Loose Ball... Baggott Recovers

There's nothing that breaks up a crowded Harvard dining hall like the sound of glass meeting floor. Conversation ceases, faces turn, and everyone wants to know the identity of the ding-a-ling with butter fingers.

Just the other night this happened in Winthrop House, which is usually so crowded around the dinner hour that you need a shoe horn to get in, when suddenly Bob Baggott swooped in from behind the salad bar and jumped on the glass. First down, Harvard.

OK, you're right, of course Baggott didn't jump on the glass (see, he isn't crazy), but it was the first time all year that he hasn't recovered a fumble within three miles of him.

Baggott, you see, is the starting drop end on the varsity team, which is common knowledge to anyone who knows the nickname for VES 107.

If you don't know anything else about him, you should first realize that in eight games this fall, he has recovered the unheard of number of seven fumbles, a key statistic because a) if records were kept in this area, Baggott would no doubt have already broken it and b) it explains the first two paragraphs of this story.

How Baggott always just happens to be around (make that in the right place at the right time, you cliche-lovers) is really no great mystery. "I'm a real snake," Baggott said yesterday afternoon while trying to digest an incredibly Winthrop non-lunch of toasted--not grilled--cheese and tomato. Or, in the words of defensive line coach George Clemens, "the fact that Bob is always in on the action should say something about him. He has great quickness in his legs, and he wastes little motion or effort. When he's knocked out of position, he always makes a quick recovery."

There was one time in his Crimson career, however, when Baggott didn't make such a quick recovery. In fact, he still hasn't recovered from this incident.

"At the beginning of sophomore year," the junior end from Fullerton, Calif. said while fondling the jello, "I drove three days straight to get to school. As soon as I got here, after having spent the previous night in Toad's Bar in New Haven, they dragged me down for pictures, so I want to disclaim all responsibility for my picture in the football program. They refused to take it out."

While Baggott still hasn't recovered from the fact that most people only see him with a three-day old beard in the football program, a great many offensive backs around the Ivies haven't recovered from Baggott tackles.

I mean you just know he hits hard by the fact that as a high school stud--"In high school you're required to at least act like a stud, not that I was one"--Baggott also played offensive tight end and scored six touchdowns. Then why the decision to play defense in Cambridge? "It's basically more fun to be a hitter than a hittee."

The fact that Baggott is spending his undergraduate days in Cambridge in the first place is something that college recruiters would hardly have predicted three years ago.

Older brother Bill linebackered for UCLA, younger brother Brian is currently a second-team cornerback there, there were nine full-time varsity coaches at his high school, and he has high school teammates currently enrolled at such places as USC, San Diego State and Colorado State.

If you get the picture, then you know that we're talking about high intensity football, so what is Baggott, with a background as such, doing at Harvard?

"I was into that scene for a while," Baggott said while contemplating the ham loaf with pineapple sauce. "Few people in my position would go to Harvard. Why we used to shave our hair off for the football season. We were total monsters, but something in my character said I didn't want that to continue."

So Baggott came East, emerged as one of the best defensive ends in the Ivy League--"He may be the best one"-Clemens--, and while so doing provided stability (others would say lunacy) to a Harvard defense which for the past month has taken on the responsibility of the entire team.

As a defensive person, Baggott concedes that the offense, especially at Harvard with multi-flex being thrown around all over the place, will get most of the attention, but he still wishes it made known that "there is a team on the other side of the line," and he is one of its standouts.

This weekend, his parents will be part of the overflow crowd at The Stadium. "The hardest thing is that I'm so far away," Baggott said. "This is the first time that my mother's been able to see me play."

And then there's next week, when there's no more football. "I think I'll take a week's vacation," Baggott, who wears number 91 in your program, said. "But in the off-season, there is a major difference. Four hours are freed up, but it gets to the point where you don't know what to do. I come home in the afternoon and sleep."

If he dreams about the football season just past, he probably won't have night-mares, but he will have a few mild regrets. "What hurts about this season," he said while looking forward to supper, "is that we really should have come through with it. We lost two games we should have won and everyone knows it. We're still hoping Columbia will beat Brown, because nothing is a given."

Including All-Ivy honors, but Baggottt will no doubt be a first-team performer this time around, a notch higher than the status he achieved as a sophomore when he had two interceptions and 23 tackles.

We're already talking about two interceptions and the aforementioned seven fumble recoveries for this fall, and Yale still remains, a game which Baggott says typifies everything.

"The tradition hits you in the face," Baggott said, now thoroughly disgusted with the lunch and about to leave the dining hall. "It's really a pleasure to play. I really enjoy playing Yale."

Almost as much as he enjoys recovering fumbles. "They're talking about changing my position to designated fumble recoverer," Baggott said, now halfway out the door. But watch out for falling glass.