A Little Bit of Lip

On March 1, Yale won the Big Three track meet, scoring 52 points to Harvard's 51, and Princeton's 34. Or at least everyone at the time thought that Yale had pulled one of the biggest upsets of the indoor season. Then Princeton track coach, Pete Morgan, read in the Sunday Trenton Times that one of his weight men, Tim McCann, had signed a professional football contract with the New York Giants.

What was McCann's good luck turned out to be a dilemma that took the Athletic Departments of Harvard and Yale over three weeks to solve.

McCann signed his contract on the day before the meet, and this made him ineligible to compete. He also received a $500 bonus check. Unknowingly, he also accepted the questionable words of the pro agent, who assured that 'this thing is done all the time, and no one loss eligibility in sports other tan the one for which he signed."

Since no one knew about the singing, and McCann mistakenly assumed that he was still eligible, he participated in the meet.

Unfortunately, he finished third in the 35-pound weight throw, an event in which Harvard's Charlie Ajootian and Ed Nosal took first and second, while Harvard's Dave Bernstein and Doug Griswold finished fourth and fifth. In scoring, Harvard received five points for Ajootian, three for Nosal, and one for Bernstein. Princeton got two points for McCann.

And here is where the problem arose. Since McCann was ineligible, hat was to be done to the results of the 35-pound weight event? There were major alternatives:

* Drop McCann from the standings and move the next two finishers up a place. If so, then Harvard, not Yale, won the Big Three--53-51-32.

* Merely vacate the place McCann occupied and award no points for the position he occupied. Then Yale would retain the title--53-51-32.

In Collaboration with his counterpart at Yale, Harvard's Athletic Director, Adolph W. Samborski chose the latter.

"Inasmuch as neither the Ivy League not the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) had a rule to cover the situation." Samborski said, "we decided to be guided by the rules covering NCAA championship competition. Under those rulers, according to Walter Byer, Executive Director of the NCAA, McCann's place is merely vacated and no points are warded for the position he occupied," he said.

So the surface issue of who actually won the Big Three title was finally settled, but there are a number of other questions which the whole affair gave rise to--questions which ultimately are much more important for the Ivy League's decision-making process on rules violation.

First--The inadequacy of the Ivy League's rules of eligibility have been strikingly emphasized. The official rules state that a player is no longer eligible after "signing with a professional team in any sport." This assumes ineligibility will be recognized before the event takes place.

But nowhere is there a decision of what to do when an athlete is discovered to be ineligible after the event. The only interpretation that the Ivy League has as a guide is contained in the NCAA regulations manual.

Even in the more clear-cut case when the ineligible athlete is on the winning team--when only his team is the one to suffer the consequences of his ineligibility--the Ivies must still rely on the NCAA for interpretation.

Harvard and Yale were placed in particularly touchy positions when they learned of McCann's infraction. Neither wanted to initiate discussion on the subject. Harvard did not want to appear to be begging for the win. And Yale, quite naturally, did not want to take anything away from the spectacular performance its squad turned in to upset the Crimson.

Thus it took over three weeks of Al-phones and Gaston tactics before the decision was reached. And aside from raising the question of why the two athletic directors did not think to refer to the NCAA before that time, one is led to strongly doubt the efficiency of communication and coordination between at least two of the athletic directors in this league.

Yet all this could have been avoided if the Ivy Group Committee for Coordination and Eligibility had displayed a little of the initiative that the NCAA did by adopting the rule that finally settled this mess.

This is not to say that the decision reached was by any stretch of the imagination wholly satisfactory and equitable. To be as fair as possible to Harvard, the performances of all the competitors in the qualifying round would have to be examined. If it should appear apparent that the Harvard men (Bernstein and Griswold) would have placed third and fourth with McCann out of the competition, then perhaps the third place points should be scored for Harvard.

But whether this is considered or not or, it is still up to the Ivy Group Committee to correct the omission of any guidelines covering ineligibility after the fact and, as soon as possible to re-evaluate its whole policy of dealing with ineligibilities.

Secondly--McCann's blunder points out that Ivy athletics are not as well acquainted with the eligibility rules as they are expected to be, and that something must be done to protect them from their own stupidity. It now seems necessary to take some measure to periodically, perhaps at the beginning and end of each season, remind every athlete of the rules so that something like this does not reoccur. And the head coach as well as his athletes should be held responsible to see that these eligibility rules are observed.

Finally--the relative ease with which an agent for a professional team with dollar power was able to convince an Ivy athlete that signing a contract for one sport did not sacrifice his eligibility to compete in others should provoke a re-examination of the Ivy League's entire policy towards professional teams.

The channels of communication between Ivy athletes and professional teams should be formalized to a far greater extent. Perhaps no athlete should be permitted to begin contract talks with a pro team until he has completed participation in all sports on the varsity level. Or pro teams should be required to work through the athletic department of the school when making overtures to any particular athlete. In any case, something must be done to assist ivy athletes in their dealings with pro teams.

More importantly, the Ivy League rules of eligibility should be revamped--in an effort to protect a whole team from possible penalties resulting from one person's ineligibility, or as has been made disturbingly clear by now, to protect certain athletes from themselves.