstances dictate the way things are. I hope the team does fine and I do the best with what I've got. I don't mind being a victim of circumstances as long as we win."