Kubacki: Rushing Harvard to the Top

Third and one with only three plays remaining against Holy Cross, as fans began hopping down the cement steps of Harvard Stadium last Saturday, all that was left for Jim Kubacki was to run out the clock.

Kubacki swept left, caught his balance and just started running--forty yards. "You know," he said later, "It's funny to be out there in the open, running, with just nobody there. I can't explain it, it's just funny."

Funny, maybe, for quarterback Kubacki who just two days before did not know for sure whether be would be playing first string or fifth. Funny to be out there in the open, running, for Kubacki who had spent most of his collegiate career watching from the sidelines with one injury or another.

Freshman year, Kubacki couldn't play because of shoulder problems. Sophomore year, he played in two JV games until, as fate would have it, another injury put him out for the season.

Uphill Battle

"Going into the game, it was an uphill battle," explained Kubacki. "Restic's system is very complicated and I'd already missed a lot. I'd had two good scrimmages and one pretty bad one. I was nervous about the game, sure, but not overly. I was just anxious to get my chance."

Harvard moved on those first two plays and Kubacki's confidence, quickly confirmed, edged out any remaining nervousness. But then, like a recurrent nightmare, in the third play of the game, southpaw Kubacki injured a finger on his throwing hand and was taken out.

As doctors x-rayed his finger for breaks during the first quarter, only one thing was on Kubacki's mind: "Oh no, here we go again." But his finger was only dislocated and, after it was taped to another, Kubacki got his chance. The rest--21 carries for 154 yards, one touchdown and one touchdown pass, and the final score, 18-7--is history.

But another fragment of history means much more to Kubacki, the story of his brother Ray who graduated Harvard in 1968. Ray's situation, when he too was a junior, was very much like Jim's: he had competed with six other quarterbacks, learning just days before the first game that he was slated to start. But two days before that game, Ray ruptured a disc, and was never to play football again.

Kubacki will admit, when pressed, that he was happy with his first varsity game. Yes, right now he is the top collegiate offensive player in the country. "But," he is quick to add, "that is a per game average, per game."

He says that be couldn't believe he'd be considered a "star" at Harvard. "You get that in high school," he explains. "Here nobody really cares. And if they say anything, it's sort of embarrassing. What should I say? "Yeah, I'm great?' Well, I guess it's a lot better than being a bum." That's Kubacki logic.

Raised in Cleveland, Kubacki has a midwestern openness which is not really simple or naive, although most Easterners would see it as such. For instance, he places Harvard on a much higher plane than high school or big football colleges--a place to learn from other people, somewhere where stardom and self-centeredness have no place and no meaning.

Kubaki says that he hates to talk about himself, and he really does hate to. How about high school? Star quarterback? A shy shrug. Football captain? He changes the subject. Student council president? Kubacki blushes and slides down in his Harvard chair: "No, treasurer."

Kubacki is as quick to deny that he is a good student as he is to deny that he is a great athlete. He was pre-med for one semester until he "got blown away by some Chem course." "All those electrons and neutrons," Kubacki admits with a chuckle. "I don't even believe it any more."

Hardest Course

Now Kubacki majors in history. Sometimes he takes "guts". But if you ask him what's been his hardest course at Harvard, he'll say without flinching, "Football."

Kubacki slides a pile of notebooks, folders, papers and envelopes to the center of his neat desk in Leverett Tower. "This," he says, "is football."

It is a side of football the fans never see. But for Kubacki, the collection of diagrams meant the difference between first and seventh string. He spent all summer studying, memorizing each formation, every play, envisioning what he would do in each situation.

Kubacki is not particularly articulate. His speech is studded with "you knows" and self-conscious "I don't knows," his sentences punctuated with disarmingly soft chuckles.

But when Kubacki talks about art or ballet or his music history course, his dull blue eyes widen. He says that he is interested in just about everything. And, when asked about his future, an odd smile spans his sculptured face. "Right now there's nothing I want to be when I grow up." The Kubacki chuckle. "I don't even living one day at a time, enjoying everything and everyone he can. His teammates will tell you that Kubacki is "loose" in a huddle. It is the looseness that comes, perhaps, from living with the uncertainty of whether he will be able to play or not, form believing, not in fate or manipulation, but only--and very quietly--in himself.

"That's what I like about it at Harvard," Kubacki says. "There are a lot of people here who do good things. I play football well."

But Kubacki had committed his first cardinal sin--bragging, or what he thinks is bragging. He tries to absolve himself, but, alas, it is too late for modesty.

"Well, maybe I don't play so well. We'll see Saturday."