Harvard Hatfields and McCoys Are Ordered to Stop Shouting

No longer will Holworthy bite or Thayer suck, officials ordered last week.

Two freshman senior advisers sent a letter to Holworthy and Thayer residents calling for a halt to the yelling that has occurred between the two dorms since freshman week.

In a five-paragraph message, North Yard Adviser Vicki Hays and East Yard Adviser Vic W. Henningsen wrote that "while there exists no College rule against making idiots out of yourselves, there is a regulation about disturbing the peace."

No Polo

The two dorms have a 150-year-old rivalry dating back to the construction of Thayer on Holworthy's polo field in 1837, according to Hays.

For years, residents have shouted "Holworthy bites" and "Thayer sucks," but Henningsen said. "It's gotten so abusive and so offensive not only to residents but also to others in the Yard."

The memo said that penalties for future outbursts would include confiscation of a student's bursar cards and Administrative Board action.

Since the statement was distributed last week, proctors have reported that the shouting has ceased, Henningsen added.

Friends

Many of the residents felt that the crackdown was unnecessary and even foolish. "I have friends in Thayer. We're just joking," Holworthy's Bob Sturim '87 said yesterday.

"I think our proctors encouraged it at first because it promoted residence team man ship," Susan J. Rich '87, another Holworthy resident, said, adding "that it was a shame to break a hundred-year-old tradition."

Thayer's Jon M. Crystal '87 disagreed. "It was getting kind of hard to study," he said yesterday.

But residents like Michael Ming '87 from Thayer really did not take an interest in the controversy. "I personally feel the whole thing is kind of ridiculous to care about something 100 years ago," he said.