Harvard Leads in Lambert Trophy Voting

Harvard's undefeated, untied football squad is leading at the halfway mark in the race for a Lambert Trophy marked with a new significance.

At the end of this year the Lambert Trophy will go to the major college grid team in the East showing the "most outstanding achievement" over the season. In the past, the trophy was awarded to simply the best team in the East.

The results released yesterday have no official significance. They are only an indication of how the teams are doing midway in the year, and have no bearing on the vote taken at the end of the season.

The Crimson polled 89 points with six first-place votes from a board of ten sportswriters, sportscasters, and Lambert board members. Syracuse (5-2), which has won its last five games, placed second in the voting with 81 points and four first-place nods.

Harvard has never won the Lambert Trophy. Last year, the Crimson placed ninth in the final voting with 27 points, far behind the winner Dartmouth with 119.

Following the Crimson and the Orangemen are: Army (5-2) with 68, Colgate (5-1-1) 58, and Cornell (5-1) 56. Then comes Dartmouth (4-2) with 33, followed by Harvard's next opponent, Princeton (4-2) 22, and Navy (3-4) 20.

The Lambert board decided to change the meaning of its trophy this year when bitter disputes arose in both 1964 and 1965.

Two years ago the award went to Penn State, which ended the season with a 6-4 record after losing its first four games. Princeton was undefeated that year, and Tiger-boosters blasted the board for ignoring them.

Probably as a result of the Princeton affair, Dartmouth won the trophy last year, and Syracuse, a team that undoubtedly would have whipped the Big Green placed third. Again, a dispute arose.

So this year the rules of the games were changed. And Harvard, a squad that would have a tough time knocking off Syracuse if it played the Orangemen -- is the chief benefactor of the new set-up.