FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK

Keep hope alive.

After last weekend's victory over Brown, the Harvard football team (2-6 overall, 2-3 Ivy) can now actually aspire to a winning Ivy League record.

Just two remaining games--Pennsylvania and Yale--stand in the way.

While defeating the Bears was about as challenging as a Gen Ed 105 final, the victory provided an emotional lift. After six futile weeks, the Crimson finally saw that it could win again.

"If you get a chance to walk into a dressing room after you've lost, lost, lose again--I tell you one thing, people aren't happy," Harvard Coach Joe Restic said.

"This [win] is a lift, no question. It's a morale booster, and you have to have that. Hopefully, it will carry us, and we'll play well going into the last two."

The key to the win was Harvard's resiliency, according to junior quarterback Mike Giardi.

"Today was the first day in a long time when we made mistakes but actually overcame them. We had a fumble, we got the recovery. I threw an interception, we still stopped them. We came up with some big plays."

And having Brown as an "opponent" didn't hurt, either.

Get Your Kicks: Brown's junior kicker Ed Mikolay must come from the Jason Staurovsky school of kicking.

In the second quarter Mikolay was called upon to deliver an easy 26-yard field goal. Instead, he hooked a line drive to the left that barely cleared the Brown offensive line.

Asked to convert the point after a Brown touchdown in the third quarter, he did the same thing. Low, and wide left.

Hey, Ed. Ease up on that soccer-style stuff.

Those Quazy Quakers: Some teams will try anything to win.

In last weekend's nip-and-tuck contest against top-ranked Princeton (7-1, 5-0 Ivy), Penn (5-3, 3-2 Ivy) reached into their bag of tricks and pulled out the old "Lonesome End" play.

Senior running back Fitz McKinnon supposedly left the game for a substitute, but never actually left the field. Instead, he hung out by his own sideline, and took a quick pass from Quaker quarterback Jim McGeehan. McKinnon turned field for 36 yards.

Penn ended up losing the game.