Cagers Criticize Coaching Style

Even though it finished with the best Ivy League record in Harvard history, the Crimson basketball team seems to have had more than its share of trouble doing it.

Through the course of the season, five members of the squad decided to quit playing, and the last two, senior transfer Hal Calbom and junior transfer Vince Lackner, cited disagreements with head coach Bob Harrison's coaching as their reasons for quitting.

SPORTS ANALYSIS

Both Calbom, who alternated starting at forward with Marshall Sanders, and Lackner, who was a reserve forward, wrote separate, though similar, five-page letters to Harrison, explaining their reasons.

Of the other three, senior Joe Stanislaw, who started at guard last year, quit after three weeks of practice, and could not be reached for comment last night.

Sophomore reserve forward Eric Fox, who quit after the Valparaiso game in early January, declined to comment on his reasons.

And junior Matt Bozek, who averaged 17 points per game last year as a starting guard, quit after the Princeton game near the end of February. He indicated at that time that he was getting no personal satisfaction from being on the team, and did have disagreements with coach Harrison's coaching methods.

According to Lackner, who has spoken to most of the team, the reaction of most of the players to his letter was generally favorable. "At least, no one to whom I spoke expressed disfavor to me," he said yesterday.

Most of Calbom's and Lackner's criticism centered on what they called Harrison's authoritarian style of coaching. This resulted, they said, in undue pressure on the players to perform, and ultimately in the team losing games it shouldn't have lost.

Calbom, who gave Harrison the two letters March 1, said at that time that Harrison "failed to encourage self-confidence in the players and made them uptight and unable to concentrate when they were in the game because he tried to captain the team from the bench."

Other players expressed dissatisfaction earlier in the season. Captain Dale Dover, on the squad's behalf, asked Harrison to shorten the length of practice to about two hours, instead of what frequently turned out to be three or three-and-a-half hours.

"Practices were too long in a lot of cases." Dover said yesterday, "even though the coach's reasons for it lie in his enthusiasm for the game. He does tend to be volatile and boisterous, which does work for some players, but cuts into the confidence of others."

When he received the letters, Harrison didn't want to comment at any length about the criticism because the team still had two games to play.

However, yesterday he said that he was "willing to accept the responsibility for not having made them [Calbom and Lackner] happy, I'm going to try to change in the future, and I'm sure that their criticism will help us deal more effectively with individual players' attitudes."

Both Calbom and Lackner intended their criticism to be constructive. Calbom's letter read in part. "If these player-coach relations can be ironed out. I see nothing but a bright future for Harvard basketball, but if not, I see nothing but further frustration and contempt in the future."

But now both claim that their position has been distorted, and they've come out looking like "malcontents." "All the players on the team know about these gripes," Calbom said yesterday. "It's not secret, and I hoped that my letter would get it out in the open so that the whole team could benefit," he added.

From several players comments, it seems that Harrison can be faulted for his failure to understand and deal with some of his players. But on the other hand, coaching at Harvard is particularly difficult because a player's commitment to a sport is frequently diluted with other concerns.

Harvard has had only one senior per team during the past two seasons, and next year's team will be the same-Brian Newmark, captain-elect, will be the only returning senior letterman.

Newmark, like the other members of the squad, is aware of the criticism that has been leveled against Harisson's method of coaching.

He spoke with Harrison Wednesday about Calbom's letter, and said yesterday that "the coach has been going over the complaints in his head. He plans to take them into account, and has been re-evaluating some of the aspects of his program."

"I don't know whether some new action will result, but hopefully these player-coach differences can be avoided next year so that we can concentrate on winning." Newmark said.