Erich Segal sat in his suite in New Haven last Saturday night pondering the Harvard-Yale game. "That game is schizophrenia time for me," he said, reflecting on 11 years as an undergraduate and teaching assistant at Harvard.

The author of a phenomenally successful novel, "Love Story," Segal is now an associate professor of literature at Yale. But when Harvard and Yale line up Saturday in Cambridge, Segal will be far removed editing a new film in California.

The nerve-racking duality of The Game reached its apex for Segal two years ago when he came to Cambridge for the meeting of unbeaten Harvard and Yale teams. It was his last football game.

Segal found himself sitting in the Yale faculty section that day, but he ended up cheering for Harvard-for a moment. He was soon quieted by an older, more mature member of the Yale faculty.

"God, I was sitting there and all of a sudden I started screaming for Harvard," he recalled. "Then this professor sitting two rows behind me comes crashing down with his umbrella."

Segal's skull was saved by a mathematics professor sitting next to him who blocked the umbrella with a cushion. Not entirely undaunted, Segal spent the rest of the afternoon serenely observing one of the most blood-curdling comebacks in football history.

"I will neither sit in the Yale faculty section nor go to any more football games," Segal said Saturday. "I mean I was Jo? Massey's Latin teacher and I like to see the team do well, but I have a lot of ties with Harvard."

Segal graduated in the "noble class of '58," as he put it, then stuck around to get his Ph. D. in comparative literature. As an undergraduate, he was a runner on the cross country and track teams.

From 1958-65, Segal was a section man in Hum 7 and Hum 2, and he was Professor Harry Levin's head

section man in English 123 during his last year at Harvard.

"Levin really cares about his students," he said. "He's a magnificent teacher. And Finley (who taught half of Hum 2 at the time) is one of the reasons I'm in classics. I've never heard a better lecturer than Finley on 'The Odyssey.'"

After spending most of the past five years in New Haven, Segal shys away from comparisons between Yale and Harvard. "I feel detached from Harvard," he said. "Yale is more isolated, but there's a real spirit here in the colleges, and there is a belief in the University as an institution.

"There's been a huge change at Harvard since '68-there's no joy in the air. It's a quiet despair, but it's not even quiet. Harvard guys, nice as they are, have always been smug as hell. But even the usual smugness seems to be missing."

The first time I saw Erich Segal was in the courtyard outside of Yale's Stiles College, where he is a Fellow. It was a passing view: he streaked by in track gear, wearing a wool cap and a blue plastic vest with orange reflecting panels.

At the end of nine miles, he was sprinting strongly. No wonder-Segal has competed in 14 of the last 15 Boston Marathons, usually finishing in the top 90. To keep in shape, he runs about ten miles every day despite a routine that would frighten most leisure-worshipping students.