Ends, and Other Means

An assistant football coach is a man of limitless functions. Not only is he directly responsible for instruction in his specialty (line play, or backs, for example), a full-scale job in itself, but he must also double, triple, or quadruple in a host of other tasks.

Look at the various jobs of varsity end coach Joe Maras. Ostensibly, Maras' primary task is to teach the fundamentals and finer points of end play to the Crimson's "exterior linemen." That, though, is merely the beginning of his responsibilities. Maras has a strategic, as well as a tactical, role: at numerous meetings throughout the week, he and the other coaches thrash out the problem of the team, sketching the outlines and--as the week progresses--the details of the game plan to be used against Saturday's opponent.

On the practice field, the scope of Maras' duties have been extended so that he coaches the entire defensive line, as well as the ends. Maras (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable) is particularly suited for this job. In the course of four seasons at Duquesne and two-and-a-half years in the National Football League, he played end, tackle, and center.

Maras started his football carcer in Hibbing, a small town in the Minnesota iron ore country. He passed up college opportunities in state institutions for Duquesne, in Pittsburgh.

"Joe Bach, who was then (1934) Duquesne's coach, had relatives in Hibbing," Maras explains. "I got to know him, and decided to go to Duquesne."

An end as a schoolboy and as a college freshman--he captained the latter team--Maras was moved to tackle on the varsity. In his junior year the Dukes beat Rose Bowl-bound Pitt, 7 to 0, and went on to trounce Mississippi State in the 1937 Orange Bowl. Maras was captain of the team the next season, and won the Samuel Weiss Award as outstanding scholar-athlete. After graduation in June, 1938, he signed with the professional Pittsburgh Steelers.

"Pro ball was fun," the six-foot, one-inch, 185-pound Maras recalls. "Of course, I was too small to play tackle in that competition, so they made me a center."

That Maras was able to switch so quickly and so successfully--from one line position to another (even with the professionals) is obvious evidence of his football skill. He was especially adept at defensive play, working from a unique "two-point" stance. Linemen generally face the opposition either on all fours or else on one knee, with a hand down for support. Maras, however, stood on his feet, crouching forward so that his hands swung just clear of the ground. From that position, he could move quickly in any direction, and could use his hands to fight off blockers.

"Defense today is much more scientific than you might think," he notes. "In the past, football people felt that defense play was mostly instinctive. You set up your six or seven-man line, figuring that the natural reaction is to protect oneself, and that therefore a lineman would automatically get away from a blocker and move to the ball-carrier."

Maras then contrasts this with present-day conditions, and in doing so, explains his own job as well.

"With today's spreads, splits, and flankers," he says, "a lineman often doesn't see the man who's supposed to block him."

Current formations are so arranged that a lineman following blind instinct will be trapped and pushed out of the play. A defensive line must learn in advance how to cope with these situations. That is where Maras steps in--to acquaint the Harvard defense with the techniques required. In this department, Maras' professional playing career and his apparently inexhaustible patience are his greatest assets.

When his pro career ended early in the 1940 season, thanks to a broken leg, Maras, who had majored in Education with an emphasis on Chemistry, took a job as a steel chemist.

"It was pretty routine work," he says. "We had to take a sample from each batch of new steel, then test it to make sure the chemical components were in the right proportions."

He stayed at this for three years. By 1943, the war had started, and Maras was able to qualify for a Navy commission. He spent most of his time on the U.S.S Boston, a heavy cruiser, and consequently got very little chance to participate in athletics. The Boston was caught--with the rest of the Third Fleet--in the Great Typhoon of 1944.

"You just can't imagine the force of the wind and the water," Maras says. "Three destroyers capsized; and we were going over about 15 degrees."

Afterwards, Maras had still another unique battle with natural forces. He was stricken with appendicitis, and was operated on--400 miles from landl Post-operative complications almost cost Maras his life (penicillin saved it); he was assigned to shore duty shortly thereafter.

After his discharge, Maras spent two years as line coach at Champlain, a veteran's college in upper New York State. His name was brought to the attention of Lloyd Jordan, then head coach at Amherst, and Maras worked as Jordan's assistant for two seasons, moving to Cambridge with his boss in 1950.

In addition to his actual coaching duties, Maras is often used as a scout--his report on Colgate was a big factor in the Crimson's victory--or as a spotter from the pressbox, phoning information and advice to the bench during the course of the game. He rounds out his job with some movie narration, to undergraduate as well as alumni groups.

Despite the multiplicity of his employments, Maras has found time to study for, and to receive, an M.A. in Education Administration from Columbia.

Maras is married, and has three children, but he harbors no dreams of future football stardom for them.

"They're all girls," he explains.

"They won't play football," he says. "But maybe they'll inspire football players."