THE MALCOM-X FACTOR: Finding Charms in I-AA Football

It’s an interesting balance we strike while covering football for the Ivy League.

I’m sure there’s not one among us who hasn’t, at one point or another, longed for the sights, sounds and 60,000 fan-filled stadiums of big-time college football. Hell, driving back from the Harvard-Lehigh football game on Saturday night, the radio announcement of my hometown Colorado Buffaloes upsetting Oklahoma made me realize just how much I was missing while tucked away in the New England obscurity that is Division I-AA, non-postseason eligible football.

But then, I thought back to a few hours before, in the aftermath of the Crimson’s 20-13 loss to the Mountain Hawks in Bethlehem, Pa., and I realized that there’s something about what some call “little” league—Ivy, Patriot, whatever—college football that makes me so glad that I’m writing about these guys and not the ones in the I-A ranks.

As the questions poured in from reporters during the press conference following Saturday’s game, the faces of Harvard players and Crimson coach Tim Murphy looked more and more somber. I knew, because I was sitting right in front of them, literally feet away. They had reason to be sad, too—it was the second final-minute loss suffered in three weeks this season.

The Lehigh press conference was, also not surprisingly, a joyous affair. When Paul Bode, the Mountain Hawks lineman who returned a fumble 27 yards for the game-winning touchdown, entered the room, he was still holding onto the ball, a scene that was repeated when Bode was seen outside the stadium, laughing and celebrating with friends about a half hour later.

At the beginning of the press conference, too, we got a taste of genuine, up-close, unfiltered emotion.

“I got my two biggest fans here,” Lehigh coach Andy Coen said as he entered the room.

Coen brought a few guest with him to talk at the media session, and one was particularly vocal about her novice status at a college football press conference.

“Daddy, what’s this?” asked Molly, Coen’s four-year-old daughter. With him was also Nolan, his soon-to-be two-year-old, who has a birthday party scheduled for this weekend.

As players and reporters droned on and on about touchdowns (or lack thereof), turnovers, and football keepsakes, it was Molly who chimed in with the comment that really lightened the mood.

“Can we go now? Let’s go,” she said, minutes after her and her brother ceased trading jabs with each other.

After the game, Coen walked past me and my fellow writers, when one of us wished him good luck during the rest of his season.

A simple thank you was what followed from Coen, but it all got me thinking: look at the unfiltered access afforded to us in the I-AA ranks, the kinds of things that never would happen at other schools. Weekly one-on-one meetings with the head coaches, rubbing shoulders with the opposing coaches from the rival league, even seeing assistants breaking bread in your very own dining hall?

It couldn’t happen anywhere else. We saw it two weeks ago, when after tough loss to Holy Cross, Murphy didn’t yell and scream right after the game. Instead, he kissed his wife and two children before retreating to the locker room to shower and then address the media.

How much do students at USC get to see about the life of Pete Carroll, besides what’s been filtered through national media outlets? How many undergraduates get to see his most real moments, the ones he shares with his family, the ones that prove that, even in the aftermath of harsh defeat, he has things in perspective?

We learn about the families of the players and coaches we cover in a genuine manner that beats any glitz and glamour associated with the so-called bigger athletic programs in this country.

We might not be able to watch our team play in bowl games, compete for national championships or partake in playoffs, but we see a side of our team—a human, authentic side—that we’d never come close to in the bigger leagues.

Maybe this is my method of consolation in the face of two tough losses, or maybe it’s a distraction from the fact that my school’s team has lost four of the last five games I’ve watched.

Or maybe I’ve finally grown to fully appreciate and accept the way of the Ivies and other like-minded conferences. From the players to the coaches to the reporters that cover the games, it’s all a little different up here.

Different, but maybe not so bad after all.

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.