HARLOW REGIME IS PRAISED BY ALUMNI ON EVE OF PRACTICE

"We're going to work and work hard," said head football coach Dick Harlow yesterday on the eve of the spring practice for his third football season at Harvard. The opening session gets under way today at 4:30 o'clock in the Briggs Cage.

The Crimson leader announced that the first week will be devoted exclusively to Freshmen. "We don't want to miss any material at all, and to be fair about it, we want to judge Freshmen only in competition with themselves at first," Harlow said.

The program as now scheduled includes work on fundamentals for both backs and linemen, and at the end of each session, Harlow plans to put together two teams composed entirely of Freshmen to run off plays used last fall. A week from Saturday Roy Mills, kicking expert, will be out to give the punters some pointers. The coaching staff plans to get the team outside as soon as weather conditions permit.

Meanwhile football heroes of four decades joined yesterday in a unanimous approval of spring football and the Harlow coaching regime. They feel that this practice is necessary in view of the shorter pre-season work in the fall and to give the coaches a good chance to size up new material from the Freshmen. Reflected in their endorsement was a great change of attitude from ten years ago when spring workouts were considered by many as overemphasis and the first step on the road to "big-time" football.

Lothrop Withington '11, who starred at guard in '09 and captained the team in '10, declared, "Pre-season practice serves two purposes. In the first place it gives the coach a chance two experiment with new plays, and secondly one or two unknown men are invariably developed who later become valuable. He cited the statue of liberty play which was developed by a player fooling around in early practice, and the learning of new rules which the crowded practices of a short season make difficult.

In the opinion of 'Tack' Hardwick '16, All-American end and member of the team in '13, '14, and '15, spring football is no longer the drudgery that it was in his day and therefore under the organization which "Dick" Harlow has effected it is invaluable and lots of fun. He felt that unless a football player was really essential to a spring team such as baseball or crew he would do better to take part in spring football. Questioned about Harlow he smiled and said "I have run out of superlatives praising him!"

George Owen '23, brilliant halfback in '20, '21, and '22 and All-American favored a longer fall training season although he believed that spring practice was worth-while. "I would have hated to play through a season without that early start," he laughed. However he believes that the Harlow system, of which he highly approves, is an intricate one and therefore made much more efficient by the early acquaintance with it given to the players in spring practice.

Charles Devens '31, who played in '29 and '30 and won fame on the diamond, declares that spring practice made it possible for a coach to wood out his material and thus get going quicker in the fall. Asked about Harlow he declared, "Anything Harlow says is fine!"

Thus Harlow starts out today where he left off last fall, building up another football machine with the whole-hearted support of alumni stars