Erstwhile Green Bay End Jacunski Scouts and Coaches for the Crimson

Students whose consistent Saturday stadium allocations in the colonnade have led them to muse on "the lucky coaches who get the best seats in the house for every Crimson football game" can stop their griping as far as Varsity end mentor Harry Jacunski is concerned.

The soft-spoken, easy-going veteran of three years of college ball and six of professional, who now lends his experience to the efforts of Wally Flynn, Walt Coulson, Tom Felt, and company, has seen exactly one Harvard gridiron contest--last year's Yale fracas--since joining Dick Harlow's coaching staff in the spring of 1946.

No, Harry hasn't been shirking his duties. He's been doing one of the most necessary jobs of that complicated organization only the results of which the football fan sees of a fall Saturday afternoon--the job of scouting next week's opposition.

Eli Tilt Exception

Every weekend before the last game of the season Harry, joined by Jayvee coach Chief Boston or Varsity line tutor Hal Kopp, boards a train for other stadiums to jot down plays used by future Crimson opponents. Every weekend except this one before the Eli battle, that is, Tomorrow Harry will be accompanied by not only the above mentioned two but also by Freshman mentor Henry Lamar. "Four men can chart even the emotions of Howie Odell," Jacunski says.

"With four men in the press box, we can put one on each side of the line, one on fullback and quarterback, and one on the halfbacks. Since a team usually runs each play at least twice in an afternoon, it's pretty easy to get every play perfect," Harry adds.

Easy Ones Difficult

"The only trouble with the system," Jacunski claims, "is when the team you're scouting has an easy game. Then the coach doesn't have to break out any of his tricky stuff."

Harry says seeing the Yale game last year was a real treat for him. Most of the time he has to observe the products of his Monday through Friday labors in the movies of the fracas.

Motion pictures don't appeal to the giant former flank man, at least not as a way to judge the mistakes of his tutees. "'Pictures don't lie' doesn't apply to football games," say Jacunski. "The camera distorts the play and sometimes you think a man could have made a tackle when he actually was yards away from the ball-carrier."

Harry's gridiron career began back in the Fordham-Pittsburgh football dynasty of the late '30's, when he held down the left end slot of that famous forward wall, the Rams' "Seven Blocks of Granite"." In 1938, his senior year, Jacunski co-captained the Rams with Mike Kochel and proved himself a 60-minute man as Fordham lost only to the Panthers.

After seeing considerable action in the next year's All Star game, Harry moved into the National Professional League, accepting the ovations of vitriolic E. L. "Curly" Lambeau, coach of the Green Bay Packers.

The first three years in the pro loop, Jacunski had it rough. He played second string behind the incomparable Don Hutson. "The little exercise kept me in good shape," says Harry, "but it wasn't exactly healthy for the pocketbook."

With Hutson in his prime, things looked hopeless for Harry, but then starting right end Milt Gantenbein retired to a more quiet life and Jacunski was shifted to fill the hole.

From 1941 to 1945 he held down the regular right end berth and within that time gained respect throughout the league as one of the finest defensive ends in the business.

Harry claims he resents being called a "defensive" end, but at the same time boasts the Packers' 16 to 14 win over the favored Chicago Bears in 1941 as his most exciting game. In that tight contest, contrary to the idea that he stood out offensively, Jacunski never scored a point. But his end was not turned the entire afternoon.

Moves To Notre Dame

Married shortly after he left the Bays ("The idolatry that goes with being a football player in the little town of Green Bay, Wisconsin, is not exactly conducive to happy marriage," he says), Harry moved to South Bend, Indiana, where he took over the end coach chores for Notre Dame.

Although he still likes to dream of the 30-man flank squad he instructed in his one-year stint, at Notre Dame, Harry is happy with his three-deep Crimson and unit. "Hal Kopp or Bob Margarita would be delirious if they had three men of practically equal ability at each of their positions," he says.

This depth also gives Harry some of his troubles. Every time another post gets a little too thin, Jacunski find one of his ends playing fullback or center.