More Than Just Laundry Detergent

During last Saturday's Harvard men's soccer game against Yale, a few of the visiting side's fans had some strong feelings.

Like any good Yale's, they were jealous that Harvard had won a berth in the NCAA Division I playoffs at the expense of their team.

So they hung a banner from the fence directly behind the two teams' benches, ostensibly so that the Crimson could view the offending document from close range.

Soap Opera

The banner read: "The poll was wrong, they had to have lied, because you guys are superior to the Crimson Tide."

Now first of all, the Harvard sports teams are not underwritten by any soap company.

No, this bastion of high-class learning, living and tax evasion simply uses the color--not the color and the laundry soap--to identify itself on the playing field.

And secondly, Harvard (11-4) proved the veracity of the NCAA poll when it kicked Yale's collective gluteus maxim last Saturday morning, sending the pups back to New Haven without any scraps from the NCAA's table.

The Crimson has been playing what University of Connecticut Coach Joe Morrone called "destructive" soccer as of later, outscoring its opponents 40-14 on the season en route to winning 10 of its last 11 games.

But the booters were not nearly as impressive at season's start.

During the fall's first few weeks, Harvard suffered through its share of trials and tribulations. Although it entered the season with what Coach Jape Shattuck considered his most talented team in years, the Crimson sputtered just getting out of the starting blocks.

History Lesson

Just getting acquainted as a team, Harvard lost a 3-2 decision to Division 3 Brandeis in its season opener.

It then was shut out by last year's national runner-up Columbia squad--one of those schools where the soccer team scores more than the football team and draws just as many fans.

After that, however, the booters began to find their cohesion. They upset the University of Connecticut, a regional power which won the national title in 1981 and had been to the national tournament 11 of the last 12 years, and against whom the Crimson will hope to repeat Sunday afternoon in the second round of the playoffs.

De Tecqueville

The rest of the season is, as they say, history.

"I never thought we were a bad team," Shattuck said. "But all throughout the season the kindest category they could put us in was up and down. Even after we won five games in a row, all you heard was 'Harvard, the up-and-down men's soccer team.'

"But after we had the slow start, we played well, so I think we're finally out of that mold."

As the season's nine weeks wore on the Crimson, from goalkeeper Matt Ginsburg to center back Ian Hardington, who has been a tower of strength in the back four and has appeared on the scoring chart as well, and Captain Lane Kenworthy, a striker who is one of the team's scoring leaders, has steadily improved from a talented squad that outplayed its opponents but couldn't put the ball in the net into a highly talented squad that has outshot, out defended, outmaneuvered, and, most importantly,--outscored the opposition.

Now playing in its first post season tournament in a decade, the Crimson needs to continue to play at the level it has recently.

Its first opponent, UConn, has developed into a program which has become a dynasty on the national and local levels. Its players have gone on to the U.S. national team, the NASL and the MISL.

Unlike many soccer teams, the Huskies have averaged over 3,000 fans this year, creating an atmosphere which one coach said "could scare God Himself." They are respected in the NCAA for their ability to draw fans (read make money).

But Harvard believes that it can repeat its earlier victory over UConn. "We're better than them, and we showed it on a nice day and a nice surface," striker-midfielder John Catliff said.

The Crimson has turned a bad start into its finest season in 10 years, and it has the potential to make the record even more respectable this Sunday.