Since they were only freshmen, Yovicsin had to struggle through another fall with what he had. Then came the first glimpse of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The score was 8-8 in the final quarter of the Dartmouth game when the In-dians, who went on to win the title, passed from their end zone instead of punting.

Hank Keohane intercepted, and moments later Chet Boulris scored what was proved to be the winning touchdown. It was Yovicsin's first big victory, and one of three Harvard games he remembers most fondly.

The second of those three big ones came against Yale four weeks later. Charlie Ravenel, who had established himself as the Crimson quarterback in the Cornell game, was showing steady improvement, while Yale was losing every league game. Harvard had its eye on avenging that 54-0 loss in 1957.

It was no contest, and the Crimson went home with another losing season, but with a win over Yale and confidence that it had turned the corner.

Ravenel, the "Riverboat Gambler," was a junior in 1959, and Harvard compiled a 6-3 record and finished third in the league. It was the first of ten straight winning seasons.

Ravenel was probably the one who led Yovicsin to give up his hopes of strong passing teams which he had grown accustomed to at Gettysburg and had expected to develop at Harvard. He weighed 160 pounds and was a superb runner, while completing less than 40 per cent of his passes. The offense sort of developed around his style of play, and then it was mostly a question of inertia. And the defense had become superb; it was a Yovicsin trademark which has remained strong ever since.

The Crimson, after dropping three of its first four games in 1961, came on to win the rest and tie Columbia for the Ivy title, Harvard's first in the league's short history.

For the next six years, Yovicsin's teams stayed in the first division, sharng the championship again in 1966, along with Dartmouth and Princeton.

His teams were blessed with more and more All-Ivy selections each season. There were runners like Bill Ray Hornblower; defensemen like Grana. Bobby Leo, Vic Gatto, and Don Chiofaro, Dave Poe, John Tyson, John Hoffman, and John Emery.

Everything peaked in 1968. Yovicsin said at the start of the season, "We're not conceding anything." But there were obvious problems, and it looked like a little "rebuilding" was in order. Zimmerman was gone, for one thing.

One by one, things fell in place. George Lalich, a senior with junior varsity experience, played well enough for his team to win every week, and the defense, anchored by Emery and an outstanding secondary, was simply superb.

Cornell and Dartmouth fell, Penn, which along with Harvard was surprising the league, came to Cambridge for what was supposed to be anyone's game; but the Crimson scored early and went on to win easily.

At Palmer Stadium in Princeton the next weekend, it looked as if the dream might end. After gaining an early lead. Harvard was crumbling before the Tigers until Alex MacLean, for the crucial stops to end Prince-Pete Hall, and Rick Berne combined ton's fourth-quarter threat deep in Harvard territory. Harvard won, 9-7, and needed only two more-but one was against seemingly invincible Yale.

Brown was easy pickings, and all of a sudden, 100,000 people wanted to go to Harvard Stadium (capacity: 35,000) to see the game between the unbeaten teams.

This time, the dream really had ended. The Elis were just too good for Harvard. It was 22-6 at the half, and 29-13 with three-and-a-half minutes left. A couple of moments later, Harvard had added two points. There were 42 seconds left in which to score eight points.