Harvard Classics Near Big Time In Third Season

The Harvard Classics is a spirited, unconventional, but decidedly relaxed club of basketball players who lack either the ability or the inclination to play varsity ball. Despite this, in only its third season it has become a powerful and legitimate basketball team, having both landed a date in 12,000-seat Providence Civic Center and defeated Satch Sander's varsity squad in a scrimmage Sunday.

The Classics are strong this year, stronger than last year's 21-4 team. Thirteen of last year's sixteen players are back (two have moved up to the varsity). And the club, which limits memebrship to sixteen so that everyone can play, checked out nearly sixty candidates for the three vacancies in this year's squad.

"We can be competitive with the varsity," says coach John Harvey. "There is not a great gap there."

Loose Attitude

If there is not a large difference in ability, there is certainly a pronounced difference in attitude from the varsity.

"People are serious, but they're loose," says guard Marty Healey. Forward Pete Durgerian adds "The Classics is not a goal-oriented team. You play as many games if you win or if you lose."

The Classics are anything but a highly-organized team. They practice together only once a week. Havery passes around xeroxed copies of patterned plays before each game to substitute for running the plays in practice. Dressing for the games is optional. There is usually a different team captain for each game.

Harvey says his players play better because the team is not tightly organized. "Being uninhibited on the basketball floor very often allows them to play closer to their potential," he says.

However, he says the team as a whole "can lose some effectiveness" because it is not so tightly integrated.

Nevertheless, the Classics can be explisive. In one game last year they were thirty five points down with ten minutes remaining but managed to close the gap to one point before time ran out.

The Classics are also unpredictable. After they beat the MIT B-team by thirty point margins twice last year, they lost their third encounter on a last-second MIT shot.

On The Road

The Classics, who bill themselves as "Harvard's Vagabonding Basketeers," will play 17 of their 23 scheduled games on the road this year.

"The reason we play away is that we can't afford the darn referees," says Harvey. "It is much easier to drive a few miles over to some other school."

Although the Classics, now 3-0, have upgraded their schedule by adding games with the B teams of three top Northeast teams, Providence, UMass-Amherst, and Holy Cross, they have kept rivalries with the weaker junior college and community college teams that marked their first two schedules. This year's schedule also includes an away contest against the Deer Island House of Correction, and an unprecedented home game against the Concord Prison inmate team to be played on January 10.