My move to defense even surprised many of the defensive players. A couple came up to me to say that they "couldn't understand what had prompted 'YoYo to make such a decision," how I was the hardest offensive back to tackle. This was something I knew all along. I remained a fourth-string defensive end for about two days. Then I finally told Yovicsin that I could no longer comfortably remain there when I knew that I was a better runner than any of the halfbacks he had. Telling him my feelings made him mad. He told me that if I moved back to offense, it would have to be as a fullback. I agreed to do so.

Upon re-entering the backfield. I noticed that my arrival was not exactly her aided by my old namesis. Tommy Stephens. Again I was placed on the fifth string. Again I moved up to the third string, but no higher. I remained as a third-string fullback throughout camp.

The author is a senior in Dudley House. An injury kept him out of action during the 1971 football season. and was rarely called upon to carry the ball. Finally, in the last scrimmage against the University of New Hampshire, at New Hampshire, I was allowed to carry the ball behind the first-string line.

In the third quarter, after the Harvard offense had been sputtering all day, Yovicsin and the offensive coaches sent all the offensive black players in after a kickoff. Rod Foster was at quarterback. Bill Craven at flanker, Dave Robeson at tightend, and I was at fullback. Immediately we began to drive down the field. Foster was pinpointing passes to Craven and Robeson, running on his own when necessary, and handing off the ball to me in tight yardage situations.

When we got to the New Hampshire three-yard-line. Foster gave me the ball and I took it over for a touchdown. It was the first sustained drive Harvard had waged that day. One would have thought the coaches would be pleased with our performance and the touchdown. Returning to the sidelines, we received many congratulations from the players, but the coaches acted almost as if nothing had happened. They seemed to resent the fact that we had scored. Stephens said nothing to me. Finally Yovicsin forcingly said "good show".

Little did I know that that was the last chance I would be given to prove myself with the first-string offense. When it appeared evident that Foster had won the first-string quarterback role. Yovicsin began to act as if he had paid his debt to the cause of Harvard race relations. Now, how could he be anything but fair when he had a "colored boy" at the glory position calling all the shots.

Before the first game of the season against Northeastern, a black reporter, Joe Fisher, a writer for the Baltimore Afro-American, observed a practice session. Afterwards, he came up to me and said that he thought I was "the hardest runner on the team". Later I learned that Fisher, the only black sports reporter covering Harvard football throughout the season, asked Yovicsin in the weekly post-game coaches conference. "Why isn't Sid Williams playing?" After a while Yovicsin would just laugh it off, saying "Williams doesn't know our system" or that "we have so many good backs".

Against Northeastern, in the final minutes of the game. I ran for a touchdown which was called back. I carried the ball twice behind the blocking of the second-string line for a 7.5-yard average. It was the first and last opportunity I had to carry the ball in a varsity game for Harvard. I stayed as a third-string fullback throughout the duration of the 1970 season and was relegated to junior varsity football. During the season I constantly protested to Yovicsin, the coaching staff, the administration of the University and anyone else who would listen, for a fair chance to play varsity football. It was a chance that never came.

THOUGH I HAD MANY outstanding junior varsity games, and was frequently the leading rusher. I finally quit the team after gaining 180 yards against Princeton. I had seen players like DeMars and Crone advance to starting positions on the varsity, but I remained a lowly junior varsity, but I remained a lowly junior varsity player. From week to week. I would go in and ask the coaches why I was not being moved up to the varsity. They gave me every reason in the world but the truth. On different occasions, Stephens would tell me varying reasons why I was not advancing. First it was because I "didn't know the offense". Next time I was "stonefingered". Then I was "musclebound". Stephens told me he didn't like the way I carried the ball in the palm of my hand. Finally he claimed I didn't hustle and didn't have a "proper attitude".

Sometimes Stephens would forget what he had told me at our previous meetings and would pause to fabricate a new excuse. Once I asked the defensive coach. Ralph Jelic, why he thought I wasn't playing on the varsity, Jelic replied. "Because you don't lift your feet high enough off the ground when you run." Which told me that either Jelic knew nothing about running backs or that there was a conspiracy afoot to discredit my abilities. Football authorities do not share Jelic's opinion about my style of running. Paul Zimmerman, in his book A Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football, says. "Some qualities seem universal. The great ones usually run with their feet close to the ground--Sayers, Jimmy Brown, Jimmy Taylor, Joe Perry--they all did. Even Lenny Moore, who was noted for his high knee action brought his feet down when he got near the line. The reason is balance."

Countless times I pleaded with Yovicsin to let me play a quarter, or even five minutes, in a varsity game and carry the ball. I asked him to match me against the fullbacks in front of me in competitive drills. I suggested having each of is run at Gary Farnetti, then Harvard's premiere defensive player. Yovicsin refused all my requests, telling me "that isn't the Harvard way." He said he had made his "final decision" on the starting lineup.

There are some coaches who would not have agreed with Yovicsin's procedure. Joe Paterno, in his book Football My Way, discusses how many coaches would handle such a situation: "Alabama's Bear Bryant and Jim Owens of the University of Washington are of the hard-nosed school. They use what they call the 'challenge' system to stimulate competition. At Washington, for instance, if a second-teamer thinks he is better than the player ranked ahead of him by the coaches, he can challenge him to a contest. Usually it is brutal, sometimes bloody, one-on-one block and tackle combat. If the challenger beats his man, he gets the first-team job." This is the way it was done at Drake.

Paterno goes on to say. "All I want them to do is to pull up their pants, look the other guy in the eye and say. Let's go. Let's find out which of us is the better man'. I tell them either they can do it or they can't. What's the sense of worrying about it. Give it your best and if you can't do it, why you can't. If the other guy is better, then he should win." I guess many would say that this isn't the Ivy League, gentlemen's way of doing things. Perhaps the same could be said of equal treatment.

THE ONLY GOOD THING that came of Harvard football for me was when the players and a couple of the trainers came up to me and told me that they felt I had been wronged during the season and merited an honest shot at the varsity. At the final football banquet. Chuck Krohn--sitting at a table away from me--got up and said loudly to some old Harvard Alums sitting with him: "You want to know who the best back on the team is? He's Sidney Williams, that black guy sitting over there. And you know what? They wouldn't even let him play, but boy is he tough." When I heard Krohn, a Harvard halfback say this. I knew then that though I might not have impressed Yovicsin and his racist coaches, in the eyes of some of the players I had proven myself. And to me that is what the game is all about