Backwards is Beautiful

Crimson in Triumph

By Joe Bertagna '73

Stephen Greene Press; 365 pp.; $39.95

THERE'S ALWAYS been something wonderful about working backwards, something almost deliciously sinful.

Like eating dessert before eating your vegetables.

Like watching Hogan's Heroes reruns on TV before studying for your history final.

Like reading the last page of a book before reading the main text. Or something like that.

The magic--and financial potential--of the backwards maxim has not been lost on Joe Bertagna '73, one-time Harvard hockey goalie and Harvard sports enthusiast.

You see, Bertagna recognized that scores of current and former athletes would pick up his Crimson chronicle at the bookstore and flip straight to the end.

Hence 69 pages worth of "Major H Winners" at the back of Crimson in Triumph, 69 pages worth of subliminal, ego-buttering, hard sell.

Now, nobody's going to go back and eat their lima beans after the apple pie.

But after Mr. Letterwinner '57 takes his personal copy home--and after the allure of seeing his name in immortal print wears off--he had better turn back to the beginning of Bertagna's book or risk missing out on a visual and historical treat.

Lest anyone forget, the book's title is drawn from the fight song "Harvardiana," a ditty by Raymond G. Williams '11:

With Crimson in triumph flashing

'Mid the strains of victory

Poor Eli's hopes we are dashing into blue obscurity.

Lest anyone care, Raymond G. Williams '11 never won a Major H.

However, sandwiched between Harvardiana and Hubris lana are the exploits behind the Major H's. An introductory chapter on "Harvard and the Ivy League," sections on individual sports, short features on outstanding athletes and coaches, and scores of photographs fill the pages of Bertagna's captivating history.

MEET PERCY Haughton, Class of 1899, an All-American tackle and football coach from 1908 to 1916, looking like a face out of Brideshead Revisited. Meet Bill McCurdy--McCurdy to his friends--who molded the track program for 30 years. Meet the Cleary brothers, the Hughes brothers, and the Fusco brothers, maintaining a tradition of sibling-led excellence on the ice.

Bertagna manages to transform 250-odd pages of encyclopedia material into attention-grabbing vignettes. Witness the shot of Ryan O'Neal mugging with the 1969 freshman hockey squad--complete with freshman Bertagna--during filming of Love Story at Watson Rink. Bet you never knew that then-freshman coach Bill Cleary '56 helped direct the skating scenes--and stood in for O'Neal during the on-ice shooting.

And when Harvard hasn't been acting as Hollywood's East Coast link, it has been cluttering up the annals of history.

The first football game (vs. McGill in 1874), the first large sports arena (the Stadium), the first catcher's mask (invented by Fred Thayer, Class of 1878), the first real intercollegiate athletic contest (Harvard crew vs. Yale crew on Lake Winnipesaukee, August 3, 1852)...

All hail, Crimson athletics--perpetually teetering on the cutting edge of sports fashion. Nonetheless, a few questions peek through the pervading glow.

Why, for instance, do 90 pages elapse before a two-and-a-half page segment on women's ice hockey marks the first piece not to concentrate on male athletes?

And have swarms of angels really peopled the playing fields across the River for the past 134 years?

But then again, Crimson in Triumph is more of a mentality than a chronology, with Triumph the key word.

What self-respecting alumnus gives money, year-in and year-out, to a losing cause? Like it or not, success and its fellow-traveler--money--have always been the standards by which sports are judged.

Thus football and hockey--the two big revenue gatherers--fall first in the anthology, and each receives two to three times as much coverage as basketball, with its history of poor finishes and sparse attendance.

More important, Bertagna doesn't neglect the outstanding individuals behind both the successes and the failures. Its their story--their triumph, if you will. And Bertagna's as well.