Chaos at Headquarters

Last fall, administrators discovered that Harvard's 78-year-old football stadium had a life expectancy of 80 years. Athletic Director Jack Reardon immediately announced that the structure was on the verge of collapsing, and the University initiated an $82 million renovation project.

But even when athletic officials were saying things like. "It's conceivable we could lose a whole section of the stadium at one time," the state of Harvard's athletic structures seemed relatively stable in light of the year's turnover in personnel and institutional alterations.

First, Sports Information Director Joe Bertagna helped parody the Boston Globe and then decided to leave Harvard after five years on the job and make a career out of poking fun at publications.

And then there was the depletion of the coaching ranks. In late March, Reardon fired women's basketball Coach Carole Kleinfelder after her embattled squad had completed an abysmal 4-21 season. Less than a week later, men's soccer Coach George Ford handed in his resignation, and at the end of a New England championship season men's volleyball Coach Mike Palm told his spikers that he does not intend to return next year. In addition, men's track Coach Bill McCurdy had announced last spring that he intended to end his 30-year Harvard career after the 1982 campaign, and for a while this winter football coach Joe Restic considered leaving Cambridge to become the Los Angele Rams offensive coordinator. The Rams even tried to work out a deal with Harvard whereby Restic could return to Soldiers Field after a two-year sabbatical on the West Coast, but the University wasn't buying and Restic opted to stay put.

At this point, no replacements have been found for Ford, Kleinfelder, or Palm and athletic department standing committees will screen applicants for each position this summer. Kleinfelder's dismissal may cause even more problems for the athletic department, because during her tenure at Harvard, she has also coached the women's lacrosse team. And unlike the hapless hoop squad, the laxwomen thrived under Kleinfelder's direction, winning three Ivy championships and two Eastern titles. Kleinfelder still hasn't decided whether or not she wants to remain at Harvard in that capacity alone, but if she chooses to go elsewhere, add the women's lacrosse job to the list of vacant athletic department positions.

Fortunately, Harvard has already filled parts of its depleted line up. Jim Greenidge, formerly the Sports Information Director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, took over for the immensely popular Bertagna this month, becoming the only high-ranking Black in the athletic department. And in March, Frank Haggerty, McCurdy's assistant coach, was named director of both the men's and women's track programs.

Haggerty's dual appointment was unprecedented at Harvard but in keeping with the Ivy League's increasing efforts to close financial and philosophical gaps between men's and women's athletic programs. Recently, the Ivy athletic directors voted to discontinue the practice of determining women's championships in a one-shot tournament and instead the League's female athletes will play round-robin schedules just as their male counterparts have always done.

"We want to establish a strong commitment to women's athletics, and the round-robin system is a purer method of determining a champion," said Brown athletic director John Parry. "If a team can sustain its winning streak through seven games that team is certainly worthy of the Ivy championship. But what happens is the star player happens to be injured the one weekend of the tournament?"

As a result of the new scheduling policy, Harvard's women's teams will attend fewer tournaments, generally restricting their post-season appearances to the more competitive Eastern and national events. And for the first time in history, the NCAA will sponsor all of the women's championships.

In January 1981, the NCAA decided to offer regional and national events for women, moving in on the once exclusive territory of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW)--the decade-old governing body of women's collegiate athletics.

The Ivy schools continued to attend AIAW events, but most schools found the NCAA's larger bankroll and greater visibility irresistible.

In October, a destitute AIAW formally declared war, filing an antitrust suit against its rival organization. A Federal District Court judge ruled in favor of the NCAA, and in March the AIAW finally conceded defeat and closed up shop.

Although the NCAA will now foot part of the bill when Harvard sends its female athletes to post-season competitions (something the AIAW's meager budget never permitted) some administrators are wary of NCAA involvement in women's athletics.

"I really regret the fact that the AIAW couldn't survive the NCAA's presence in women's athletics, because I still question the sincerity of the NCAA's commitment to women's sports programs." Assistant Director of Athletics Pat Miller said after the AIAW announced its demise.

Harvard's position in the AIAW-NCAA controversy typified the Ivy League's adversarial relationship with the NCAA this year. The NCAA drew criticism from Ivy administrators when it demoted all of the league's football teams from Division 1-A to 1-AA.

A total of 37 schools moved down to the less prestigious division after the NCAA voted to drop all teams which did not have a home-stadium capacity of at least 30,000 or an average attendance of 17,000 or higher over the last four seasons. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn each met at least one of these requirements, but all eight League athletic directors agreed to remain together. The move should not affect the teams' financially or in future scheduling.

"The entire exercise is one that leaves me very cold indeed," President Bok told the Crimson. "It seems to me to reflect primarily the commercial orientation of college sports I think has been the source of considerable harm to what institutions of higher education are trying to accomplish."

Officials in the athletic department will undoubtedly spend most of this summer and next fall adjusting to the changes which have occurred over the last nine months--getting to know Jim Greenidge, orienting new coaches to Harvard, introducing old players to new coaches, and coordinating the new women's schedules. And last week, the Cambridge City Council added yet another item to the list of challenges facing the beleaguered administrators. For decades, those in the know have referred to the athletic department headquarters on 60 Boylston St. as "60 B." But on John F. Kennedy's 65th birthday, Bolyston Street was renamed for the late president, a former Harvard athlete. The change has delighted legions of Kennedy admirers, but Harvard sports fans may have a little trouble getting used to "60 JFK."