From the sprinting, it might have been a heavy duty track meet. From the attention to footwork and timing, it might have been ballet practice. From the instructors' caps, it might have been baseball.

But then, through the dust bowl called Briggs Cage, you saw the shoes. They weren't sharply spiked for baseball or track and they weren't half dainty enough for ballet.

You looked up through the clogged air and saw faded crimson jerseys, 90 of them to be exact, stretched taut over shoulder pads and often just as taut over bulging stomachs.

You also knew that six weeks from now, while the jerseys might still be taut over the pads, the midriff sections would he flapping like empty spinnakers.

Most of the faces were strange, and there were no numbers or programs to help you out. Except for a very few, the faces would be more battered, but no more familiar next November and maybe even the November after that.

They were the earnest faces of last year's freshman and junior varsity squads, of House football players and returnces from the never-never land of probation. And they were all trying to get berths on a varsity squad which has lost only three of its first 30 men--trying so hard that they tripped over each other in the sprints and banged heads in the blocking drills.

They were students who had walked down to Dillon Field House and the dressing room on the first day that could really be called "spring," and now they were learning from experts what the "training" part meant.

A few of the familiar faces under baseball caps combined with a few of the familiar faces over crimson jerseys in a teacher-star pupil demonstration. Batch Jordan's protege, Howie Houston, illustrated The Offensive Stance for the linemen. Chuck Glynn demonstrated How to lead a Spinning Fullback for the centers. Bill Henry performed in Signal Calling: Rhythm and Clarity for the quarterbacks.

There was a new face under a baseball cap, too: one Steve Sebo, a modest man who readily admits adopting the Michigan-Harvard system from his predecessor, Davey Nelson.

Unassisted, he also gave a demonstration. He walked into murky Briggs Cage, peeled off his sweat shirt, and illustrated How to Tell If a Man Knows His Stuff.

He complimented and he corrected. And without any possible way of distinguishing personnel, he consistently complimented the veteran and corrected the novice.