Newcomers Start For Football Team

Eleven gritty little new faces will beam out from under helmets and faceguards when the Crimson takes the field against Lafayette tomorrow. Only on e of them is a sophomore--Ray Hornblower--and he will be running back punts. Most of the others are juniors who saw limited action last year.

Harvard has the second-fewest number of lettermen returning in the Ivy League--15. (Princeton has just 14.) As a result, Coach John Yovicsin wil be counting heavily on his newcomers. And with so many of them, there can be little doubt that this year's squad will be a lot different from last year's. Probably better.

On offense, junior Tom Jones (an actor in the off-season) will take over the guard spot vacated by Bob Flanagan. Jones is small but tough. His favorite move is knocking down men downfield who are far away from the action. It shakes them up. His partner, senior tackle Chris Burns, was the swing man at that spot last year. He filled in for Steve Diamond when the big tackle was injured for a time, chalking up 90 minutes and earning a letter.

In the backfield, junior Will Stargel, an exciting runner, is replacing Bobby Leo at halfback. Stargel is fast and shifty. But he has two problems--he fumbles frequently and he is prone to injuries.

At fullback the new man is Gary Strandemo. Like Stargel, senior Strandemo saw four minutes of action last year, a substantial amount. But like Stargel too, he will have a tough time replacing his predecessor Tom Choquette.

On the defensive line there are three new men. Bill Timpson at end played magnificently at the finish of the season last year as swing man. He is a good, strong rusher, who often dumps quarterbacks for big losses. Timpson seems to be an able replacement for last year's captain Justin Hughes. In fact, he might have been last year too.

Less experienced are tackles Lonny Kaplan and Steve Zebal, who is replacing injured Joe deBettencourt.

Rounding out the defense are junior John Emery, swing man at linebacker last year and probably the best tackler on the squad, and cornerback John Ignacio, another junior.

Place kicker Tom Wynne, who may see some action at corner, could be Harvard's finest booter since Charlie Brickley.