The Best Laid Plans...

It was to be the largest fund drive for athletics in Harvard's history. At a time when universities were becoming increasingly worried over fund-raising prospects, Harvard in 1974 launched a $30-million drive to fund the Soldiers Field Athletic Complex. A fund drive pamphlet quotes one Ivy League administrator's opinions of Harvard's move:

There are colleges in panic right now over the financial pressures. There are colleges that are facing the same difficulties with coolness, imagination, and initiative. And there is a cheerful gladiator here and there among them, galloping along as though things were going to turn out all right eventually...

Harvard has launched a multi-million dollar fund for athletics: for new facilities, to refurbish old ones, and to increase the endowment for sports. There's something majestic about that kind of attitude.

However, things did not quite turn out all right: the Athletic Department last fall halted the drive because of fund raising problems and possible competition with other Harvard capital drives. The drive had fallen $17 million short of the $30-million goal, forcing Athletic Department officials to make major revisions in the plans for the athletic complex.

What kind of revisions? For one, the hockey team will be playing all this year's scheduled home games at Boston University's Walter Brown Arena, because renovations on Harvard's Watson Rink will keep it out of action through the end of the season. The Athletic Department had originally slated a new hockey rink for the athletic complex, but scrapped those plans early this year, as the fund drive faltered and the costs for the proposed rink rose from $5 million to $7 million. With no new hockey rink in sight, department officials decided that at the very least Watson Rink needed extensive renovations, thus forcing this year's switch to B.U.

The failure of the fund-raising drive has created problems in all phases of the athletic complex plan. The $13-million raised from the drive financed construction of the first phase--Blodgett Pool and the Indoor Track and Tennis (ITT) facility--but does not supply an endowment to cover the $300,000-a-year operating costs of the two buildings. And last fall, much of the second phase of the project had to be scrapped due to insufficient funds, John P. Reardon '60, director of athletics, said in July.

The second phase of the complex was to include the new hockey rink, renovations and an addition to Dillon Field House and conversion of Watson Rink into a basketball arena. Reardon said funding problems forced the Athletic Department to drop plans for the Dillon addition and the new hockey rink. The basketball team, hence, will continue to play on the worn courts of the Indoor Athletic Building (IAB); the hockey team, after this year's hiatus at B.U., will use the renovated-Watson Rink; and several sports teams will continue to feel the crunch in space available for locker room and other team facilities, though extensive renovations in Dillon to be completed this year should ease the problem.

Over the last few years, college fundraising drives have suffered. Harvard's drive for the athletic complex faced particular problems because its success hinged on receiving a number of large contributions; the general fund drive strategy of hitting a large number of alumni for relatively small donations would not work for a specialized project such as the athletic complex, Athletic Department officials said.

The officials planned to carefully solicit large contributions from likely sources and send mailings to former Harvard athletes. In the first year, donations were coming in at a good rate, and department officials expressed optimism about the drive. By 1977, however, the drive had stalled and various University officials began to worry about how it might hurt other University fund-raising efforts. In the fall of 1977, Athletic Department officials decided to halt the drive.

While the hockey team will feel the largest effect of the fund-drive failure this year, basketball will probably be hurt most by the cutbacks in the original athletic complex plan. The IAB basketball arena pales in comparison to a nice high school facility.

Under the original plan, Watson Rink was to be converted into a gymnasium housing three basketball courts, a gymnastics area and wrestling rooms. Varsity and intramural players, however, will have to continue using the IAB indefinitely as the money for a new facility is presently nowhere in sight.