Journalism and Sports

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was annoyed at your interpretation of the Yale game in Monday's CRIMSON. As a member of the squad (who did not play). I may be biased, but (your sports writer) is the only person that I've so far heard of, including the professional sports writers, who did not have words of enthusiastic praise for the way Harvard played. It is true that Yale had the better team, as the statistics show, but the deserving to win was not Yale's, but Harvard's. Harvards three touchdowns were not scored without trying, or on flukes as you seem to imply, but were the result of hours of hard practice before the game. Nor was Harvard outplayed "for 60 minutes." The last quarter was, until the last two minutes, entirely Harvard's, Yale handling the ball only seven times, once for a Harvard touchdown on Drill's interception. Credit is also to go to Yale, but you disappointed me by falling to give sincere credit and congratulations to the Harvard team which has tried so hard this year and succeeded in earning the respect of most people though not of the CRIMSON. I'm sorry that the CRIMSON's policy all year (with a few exceptions it's true) has been to hold a sarcastic and disinterested attitude towards the team, loath to give a word of credit when it's due. I am not a letterman so I can speak at least partially without bias.

I think that the CRIMSON does wrong to make the football player at Harvard feel that he is sneered at, or at least, to make him feel that no one really has any interest in whether he tries or doesn't or whether he wins or loses. Yet the CRIMSON does just that to me.

If the CRIMSON considers its sophistication to be professional, big-time journalism, I disagree. It is only a cheap imitation which turns my stomach and which does in-justice to people (i.e. the football team) written about. To show a little enthusiasm over one's college team on the contrary, when it so deserves it, is not poor journalism; on the contrary, for the Harvard CRIMSON to fail to show such enthusiasm when the Boston and New York papers do, is ridiculous journalism. This attitude is not just about one game. It seems to be the CRIMSON's policy. Thayer Fremont-Smith '53

The CRIMSON, in its football coverage, has tried at all times to be impartial, and does not consider the easy art of pseudo-sophistication any more of a sports-writing virtue than over-enthusiasm.

The majority of sports writers, particularly those of New York, thought the moral victory was Yale's and not Harvard's. On statistical evidence alone the CRIMSON must agree with this, but it has had, in this game and all season long, the greatest respect for the spirited and aggressive play of the Harvard team.

But on facts alone, Yale handled the ball exactly seventeen times in the fourth quarter, not seven.

As Coach Lloyd Jordan said last Monday, "Although I am terrifically sorry for a great bunch of kids, I can't help but think of the great performance of the Yale players in the last two minutes." The editors of the CRIMSON, and, we are sure, the members of the varsity football team, share this admiration.