Committee Trying to Find Long-term Football Coach

In answer to a persistent rumor, a member of the Faculty Committee on Athletic Sports yesterday stated categorically that the Committee's objective was to find a permanent football coach, rather than to make an interim appointment.

Preferring to remain unidentified, the member said that "it would be to the disadvantage of Harvard to appoint an interim coach if we can get better." He termed "distinctly not so" reports that the committee sought to make an interim appointment of one year, in order to gain time to find a permanent coach.

He gave as the reasons against an interim appointment the fact that it takes more than a year for a coach to get settled and institute his system. In addition, he cited the bad publicity which would result if Harvard were to fire its coach after only one year.

The only situation in which the committee would recommend an interim appointment, he maintained, would be if the ten-man committee could not agree on a choice within the near future. The faculty member added that the appointment would have to be made early in the spring so that the newly-appointed coach could appoint his assistants, but felt that it would be difficult to agree on a suitable man before the March 4 Corporation meeting, when an appointment would ordinarily be approved.

He refused either to affirm or deny another rumor which had the committee offering an interim appointment to Josh Williams, currently the Crimson back-field coach. Williams was unavailable for comment last night. According to the Boston press, Williams, who is known to have the endorsement of the vast majority of the present football squad, had turned down an interim appointment, preferring instead a more permanent situation.