Sacrificing on the Road to Cornell

ITHACA, N.Y.--They skipped their Friday afternoon classes to board a noon bus to the airport. They sacrificed their long weekends to play for Harvard. They braved two days in Ithaca. But they didn't score.

They got to Logan on time but their chartered Air New England plane didn't. They sat in a boring terminal for nearly three hours and watched George Ford and Boyce Greer play a makeshift game of ping pong, Ford's suitcase serving as the net. The ball was imaginary, but it didn't matter. They didn't score.

The plane finally arrived, and they sat for 90 minutes wondering if they were going to make it. It was one of those planes with the For Sale sign still taped to one of the wings. It shook upon take-off. It bounced upon landing. It didn't matter, though, because while they made it to Ithaca, they didn't score.

They waited at Tomkins County Airport for another 30 minutes until the bus arrived. They rode to the Holiday Inn, checked into their rooms and feasted on the Athletic Department. But they didn't score.

They slept in comfortable beds, watched color television, breathed country air. But they didn't score.

They practiced on polyturf, they played on polyturf. The field hockey team played late Friday night, the soccer team early Saturday morning. On both occasions, it was cold, too cold to be outside playing games. But the weather didn't matter, because they didn't score.

The polyturf did matter. It was hard and it was slick, and for those unaccustomed to it, it's a decided disadvantage. Polyturf turns field hockey into ice hockey. It changes the nature of soccer, as sharp passes become missed opportunities, little chip shots the stuff from which goals are made.

Polyturf also burns. Just ask the football team. It produces injuries, nearly half a dozen pulls, bruises and hyperextensions on Harvard's side alone Saturday.

It doesn't necessarily produce goals, though. Harvard soccer and Harvard field hockey spent a combined three hours on the surface of Cornell's Schoellkopf Field over the weekend. Neither scored.

Of course, neither did the opposition, and when you throw in the hour that the football team spent there, and the lone touchdown it gave up, you realize that Harvard spent four hours on polyturf and gave up just one score itself. One in 240 minutes. That's stingy.

The football triumpth was the Crimson's 12th in a row away from Cambridge, so you have to wonder about the food in the Houses, about the home cooking, about the home field advantage.

Harvard has lost five straight at The Stadium. They haven't lost on the road since 1974, or before anyone who calls himself an undergraduate was enrolled here. Unless, that is, you're '77-4, '76-3, or something weird like that.

When the stands are filled with people yelling "Go back to Cambridge, you preppies," the final score favors Harvard. When it is filled with Crimson fans, the final score is disastrous.

If you're planning to attend this weekend's Harvard-Dartmouth game, then, forget it. Take the GRE's in the afternoon. Watch Texas-Arkansas on the tube. Ride north and see the foliage. Just don't go to The Stadium.

And if you're planning to go to Cornell in the future, think better of that as well. Go to Columbia instead. Go to Princeton. Go to Brown. But don't go to Cornell, because you probably won't score. Know what I mean?