Let Me In, We-ooo

The letter by Paul P. Daley about the use of Harvard Stadium by the Boston Patriots, which appears elsewhere on this page, is representative of the misguided thinking of both Patriots fans and Boston newspapers about the definition of the term "public interest." It is time that thinking was set straight.

There is presently a bill before the Massachusetts legislature that would take the Stadium by eminent domain pay Harvard $5 million in compensation, and give it to the Boston Patriots for use next fall. Harvard would be allowed to use the facility as well.

But the entire validity of the bill assumes that the Boston Patriots professional football team, a private corporation with stockholders, can be legally classified as an object in the public interest." Contrary to what Mr. Daley and my friend at the Globe, Bud Collins, believe, that assumption is a little naive.

The weapon of eminent domain has traditionally been used to procure, and often remove, an object that was hindering public progress, such as a private home that lay in the way of a proposed turnpike route or a site for a public building.

And although the Patriots are admittedly, followed with great interest by the majority of the citizens of the Commonwealth and although almost 20,000 of them paid to watch the team each Sunday last fall, it would take one of the most impressive legal coups in recent history to prove that their loss of franchise in Boston would be a public disaster.

That is precisely what the Patriots and their supporters will have to do to get the bill passed, and although it could conceivably get past the Legislature, it is likely that court action on Harvard's part would stall the takeover procedures long past the time when the Patriots would have to produce the stadium for Commissioner Pete Rozelle's approval.

But even if Harvard escapes the spectre of domain, it should explain fully, once and for all, its reasons for keeping the Patriots out of the Stadium. And the reasons as Boston College will attest, are several:

an obvious lack of public parking.

the inadequacy of the Stadium, even when enlarged, to provide sufficiently for the Patriots' projected needs.

the Patriots' past record as a cooperative organization-which is dismal,

the indefinite postponement of a new stadium facility, which leasing the Stadium to the club would produce.

And for Harvard's purposes, the second reason seems the most damning to the Patriots' chances. Rozelle has given the Patriots until this fall to come up with a stadium that can seat 50,000 spectators at the very least. Harvard Stadium, even if expanded to its architectural limit, holds only 51,000, and when NFL squads come to Boston for regularly scheduled games this year, they will undoubtedly draw more than that. If they don't, then Boston is not a major-league football city, and does not deserve the Patriots.

The paucity of parking space is another burden. Expanding the Stadium would wipe out the University's meager lot next to Briggs Cage, and the only other available space is either the banks of the river or the playing grounds of Soldiers Field, neither of which has adequate accessibility for entrance and exit purposes.

And finally, the Patriots' dubious rapport with Boston College last year, which was hardly suitable for a team that is lucky to have any stadium at all to play in, should make Harvard hesitate to form an alliance. On several occasions, Patriot coach Clive Rush openly insulted the College and its administrative abilities, and once, before a flock of Boston sportswriters. Rush insisted that he would have BC hockey coach Snooks Kelley fired because the latter's Sunday hockey school was disturbing him as he attempted to address the press in the BC rink.

The Patriots, quite obviously, are up against the wall, and they have helped put themselves there in several respects. Harvard is justified in turning its back on them.