Margarita To Be New Coach Of Freshmen

Bob Margarita will replace Henry Lamar as freshman football coach next fall, the CRIMSON learned yesterday. Lamar, head freshman coach since 1936 will sup-vice junior varsity line play and take on certain coaching staff administrative duties.

The new Yardling coach will spend part of his time investigating and making reports on New England high school players suggested as prospects by alumni, students, and coaches. Lamar's major functions will be supervision of motion pictures of past Crimson games and reports on prep school prospects.

Margarita, head football coach at Georgetown for the past two years, is no stranger to recent Harvard alumni, having worked as backfield coach under Dick Harlow in the 1946 and 1947 seasons.

When Georgetown dropped football and left the head coach temporarily out of a job last March, Margarita thought he would like to return to Cambridge if there were any room for him on the new staff. He wrote to Lloyd Jordan without knowing that Jordan was trying to reach him at the same time to offer a position.

Speculation About Margarita

At the time it was speculated that Margarita was slated to replace backfield coach Josh Williams, who was suffering from a heart ailment. But Williams has since recovered and returned to his job, giving the College a seven-man staff consisting of Jordan, Margarita, Lamar, Williams, line coach Ted Schmitt, end coach Joe Maras, and jayvee coach Norm Shepard.

Small and wiry, five feet 101/2 inches man in his middle twenties. In fact he looks as though he could step back into the Chicago Bears uniform he wore during the late war years and star once again in the professional circuits.

In his playing days, Margarita was always a left halfback. He starred at Medford High and Scarborough-on-the-Hudson and went on to Brown to play single wing under Skip Stahley, a former Harvard assistant coach. He entered the Army Air Force in 1943, was released the following year, and managed to finish college and play for Chicago in the National Football league at the same time.

The next year Dick Harlow offered him a job. "We had a fine team here in '46," he says. "A lot of good boys." He recalls Chip Gannon, Eddie Davis, Cleo O'Donnell and others, some of whom "still drop around to wish me luck."

From Yale to Georgetown

When Dick Harlow resigned and Art Valpey came in in 1948, Margarita moved on to join Herman Hickman in the latter's freshman year at Yale-once again as a backfield coach. While at New Haven he got a break from his close friend Jack Haggerty. Haggerty had just been appointed athletic director at Georgetown and asked Margarita to come along as head coach. Margarita did.

Using the straight "T" at Georgetown, the 28-year-old coach led his first squad through a five-and-four season. In spite of the record, the team had put up a good enough showing to be invited to play in the Sun Bowl at El Paso. In a wild and erratic game, Georgetown lost to Texas Western, 33 to 21.

Last year he had lost 32 men through graduation and was only able to bring his sophomore squad up to a two-and-seven record