Following the lead of the NCAA, the Eastern College Athletic Conference yesterday declared freshmen eligible for all sports on the College Division level, but twice turned down a motion to allow University Division freshmen to participate in varsity hockey.

Harvard, a member of the ECAC, is now permitted to use freshmen in all sports except football, basketball and hockey. However, the legislation may not effect Crimson sports immediately, as the Ivy League has not approved the use of freshmen in many of the sports not allowed by the ECAC.

The ECAC is the largest collegiate athletic conference in the nation with a membership of 199 schools-179 schools in the College Division and 20 in the NCAA's university grouping. The Conference territory includes 12 New England and Middle Atlantic states and the District of Columbia.

In some sports, the ECAC agreed over a year ago to allow freshmen attending University Division schools to participate at the varsity level. Wrestling is one sport in which freshmen are allowed to participate by the ECAC bylaws but are not permitted to compete under Ivy League rules.

"Some of the teams we're playing right now use freshmen," assistant wrestling coach Bob Fehrs said.

Last week the presidents of the eight Ivy schools voted in a straw ballot to allow freshmen to participate in additional sports such as wrestling and swimming. The vote was 6-2 with one abstention. Harvard and Yale were the two schools in opposition to the proposal.

One possible solution to the present dilemma is to allow individual schools in the Ivy League to decide on their own whether freshmen should participate. "My own personal feeling is that we're already two years behind the rest of the country-why should we fall three or four years behind?" Fehrs said.

The Harvard Athletic Department has been opposed to participation by freshmen in varsity sports for many years. "We're in a freshman program now that we plan to continue as long as there are freshmen," assistant athletic director Eric Cutler said last night. "Sometime this week there will be a final decision by League presidents as to the future of the matter."