Team of Destiny

I'm sorry that more of you didn't make it out to Harvard football games this year. You missed a hell of a team.

Harvard (9-1, 7-0 Ivy) simply would not let its Ivy title drive be stopped, whether it was losing seven starters to injury or blowing a 20-point lead to Bucknell. It was, to use a cliche, a team of destiny.

Nobody could have known this class would go out like this. The seniors arrived to a brand new coach, Tim Murphy, and promptly went 4-6. Then 2-8. Then 4-6. But this year, Harvard could do no wrong.

The proof came against Princeton. Harvard was trailing 12-8 when sophomore Mike Giampaolo booted a 21-yard field goal. That's uneventful enough, except that the ball was tipped and still went through.

The Crimson got the ball back on the Tiger's next possession. How? The quarterback fumbled the snap. By now, you should be hearing "Twilight Zone" music.

After the offense bogged down, in trotted Giampaolo again. He coolly nailed a career-long 43-yard field goal for the win.

Things just got better after that 14-12 win. The Crimson shut out Dartmouth, came back from 10 down to beat Brown, then shut out Penn. The Yale game was close, but the talent gap was too vast.

Last week, the All-Ivy selections were announced. And Harvard, as you would expect from a league champion, was all over the list.

Senior offensive tackle Matt Birk, the cornerstone of the line and the best o-line-man in the league, was a unanimous selection. So was sophomore running back Chris Menick, who broke Harvard's single-season rushing and touchdown records.

Defensively, senior end Tim Fleiszer and tackle Jason Hughes were first-team linemen. Both spent most of the game in the opponents' backfields disrupting running plays and sacking the quarterback.

Also on the first team defense was last year's Rookie of the Year, Isaiah Kacyvenski. He wasn't glamorous, but he made a ton of tackles and was a run-stuffer on a team which was impossible to run against.

Senior end Chris Smith, who ended as Harvard's all-time sack leader, was a second-teamer but played well enough to be on the first team. He probably lost out on reputation alone to Penn's Mitch Marrow, since Smith had more tackles and sacks.

Joining Smith on the All-Screwed list was sophomore quarterback Rich Linden, who earned second-team honors but should have been selected ahead of Brown's Jason Perry. Perry had better stats because Brown threw a lot more than Harvard this year. The threat of Linden's passing is what made this the most potent offensive attack the school has had in decades.

Sophomore wideout Terence Patterson, who made big plays all year--including scoring three touchdowns against Dart-mouth--joined Linden on the second team. Seniors Jared Chupaila (Honorable Mention) and Colby Skelton were equally deserving, but Harvard spread the ball around so much that neither accumulated enough statistics to get the necessary votes.

Even so, in a third-and-eight, there isn't a trio of receivers I'd rather have.

Senior safety Jeff Compas, who started the most games in Harvard history (39), joined Smith on the second defense. Comp finished second all-time in Harvard interceptions (14). Although he got his mitts on a lot of passes, he could never get the one he needed to tie the record. Still, he was the leader in the defensive backfield and ended as Harvard's second all-time tackler.

The coaches voted senior tackle Chris Schaefer and junior corner Glenn Jackson onto the Honorable Mention defense. Schaefer's selection proves that you could have put Harvard's entire d-line on the first team and not have been far off.

Jackson led Harvard in interceptions with six and helped key the secondary's outstanding play in the Ivy League. Sophomore safety Aron Natale missed a few games, which dropped him out of contention for All-Ivy honors, but he played to that standard when he was in.

Some other players got left off who deserved to make it. Skelton ended his career last Saturday as Harvard's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards, punt returns, and punt return yards. And at least a couple of Birk's fellow o-linemen should have been on the list.

Still, it's not a bad haul for Harvard. When half of your starters are named to one of the All-Ivy teams, it's pretty obvious that you had a lot of talent.

And directing these players was Murphy, who finally had a team composed solely of his recruits. The skipper had the golden touch this year; it was amazing to watch his third-and fourth-down playcalls work again and again. Harvard's dramatic turnaround resulted in his being named New England Division I Coach of the Year.

But it wasn't just talent that made this team special. It was the way the talent meshed. When that happened, the rest of the League didn't have a chance. After all, you can't mess with fate.