That several alumni of Brown University were upset over the Bruins' abysmal football season is perhaps not news; but the reaction to the first winless team in Brown's 83 years of football is a significant case study in what football means to a college--even an Ivy League college--and to the support of its alumni.

Many old grads wrote to various departments around the university, the Brown Daily Herald and the Providence Journal asked bluntly, "What happened?" The main forum of alumni unrest was of course the letters-to-the-editor columns of the Brown Alumni Monthly.

Following are three comments that university presidents--and football coaches--dread. Wrote one irate graduate (class of 1927), "If you think fund raising isn't affected by our football record, try collecting from some of the average alumni. I have." Another ('22) said, "Should we divert a little attention from the Ford Foundation's gift of 7 1/2 million bucks and give it to the football situation? From a purely sales-pitch angle, it will bring in more dollars than all that high-falutin' 'larnin'.' In industry, earnings count. In a college, I believe alumni do."

"I fully approve of all the meritorious academic pursuits of the last few years which are the goal of any great university, said a younger variety ('58), "but couldn't a little more money and/or admissions effort be given toward improving the football picture?... It is obvious the other Ivy colleges are doing much more recruiting or alloting more money than we are. Football deserves only the proper emphasis the Ivy League has placed on it. But let's not completely turn Brown into an academic oasis, as seems to be happening, without the other things that go into the making of a university."

Few alumni criticized the coaching staff--headed by John McLaughry, class of '38--but at least one alumnus blamed the alumni magazine's sports writer for raising pre-season expectations too much, and another blamed the players, who apparently don't fight as well as they used to in his day (1925).

He had noticed an announcement that two or three players had given up football last year for academic reasons, and said that he found it difficult to understand why senior lettermen would not want to graduate from college "going out in glory."

"What is more difficult to understand," he wrote, "is the lack-lustre, indifference, and absence of red-blooded desire on the part of talented youngsters.... Suddenly they 'retire.' It is not football they are 'retiring' from--it's life."

One anonymous old grad confessed, "No, I am not a rabid Brown football supporter--only hell-bent for a victorious season."

Some sound advice came from a member of the class of 1929, who said that, regardless of whether the college likes it or not, its main image in the press is through its activity on the football field. Brown would not lose much by dropping football, he said, but as long as the college fielded a team it ought to improve it or play teams closer to its level. "We are suggesting to the millions who read about our repeated failures every fall that, if a university can do anything this poorly, it might be equally careless and inexpert in other areas."

McLaughry seemed assured of at least one more season at Brown, but there were indications this winter that Brown would not tolerate any more losing football. Commented one athletic department official, "Perhaps in our desire to be 'representative' in the Ivy League we have aimed too sharply at being just that, representative. Then, in our good years, we manage to be representative. Then, in our good years, we manage to be representative, but in our off years we find ourselves something less. Perhaps we should start to aim at being the best. Then, once in a while, we will be at the top. And, in our off years we would then be what we are all striving to be--representative."

The Alumni Monthly concluded with a plea to alumni "to pitch in and help" to make the football seasons of the next 12 years something to be proud of. There was little doubt this year that alumni at least had plenty of advice to offer.