IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED
Don Chiofaro's bright eyes were clouded and his heavy black eyebrows were lowered in a frown. The captain of the Harvard football team looked worried, just the way football players are supposed to look before big games. A day later Harvard would play Dartmouth in a game that might well decide the Ivy League championship, and Chiofaro was talking about the effect it had on him. "I haven't given too much thought to the game," he said. "I just came out of a wicked class in a psychology course that I'm really involved in. It's a group of 25 people, a study of how we all interact. Everybody is very frank and it can get pretty brutal. When you're concerned about something like this course, you don't have time to worry or lose sleep over a game."
Chiofaro is a social relations major and a linebacker, in that order. His crises—like those of most Ivy League athletes—occur on weekday mornings as well as Saturday afternoons. Last week he had three bad moments. The first came in class when some intellectuals said that they thought football was kind of a silly pastime. "I know you're entitled to your opinion," Don said politely. "And I respect you for it. But, frankly, I'd like to come over there and break you in half."
The second was in the same class, in a discussion of what the people in the group stood for. "I told one nice girl that she was the mother image," he said. "And she got furious, because she thought she should be the sex symbol."
The worst moment of all came late Saturday afternoon when Chiofaro sprawled helplessly in the Dartmouth backfield as Pete Donovan's last-minute field-goal attempt went through the uprights to win for Dartmouth 23-21.
In a game full of the exuberant hitting, razzle-dazzle plays and costly mistakes that mark most Ivy contests, Dartmouth had blown a 20-0 lead and come back again to win on a bizarre final drive that included two important penalties and two chances to make one field goal. Once in those last hectic moments it appeared that Harvard would stop Dartmouth outside the 20-yard line, but a roughing penalty took the ball in to the 12. Harvard held again, and on fourth down Donovan missed a field goal from the 14-yard line—but Harvard was offside. Given a second chance, Donovan succeeded, and Harvard lost a game it could easily have won.
Bob Blackman, the winning coach, was ready with all the clichés about marvelous team efforts and breaks deciding the game. He said it would be unfair to single out any one boy who made a mistake in such a fine game. But Harvard's Chiofaro, who likes classes in which everybody is frank and honest, disagreed. He sat for a few moments in the silent Harvard locker room, wiping the dirt from his swarthy face and smiling weakly at people who congratulated him on his good effort. Someone said it was too bad the team had been offside on the field goal. "It was me," Don said. "I lined up offside."
Chiofaro, of course, had done enough good things to make up for his one costly error. He had nothing to be ashamed of. But even if he had played horribly all the way, he would have looked back on the game with the same honesty and perspective—an attitude that comes from playing college football mostly for fun. "I get very intense about the game," he says. "I think it gets to mean as much to me as it does to somebody in the Big Ten. But I'm an intense person, and I get intense about other things, too."
The Harvard campus was concerned last week with a number of things other than an impending battle between undefeated teams. There was a sit-in protesting a campus recruiter from a chemical company that makes napalm used in Vietnam, and there was planning for a larger sit-in to greet recruiters from the Central Intelligence Agency. There was anger over a local mayor who had declared war on hippies, and concern over FBI men who were on campus to investigate draft resisters. Even the half-time shows at the game reflected the general mood. The Dartmouth marching band presented a good-natured look at hippies, forming the shape of a bomb and changing it to a flower, but the Harvard band drew louder cheers by forming the word "Tax" and changing it to "Pax." "A football player probably gets less attention on campus now than a leader of protests against the war," said Lee Simowitz, managing editor of The Harvard Crimson. "But you couldn't say that football has lost its popularity. Guys are paying scalpers' prices for tickets this week."
Those who paid received a diversion from studies and worries as good as anything the Ivy League has offered in some time. The day was bright and the rooters on both sides were inspired to heights of enthusiasm by school loyalties.
"Harvard-Yale is a rivalry built on similarities and mutual respect," explained one Harvard man. "Harvard-Dartmouth is built on differences." This is true. The game matches a city school against a country school, conservative Coach John Yovicsin against Blackman and his high-pressure style, and a limited recruiting program against the most efficient one in the league. So Dartmouth is always strong, and Harvard is often weak. Yet in the last decade the teams have split their 10 games.
Dartmouth started Saturday's game as if it would settle the issue very quickly. Quarterback Gene Ryzewicz and Running Backs Dave Boyle and Steve Luxford gained ground consistently on sweeps, while the Harvard offense was slowed by fumbles and weak passing. Dartmouth took the opening kickoff 70 yards to the Harvard one-foot line, but a penalty and a long loss stopped the drive. The Indians were not discouraged, and just kept coming at the beleaguered Harvard defense. "Their line outweighed us," said Blackman later, "and their ends played in pretty tight. So our plan was to run around them. We showed early that we could do it." Dartmouth scored after recovering a Harvard fumble in the second period, and ground out another touchdown drive to lead 14-0 at the half. When Ryzewicz scored on a short run in the third period the result appeared to be strictly academic.
But when it comes to football games, nothing is academic in the Ivy League. Late in the third period Dartmouth had the ball third and 14 deep in its own territory. Blackman ordered a quick kick. It was a logical enough move for a team ahead by three touchdowns, and one which immediately backfired. Bill Koenig's punt traveled only 21 yards to the Dartmouth 39. Ric Zimmerman, the Harvard quarterback who had completed two of his first 14 passes and fumbled twice, suddenly started doing things quite well. Second-string Halfback Ray Hornblower, who replaced Will Stargel in the third period, contributed some very good runs, and Harvard found it could move as Hornblower scored the first touchdown. Three minutes later Bill Cobb blocked a Dartmouth punt that was recovered on the two-yard line, and from there tough little Halfback Vic Gatto scored. On the second play after the following kickoff, Tom Wynne, who was substituting for Harvard's injured safety man, John Tyson, intercepted a pass. With Gatto carrying on five of the six plays, the Crimson went 19 yards for its third touchdown in less than seven minutes and took an astonishing 21-20 lead.
"After Wynne's interception," said Blackman, "I would have bet anything Harvard would score. They were really up. But I also thought we could come back again." And Dartmouth did, with Ryzewicz directing a slow, grinding march from his own 25 that moved the ball deep into Harvard territory. Then, with a second and eight on the 22, Ryzewicz swept to his left on a play that had worked well all day, but End Bob Hoffmann broke down the blocking and forced Gene out of bounds for no gain. "My arm was over his shoulder as I hit him and my hand hit his face mask," Hoffmann said. "I didn't grab it. But the ref called it on me."
The 15-yard penalty brought the ball close enough for a Dartmouth field-goal attempt, but on the sidelines sophomore Pete Donovan was praying for a touchdown. "I was really nervous," he said. "I sure hoped I wouldn't have to go out there." But he did have to go out there, and even if he needed two tries he managed to win the game.
The victory did not guarantee any championships—Dartmouth must face a very good Yale team this week—but it was a sweet win to get, and Blackman beamed as he shook the hand of each of his players. Across the field house in a quieter dressing room, Yovicsin moved slowly among the lockers, putting an arm around each of his men. "We were good and so were they," said Guard Al Bersin. "We have no sour grapes." Other players just sat and stared silently at the floor. "Keep your heads up," growled an assistant coach. "You're Harvard men."
PHOTO
All eyes are on the near goalpost as Dartmouth's Pete Donovan (16) watches his game-winning field goal soar over the bar. The most discouraged Harvard player is Captain Don Chiofaro (64), who gave Donovan a second try when he lined up offside on the previous kick, which missed.