Brian Buckley: No Looking Back

There are several things Brian Buckley tries not to think about. Questions that begin "what would have happened if" don't sit well with him, hold very little interest.

Yet such questions have dogged Harvard's senior quarterback since he was scarcely big enough to palm a pigskin. Buckley doesn't make any special effort to find silver linings, nor does he deny that his career has had its share of rough edges.

Consider high school, for example. Local pundits say Buckley's junior year at Marblehead High School ranks as one of the the best season performances in recent history. He brought his team to a share of the 1973 conference championship and earned All-America honors. He threw for 1800 yds. and 17 touchdowns, and his 21 for 30, 265 yd. performance against Sqampscott (and future teammate Tom Beatrice) was not atypical. So the college scouts came sniffing.

Then, in preseason camp before senior year, he fell on his shoulder and suffered a separation. He didn't play at all that year.

What If...

And even though he had a successful post-graduate year at Exeter (21 T. D.s, 2000 yds.), the offers didn't flood in as they might have if he had finished his high school career healthy.

"That injury actually gave me a better perspective on the whole college thing," he says now. Nebraska, Arizona State and SMU ("they put on quite a campaign, breakfast with Staubach, the whole thing.") still came courting, but Buckley began to ask himself "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?"

So he chose Harvard. And battled Burke St. John for playing time in the 1976 freshman team, completing nine of 23 passes for 103 yds.

He finally got the call in the big time early in sophomore year. When Larry Brown got injured in the Colgate game, Buckley came on for the second half and fired 20 completions in 40 passes for 250 total yds. The 6-ft. 3-in lefthander looked like a natural for the Multiflex.

Just One

But Brown stayed healthy in 1978, and Buck threw but a single pass. 1979 was going to be his year. He would be a senior and a star.

Academic ineligibility struck. And Buckley took a year off to work in a Boston advertising agency and on the Kennedy campaign in Massachusetts and Washington.

And when Buckley returned this fall, his original class having already graduated, the quarterback job was no longer his for the asking. So he dueled junior Mike Buchanan and sophomore Ron Cuccia for the job this summer and got Joe Restic's nod for the Columbia game.

And Buckley shined. Eleven for 20 for 137 yds. and a pair of touchdowns. And then Holy Cross; 17 for 26 for 234 yds. And then Army.

Army was to have been the Crimson's comeuppance after its 2-0 start. The Cadets had real teams on its schedule and was actually beating some of them. Big time football.

But Buckley and Harvard ignored the point spread and dominated the ballgame. It was the quarterback's best day of the season. With nine completions and 147 yds., it wasn't his best day in the air, but the Buckley obviously had the offense in complete control. Calling almost all of his plays, he ran when he had to (twice for touchdowns, one and 67 yds.) threw prudently, and controlled the clock.

Buckley had begun to look like the definitive Multiflex quarterback--mobile, intelligent under pressure, and strong-armed. Then, late in the fouth quarter, he fought off a pair of tacklers and was hit by a third. After a few minutes, his knee wouldn't straighten out. Knees being knees, by the next Saturday he had had two operations.

He smiles now and says, "This knee was also a tough one," alluding to his high school difficulties with his shoulder. "It was frustrating, playing those two games to get ready for the Ivy season, and then not being able to play."

Buchanan played gallantly in the next week's 20-12 victory over Cornell, but when he too got hurt, Restic ran out of top quarterbacks. Dartmouth blasted Harvard 30-12, and Princeton snuck by, 7-3. "I keep thinking about that loss to Princeton," Buckley says. Small wonder, Until the final minutes, Harvard had 19 yds. passing against the Tigers.

So Buckley began working to come back. Hours on the Nautilus machine. Running. Throwing. Teammates say he is one of the few quarterbacks who want to practice throwing longer than his receivers want to catch. He was finally ready for Brown.

...But Good Enough

Buckley wasn't at his best, he concedes, but the the difference in the Crimson squad was obvious. As Restic says, "He makes our stuff go." He gave up a costly interception and fumble, but Buckley did the job, and because of his two screen pass touchdowns, Harvard hung on, 17-16. Was it too late? For Harvard to have any chance of winning the Ivy League, Yale must lose to Cornell or Princeton.

Buckley seems concerned, but not worried. Clearly not as tightly wound as many other athletes, Buckley doesn't get extremely excited. He doesn't worry. He wants to win one game at a time. He obviously wants to win the League, and especially The Game, very badly, but he doesn't fret. He will confess only to his anxiety about getting enough Yale tickets for his large (five brothers and sisters) family and friends from Marblehead.

He will also make clear that his football ambitions don't end with the Yale game. Compared to Ken Stabler since high school, Buckley has received feelers from the San Diego Chargers, and Seattle Seahawks and BLESTO a pro-football scouting service that works for eight teams. A BLESTO spokesman said yesterday, "We think he's a good prospect."

"I'd like to give it (pro ball) a try," he says, "If it doesn't work out, I'd like to go to law school," he adds, obviously unexcited about the prospect. Buckley yearns to play football, but he knows his plans often have taken unplanned detours. And if the pros don't work out, Buckley probably won't look back and wonder. Looking back is not his style.