Championship Links to the Past

When the Harvard men's golf team defeated Yale in 1904 to win the national intercollegiate golf title, it was the sixth National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) team championship for Harvard squads in any sport.

It was also the last.

So if the Harvard men's hockey team succeeds in winning the NCAA title this year, the likes of Fusco '85-6 and MacDonald '88 will have a lot in common with the likes of Egan '05 and McBurney '06.

For the team captained by H. C. Egan '05, and made up of W. E. Egan '05, W. C. Chick '05, M. McBurney '06, A. L. White '06, and F. Ingalls 1L, the victory over Yale on October 20, 1904, at the Myopia Hunt Club, was neither surprising nor exciting--the Crimson had claimed the event five times in the previous six years and only five teams contested the NCAA title that year.

"The members of the University team all exhibited good form," the next day's Crimson reported, "and an excellent showing was made."

The article went on to express confidence that the Crimson would soon win another title.

Eighty-one years later, the Harvard athletic community is still waiting.

Because no Crimson squad since the Egan-led golfers has laid claim to the title "NCAA Champion."

Which is certainly not to say that Harvard hasn't had its share of national success. Crimson athletes have won 57 NCAA individual titles over the years, and Harvard consistently does well in a number of non-NCAA sanctioned events like squash, rugby and crew.

In fact, the first national championship recognized by the NCAA was a singles tennis title won by J. S. Clark of Harvard in 1883.

But since 1904, no Crimson squad has brought a NCAA title home to Cambridge.

Maybe it's because of those non-sanctioned sports. The NCAA sponsors 20 men's sports and 14 women's sports, but none of those seems to be the ones in which Harvard excels.

In the last two years, the Crimson men's squash team won the six- and nine-man national titles, the men's rugby squad won nationals, the Radcliffe lightweight crew won the national crown and the Harvard heavyweight crew won nationals and the prestigous Royal Henley Regatta in England.

The NCAA declined official comment on why it doesn't sponsor such sports as squash and crew. However, one official indicated that the small number of schools participating in those sports is a major factor.

However, this reason seems neither consistent nor sensible. About 35 colleges play squash, and Radcliffe Lightweight Crew Coach K.C. Dietz estimates that "at least" 150 schools field some kind of crew team.

Compare those numbers to the 53 teams which compete for the NCAA water polo crown or the 26 which vie for the NCAA Division II field hockey title.

In fact, only 35 schools will compete with Harvard this winter for the NCAA hockey title.

And surely no one would claim that the battle for the NCAA hockey championship will be unexciting because only 36 teams are involved.

So maybe the fault lies with the NCAA. Harvard's run-ins with the national governing board of college sports are well chronicled and seem to be growing in frequency. Harvard won its appeal of the Stephen Hall (a freshman soccer goalie from England) eligibility case this fall, but the very fact of the appeal indicates some of the friction between Harvard and the NCAA.

Or maybe Harvard's drought is linked to the fact that the NCAA didn't control women's athletics until 1981. Before that year, the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) governed women's sports as kind of a poor sister to the NCAA.

The Harvard (formerly Radcliffe) lacrosse and crew programs have historically fielded strong teams--yet for years there was no NCAA title to reward their efforts.

So the fault--if you can sub-divide 81 years of blame--seems to lie with the men's programs.

But ask Bill Cleary and Grant Blair if any of this matters. For Harvard hockey, the past consists only in last year's quarterfinal loss to Minnesota-Duluth, and the defeat at the hands of Wisconsin in the NCAA finals three seasons ago.

Without a doubt, the Crimson men's hockey team has come the closet of all Harvard teams in recent years to snapping the NCAA jinx.

But despite 10 final-eight appearances in the past 30 years, the pucksters have never won it all.

The 1904 Harvard golf team--the last Crimson squad to win it all--is now a forgotten part of Harvard history. The Myopia Hunt Club, located in South Hamilton, Mass.--about 20 miles north of Boston--is still there, still gaining renown for the polo competitions it sponsors.

The team members dispersed and are all known to have died.

All, that is, with the possible exception of Captain H. C. Egan '05. Because, while The Crimson clearly lists Egan as the team leader, the Harvard Alumni Office can't find any record of his whereabouts or even--for that matter--his membership in the Class of '05.

And you can't help but wonder if he hasn't been wandering about the area these past 81 years, somehow trying to preserve his team's grip on the title, "the last Harvard NCAA champion."

So if the Harvard hockey team sees a suspicious old man lingering around the Providence Civic Center--site of the 1986 Final Four--next March, it better be careful. Harvard's NCAA Team Champions Year  Sport  Site 1898 (spring)  Golf  (unknown) 1899  Golf  (unknown) 1901  Golf  Atlantic City 1902 (fall)  Golf  Morris County 1903  Golf  Garden City 1904  Golf  Myopia

Ivy League NCAA Championships School  Team  Individual Brown  0  3 Columbia  8  32 Cornell  5  10 Dartmouth  3  26 Harvard  6  57 Penn  3  25 Princeton  13  25 Yale  25  104

Ivy League NCAA Championships School  Team  Individual Brown  0  3 Columbia  8  32 Cornell  5  10 Dartmouth  3  26 Harvard  6  57 Penn  3  25 Princeton  13  25 Yale  25  104