An Urban Legend

"Urban legends, despite their comtemporary sound, display the same characteristics as older verbal folklore. They pass from person to person by word of mouth, they are retained in group traditions, and they are invariably found in different versions through time and space."--Jan Brunvand, The Choking Doberman and Other "New" Urban Legends.

Sixteen months ago, I had the fortune, good or bad, to create what can charitably be called a Harvard urban legend.

Researching a story for a preview of the 1985-'86 Harvard men's hockey team, I came across a startling fact which had long laid dormant in the history books: no Harvard team had captured an NCAA championship since 1904.

I wrote the article, detailing the exploits of the Crimson golf squad of that touchstone year which had bested four other colleges to gain its fifth title in six years. The 82-year drought received some notice during Harvard's championship drive which ended with a 6-5 loss to Michigan State in the NCAA finals. The one-goal defeat seemed a cruel but inevitable part of that sorry history.

A year passed, hockey season came again, and once more Harvard looks like a serious contender for the national championship. As the Crimson has been making its push for the Final Four these past weeks, my fact started popping up in all sorts of distorted forms.

"Guess what," one of my aquaintances said after Crimson fencer Jim O'Neill won an NCAA individual title last week. "Some fencer won Harvard's first NCAA title since 1906."

Last weekend at Bright Center, another friend said, "I think that if Harvard wins the title next weekend, it will be our first team little since 1916."

Although Brunvald's book deals with false legends--that, for instance, monsterous alligators populate our sewer systems--my legend is true. To review the essentials of the fact-legend:

. Harvard has won 58 individual NCAA titles over the years.

. The NCAA does not sponsor title competition in a number of sports that Harvard has dominated in recent years such as squash and crew.

. The 1904 golf title, still the last NCAA team title claimed by a Crimson squad, was won at the Myopia Hunt Club. The Harvard golfers were captained by H.C. Egan '05 whose name, for some reason, does not appear anywhere in the Harvard Alumni Office records.

The above should set the record straight once and for all. If the Harvard hockey team emerges victorious this weekend, it will have captured Harvard's first NCAA team title in 83 years.

There is, I fear, one additional motive behind the writing of this piece. It has always seemed to me that I was cheated out of my chance for glory by the situation, that I should have somehow been rewarded by the Harvard community at large for the fact I discovered.

At the very least, I wanted people to footnote the fact in speech, to remind themselves and their listeners of its origin. Realizing the impossibility of this, I am content merely with restating my legend. I promise to say no more on the subject.

By the way, did you hear that Mikey, the Life cereal kid, died while eating Pop Rocks?