Harvard, with its hallowed Ivy playing fields surrounded by the concrete of the city, has spawned a strange relationship between its athletic teams and their fans.

It is not a torrid affair. It is certainly not characterized by unquestioning loyalty on the part of the student body as a whole toward the squads that represent it in intercollegiate play. Harvard does not live or die by the outcome of the battles between its chosen forces and those of an opposing college.

This is a casual romance between a school and its jocks. A team may be embraced when things are going well or the competition is worthy, or given the cold shoulder a week later. There is no marriage, and in fact, except with a minority of fanatic and devoted fans, only an occasional date.

This is not Michigan, where 60,000 frantic football fans come to watch their gridiron heroes. Nor is it the University of Maryland, whose student body rocks the SRO house as it watches Lefty Driesell and his hardcourt heroes work their magic on the hated opposition. And it is hardly a St. Lawrence, where students line up hours before a hockey game in order to get in, and literally raise the roof once inside.

But all this is not to say that Harvard does not care about its team. There are events, such as the Harvard-Yale football game or the Beanpot hockey tournament, that arouse the passions of the school. But out of the entire schedule, these definitely rate in the minority.

And there are many hard-core supporters who manage to be at every event. But out of the entire student body they too are definitely in the minority--and, many, of course, are friends and relatives of the players.

Harvard athletics is a triangular tryst, between the athletes, the undergrads and the alumni. Those grand old alumns make up a large segment of the Crimson's spectating force. Harvard's proximity to Boston, where many graduates live and work, makes it easy for them to get to most of the contests.

The grads are perhaps the most devoted of Harvard's fans and without their financial support many of Harvard's teams could not survive--at least not in the manner to which they are accustomed.

But graduates' presence, in many cases, drastically changes the make-up of the crowd. Whereas Dartmouth, whose location makes it difficult for alumni to appear en masse at many athletic events, can fill Lynch Rink with student rowdies who create earsplitting and often obscene bedlam, Harvard's Watson Rink is mild, with rowdiness limited to the notorious Section 18.

The presence of many alumni in the best seats in the rink keeps much of the noise level at games to a minimum, as the usual over-zealous screams are replaced with polite applause. Face it, most alumni (notice not all alumni) cannot afford to be rowdy. Watson Rink is not in any real danger of becoming a "snake pit" like the rinks at St. Lawrence, Dartmouth, Clarkson, Cornell or a number of other colleges with nationally-rated hockey squads.

For such teams as the baseball squad, however, the grads and old timers are a welcome sight, since they provide most of the crowd at games. Most students find more excitement lying on the banks of the Charles on a sunny afternoon than in watching Harvard hardball. Only the big games draw decent crowds, despite the fact that coach Loyal Park has sent Harvard teams to the College World Series in three of the last four years.

Where have all the followers gone? Why doesn't a nationally-ranked baseball, hockey or swimming team draw more spectators? Why isn't Harvard Stadium sold out every Saturday afternoon? How come no one supports the basketball squad?

Perhaps part of the answer lies with the Harvard jock himself. Unlike many big-time athletic programs in big colleges, Harvard athletics does not and cannot recruit heavily and blatantly. The Ivy League does not permit it, and scholarships are severely limited. The athletic department does not have a very large budget to work with.

At Harvard, more than at non-Ivy schools, you must be an athlete and a scholar at the same time, corny as that may sound. This means that there is no time for practicing all day. If someone is put on academic probation for flunking a course, he becomes ineligible to play sports for the remainder of the term.

The Crimson jock is not an athletic god or goddess. He was not admitted here merely to uphold the honor of the school on its playing fields, and he is not worshipped as such.