O'er the Ivies, Football Holds Sway

Greatness deserves to be recognized. For the first time since 1987, the Harvard football team has won the Ivy League title; the team heads to New Haven on Saturday with a 6-0 Ivy record.

The four high points of the season thus far have been the contests against Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and Penn. In both the Princeton (14-12) and Brown (27-10) games, the Crimson came from behind to win--a rare occurrence in our recent football history. Dartmouth, the defending Ivy League champions who opened the game by commenting about how sorry they felt for our team, was forced to shut up because they were shut out 24-0. Last week, in the seniors' final home game, the team squashed Penn 33-0.

The Crimson has been playing stellar ball all season. This is not the case of a team riding the coattails of an individual star. After four years of team building, Coach Tim Murphy's team has finally coalesced.

Harvard's offensive line, led by Matthew R. Birk '98, has been crushing all of its opponents. Even when the team lost to Bucknell, Colby B. Skelton '98 managed to break Harvard's receiving record. At the same time, the defensive unit, including Jeffrey G. Compas '98, Timothy M. Fleiszer '98, Christopher K. Schaefer '98 and Christopher D. Smith '98, has been valiantly holding down the fort. And while Captain Brendan L. Bibro '98 has not played since being injured at Holy Cross earlier in the season, he has by no means been down for the count; his leadership and encouragement from the sidelines have been of special value to the team.

As Coach Murphy said, "This team really has got tremendous character. I think really our strongest point has been our resilience, our mental toughness and just our solidarity as a football team. It has much to do with personal qualities as it does with ability."

Murphy also deserves a special pat on the back; this is the first team made up of players all recruited by him, and it has performed terrifically. This bodes very well for future football and especially for The Game. Go Crimson!