HARVARD HAS always prided itself on a policy of "Athletics for All" but the decline of the University's sparse athletic facilities has turned that credo into a joke--or worse, a lie. If anything, the underlying philosophy at Harvard has been "Athletics for All Male Undergraduates."

For a long time Harvard was content in its few meager athletic offerings, adding piecemeal additions across the river in order to compete successfully on the intercollegiate level. But the last few years have brought a boom in women's athletics on campus, and federal government legislatgon requiring equal facilities for both sexes. These pressures, plus a recreational sports program that keeps tripling in the number of users, and a lack of access to athletic facilities for another slighted group, graduate students, all made the need for new facilities one of the University's more desperate imperatives.

But last week the University chose to respond by releasing what has to be one of the most impressive and comprehensive plans for making athletics, all types of athletics, a first class activity at Harvard. The plans, which call for a $35 million fund drive for building, renovation, and maintenance of athletic facilities at Harvard, offer something for everyone interested in sports.

To start with, the University is freeing all space on the Cambridge side of Harvard--such as the soon-to-be-renovated Indoor Athletic Building--for recreational and intramural use, and consolidating all intercollegiate activities on the other side of the Charles.

But unlike New Orleans, Houston, or even Princeton University, Harvard did not succumb to superdome mania. The designs call for small, stately new buildings that maintain the character of the senior building in the area--Dillon Field House. There is room in the area for a new track, swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts, wrestling room and a hockey rink--all of which place functional priorities over ornamental values.

The new facilities, when combined with the old renovated models, will triple all space available for use at a cost per user much lower than might be expected. The University will be spending only about $100 per person annually for the 13,000 expected users, which seems a bargain to many of the people who will pay for the complex--the alumni--many of whom often have to pay more than $500 for club facilities in a big city. The Unversity is also being careful to tap only those donors specifically interested in sports, who would not otherwise give to academic fund drives.

IF THERE IS a flaw in the fund drive it is in the de-emphasis of plans for an additional complex on Observatory Hill near the Quadrangle. University officials have decided to put the fate of that complex in the same basket as the Quad's future as a House system, thus stalling its development until a new House plan is chosen. Such reasoning seems silly if you consider that much of the Quad's lack of popularity lies in its distance from the present Soldiers Field facilities. The new complex will tilt that imbalance even heavier toward the River House. And, most importantly, the Quad could use a facility like the Observatory Hill complex now.

But even the decision to slow down the Observatory Hill complex can't tarnish dynamic plans for constructing the Soldiers Field complex and renovating the existing facilities. Anyone who has ever had to watch or play basketball in the IAB, or take a lap in Briggs Cage, or watched a hockey game in the quonset ice hut that is Watson Rink, will wish that the University had started this drive a long time ago.