Injury-Stricken Offense Worries Glum Yovicsin

Yesterday afternoon, when Harvard football coach John Yovicsin desperately needed his starting offensive unit together, he found it strewn around Soldiers Field in various degrees of bodily injury.

Junior end Pete Varney and senior tackle Fritz Reed were ambling along the sidelines in street clothes. Varney's shoulder was so sore that he couldn't lift his arm above his head, while Reed had been forced out of last Saturday's game with a bumped head. Senior guard John Cassis had reinjured his knee, and Yovicsin thus was missing the entire left side of the line.

Right guard Drew Czulewicz had hurt a leg in the Holy Cross game and still wasn't ready. And junior end Bruce Freeman was attending a wedding in Oregon.

Backfield Woes

Things weren't too much better in the backfield. Quarterback Frank Champi had been knocked around pretty badly on Saturday and wasn't there yesterday. Haltback John Ballantyne was practicing but still hurting. Fullback Gus Crim was hurt too, and his replacement. Tom Miller was jogging easily in sweats trying to strengthen a sprained ankle.

Yovicsin wandered around the practice field, clipboard in hand, wondering how to get an offensive attack moving when he has to rebuild the entire unit two weeks into the season.

Inside Dillon Field House instead of the usual mimeographed depth charts: there were green sheets with one word on them-"Ivy." The managers had made the sheets partly to divert the players from thinking about B.U. But a look at the injury list made the sheets seem discomfiting.

Linebacker Gary Farneti and safety Fred Martucci were missing from the defense with elbow and knee injuries. They'll probably be missing Saturday, too. The offensive unit should be intact by Saturday, but now after the B.U. game when every day is crucial to Harvard's progress, this is small consolation.

Ups and Downs

"I've known for some time that we aren't as strong as we were last year." Yovicsin says. "As you know, last season all our problems worked out for us, and people naturally assumed that they would work out again. Well, they haven't yet."