According to the quick, unstrained, and often exciting method of thinking--that of pigeon-holing and generalizations--Harvard is composed of three types: intellectuals, playboys, and jocks.

This is a horrifying reality to many people.

Nevertheless, all three are accepted categorical stereotypes which have been transferred from the quiet, naive, visually impressionable high school mind to the dinner table conversations in the Union and Houses. They are everyday terms used throughout the College to describe members of the undergraduate body.

The first is the intense young individual who values ideas and comments on academic problems with such insight and cleverness that he forgets to shave or wash. He is a grind and a recluse; he rots in Widener. The second is the companion of wine, women, and money. He talks it over in the Club in his oval-shaped Brooks Brothers suit. The third is the anti-intellectual slob--the animal. He grunts and sweats in Briggs Cage.

These are the men of Harvard--all here for an education, yet quite distinct in their stress of the academic, social, or athletic life.

Many observers in Cambridge believe that all Harvard men should be "intellectual." They point out that the "playboy" is a dying cause that went out with the Gold Coast and postwar Radcliffe, and crusade to exterminate the last real menace to the Harvard community, the "jock." He's a crude, embarrassingly inept social thing in an HAA sweat shirt--a C student at best, these people maintain, as they request more scholarly replacements to beef up the total intellectual output of the College. The most common disagreement is with the admissions policies of the University, which, they say, "have been guilty of admitting too many jocks."

The athlete, like the businessman, has evolved an image that a large nucleus of aspiring undergraduates and section men find fashionable to accept, avoid, and ridicule. They break down the Harvard community into "intellectuals" and "jocks"--heroes and villians--and force the athlete into a corner where he must ultimately explain himself.

This, unfortunately, seems to be part of the role of the athlete at Harvard--self-justification and disproof of the animal image--thrust upon him by a large number of his athletically apathetic and often cynical classmates. There is a definite tendency among the undergraduates and certain instructors almost self-consciously to separate the students into the two types, and, for those who want to be identified with the "intellectuals," to look down on the uncultured "jock." Although they may find this fun, they often take themselves seriously: certainly their attitude is immature and unfair, and more than likely results from a spirit of competition or a search for a source of prestige, or sometimes from jealousy. (The case is the frustrated athlete.)

Two Camps?

But in any discussion of the athlete at Harvard, one must first question the basic assumption--that the College is compoesd of two separate camps--animals and artists. "It has never seemed a useful distinction to me to divide the undergraduate body into athletes and non-athletes, as though these were discrete branches of the human species," according to David E. Owen, Master of Winthrop House. "Whether or not a man plays a varsity sport has little to do with his intellectual abilities and interests or his qualities as a social being."

Owen was asked what he thought about the popular distinction between the "intellectual" and the "jock" at Harvard. "Rather than that, let's make the distinction between the jock and the athlete," he replied, insisting that the implications of the loaded term "jock" unduly smear many valuable citizens and serious students who happen to participate in athletics. Only a handful of students qualify for the unattractive term "jock," Owen noted, declaring that too many gentlemen get lumped together and become identified with the reputations and actions of the few--a strikingly small minority. "I suppose there are a few students who never should have been admitted," Wilbur J. Bender '27, former Dean of Admissions, said in an interview. "But they are very rare indeed."

"I don't like the word jock," Bender continued. "It is unfair and unjustified. It implies thickheadedness and a segregated group of misfits, and improperly labels a lot of good people."

The athlete at Harvard may be part of a distinct group of students, but he should not be accepted or considered as part of an inferior group of students. All kinds of awards, scholarships, and statistics could serve as witnesses in this argument. The first four class Marshals last year, for example--Charlie Ravenel, Newell Flather, Tom Blodgett, and Bruce MacIntyre--are all outstanding personalities who participated in athletics.

If the reader regards the Class Marshal elections as mere popularity contests, he should take note of a statistical study made in 1954 on the percentage of distribution among various rank list groups of undergraduates and selected student and alumni groups. The two athletic organizations studied, the crews and varsity football, placed nobody in Group I--but neither did the CRIMSON nor the Student Council. The athletes had a smaller percentage of their students in Group II, but they had essentially the same percentage displacement (approximately 75 per cent) in Groups III, IV, and V, as did the others, including the Corporation, Overseers and Alumni Directors; the University Choir and Glee Club; and the whole undergraduate body in addition to the CRIMSON and Council.

Not Inferior Students

In short, from all evidence the athletes as a group are not to any great degree different academically from any other organization. Every Harvard administrator interviewed for this article saw no significant academic inferiority among the athletes.

"There is not that much variation between the academic records of the undergraduate organizations," Sargent Kennedy '28, Registrar, declared. He, like Owen and Bender, sees no definite factors which distinguish the athlete as a student from other "types" of undergraduates.

Bender, who feels strongly that C students are necessary for a "dynamic" community, said: "I think it would be most unfortunate if there were a group set aside from the student body by qualities and attitudes derived from participation in athletics. From my experience, this has not been true.'

"There is a tendency for students to wall themselves of into separate groups in terms of their own sets of prejudices and interests," Bender admitted, generalizing on the various group personalities he has observed: "My general impression is that boys with athletic abilities and interests tend to be more broad-minded and have a greater breadth of interests than members of other groups. The self-conscious intellectuals, for example, tend to be more narrow and in their interests, and are usually more arrogant in their approach to problems than are the athletes."

"My guess is that the whole of varsity letter winners is less than, say, the dramatists or the CRIMSON editors," he said. The freshmen and varsity letter who make up about 1/16th of the College," Bender remarked, probably represent a good cross-section of the whole class."

Bender's favorite example of athletic importance is that of the University of Chicago, which eliminated athletic programs just before in an all-out effort for intellectual progress. "Afterward," Bender pointed out, "they found out that the intellectual, in quotes, were not really as as they thought and that the non-intellectuals, in quotes, were really quite valuable after all." The experiment resulted in a student body of "narrow intellectuals," and the school's appearance declined so much that five years administration had trouble finding enough students to fill its quota.

President-Emeritus James B. was known to take a dim Chicago's approach to athletics.

Primarily B's and C's

The athletes may be primarily C students, (so are the majority of the undergraduates at Harvard), but they are not an inferior element hindrance to the college as the University of Chicago experiment showed.

Partly as a result of the "shining example" of the Chicago experiment and partly from his own experience is led to make comments "The A student is very often stupid," and, "An awful lot and narrow students grind .

"It doesn't follow that the students are brilliant," he added they are vitally necessary. For example, during my time, most of the became great contributors to had highly undistinguished Harvard."

Who, then, is the athlete Harvard? He's not always the II student, nor is he the hanger-on. He may be one of the students in the 550-650 range in the swung the admissions committee to his side by favorable extra-curricular abilities, as do members of the Club, Band, CRIMSON, also. He may be a gentleman, and he may be ungraceful. "Harvard is a bag," Bender noted quite keenly. "You can say almost anything, cite , and prove it."

can be said about the athlete with reasonable assurance is not motivated by images and heroism. There are no around Cambridge; with honors is valued winning a letter and .

Value Athletics?

question in my mind is value of athletics," Bender are the athletic programs of our expenditures students' interests." Undeniably, Harvard never admits students because it wants their bodies rather than their minds, and it never encourages athletic activity by offering such as Physical .

What, then, keeps the athlete at Harvard going?

Some quit. They are frequently high school standouts from the Mid west who always thought of colleges in terms of football teams, and who come to Harvard--a new horizon. They find the exciting display of academic purpose too inviting. The man who came to play athletics finds himself interested in the rest of Harvard.

A second type waxes in athletic ability and interest while he is here, as did the sparky fullback from Cherokee, Iowa, Jim Nelson. Called "crazylegs" because he ran in what appeared to be an awkward manner in his freshman and sophomore years, Nelson last fall was billed as the man who went "from stand-in to standout." At the end of the season he won the New England senior football award.

A third type of athlete at Harvard never dies. He is the Charlie Ravenel or the Mark Mullin, who just keeps going ahead in athletics with an interminable drive, determination, and winning enthusiasm for his sport all the way through school. To these people, athletics is a way of life whole life has centered around athletics," Ravenel said recently. everything to sports." He is Class Marshal this year, has a $5,000 scholarship from Glass Company to travel around the world, has been named co-recipient of the Bingham Award for this year has been admitted into Harvard School. That's a lot to sports.

Ravenel played football because he had the feeling that "It was what I was meant to do," because he the game, and because he wanted to keep his body in shape. Of course memorable quarterback who also baseball wanted to win, also, athletes play for headlines, athletics for self-discipline and goals of accomplishment, with President Kennedy health of the mind is portional to the health of the Still others play because they on their record for graduate And then there are some because they need a rage and frustrations. has his own reason.

Anti-jockism

But anti-jockism at Harvard bad as anti-intellectualism; type of personality under exists per se at Harvard, and no reason why a varsity dispel the erroneous triad types by joining a final club A's. To those who ask " hell are you doing down at muddy field with a bunch animals when you could be your knowledge by reading ?" the athlete can reply " a college experience" much validity and pride as a of the CRIMSON, Glee Club, Council, or any group.

"Harvard probably has -up oddballs then any ," Bender declared, adding that he would " it without any, however."

The athletes don't apply, asserts: "If the term 'jock' can be used at Harvard, then should be done. At present, think it is a term that can .

O'Hiri, center forward of the Nigerian olympic soccer squad, has scored more down more goal posts, and knocked out more goalies than any player in .