The Class football team, which for three years had won the University championship, and had beaten Yale the previous year, lost to the Elis, 12 to 7. The lineup included Hemminger, Mulford, Kiser, Robbins, Hartwell, Blowers, Turney, Taff, North, Long, and Sack.
The number of honors candidates increased decisively, and Manuel Quezon, then only leader of the Philippine Senate, asked for his country's independence at a Union debate. John Chase was awarded the Burr Scholarship, symbolic of athletic and scholastic leadership. The favored
Yale football team defeated the varsity 14 to 0, climaxing a relatively unsuccessful season which saw Dartmouth also win, 30 to 6.
Twelve new aviators joined President W. Nelson Bump's flying club. Class members were W. C. Atwater, E. Henderson, Sargent Kennedy, and J. L. Pool.
William Saltonstall was elected first marshal, with Dudley Bell and John Barbee named second and third marshals. Dudley Howe was elected permanent treasurer. Advocate president Charles Abbott was chosen class poet, while William Atwater was elected class chorister. Edward Clark was picked as Ivy Orator.
William Magie was elected permanent class secretary, while Chase and John Watts were picked for the permanent class committee.
Allston Burr '89, chairman of the War Memorial Church drive, answered criticism of the project. Burr claimed that despite complaints, three-quarters of the Harvard alumni wanted the Memorial. And a financial report showed that football had earned the University half a million dollars in 1926.
And then, on January 21, in the first five column CRIMSON banner except for Yale game stories--announced that Copeland would retire at the end of the year and that Hollis 15 would be his room.
The H.A.A. announced tentative plans for a huge indoor athletic building which would have a swimming pool. Harvard and Yenching University united in a special Chinese cultural analysis after the late Charles Martin Hall left $2,000,000. The plans for the future buildings continued with the announcement that the University would build the War Memorial Church, and Appleton Chapel would subsequently be razed. At the same time they mentioned that tuition would jump $100 next year.
"Nipponese team to play Crimson," the paper said that May, adding that the visitors "Have Strong Nine." The Keio University traveling nine dropped a close game to the varsity, 4 to 3.
Ralph Luttman took the mile in the IC4A championships in the Stadium, while in the first Harvard-Yale scholastic battle the Crimson, led by Nathan Pusey, won a close victory. The prize for the winners was a $125,000 contribution to the library. Pusey came in first in the contest, with L. J. Rittenband second, J. D. Merriam sixth, E. C. Wilkins seventh, J. E. Barnett ninth, and R. T. Sharpe tenth.
Harvard awarded 1884 degrees on June 21, 1928, with 659 going to seniors. And four men of '28 received the highest honor awarded to a Harvard graduate, a summa cum laude degree. They were: Edgar Malone Hoover, V. Samuel Seidel, Russell Thornley Sharpe, and Israel Solomon Stamm. The coming years would be hard, but the Class had Harvard diplomas, and that would help.