Now Kubacki majors in history. Sometimes he takes "guts". But if you ask him what's been his hardest course at Harvard, he'll say without flinching, "Football."

Kubacki slides a pile of notebooks, folders, papers and envelopes to the center of his neat desk in Leverett Tower. "This," he says, "is football."

It is a side of football the fans never see. But for Kubacki, the collection of diagrams meant the difference between first and seventh string. He spent all summer studying, memorizing each formation, every play, envisioning what he would do in each situation.

Kubacki is not particularly articulate. His speech is studded with "you knows" and self-conscious "I don't knows," his sentences punctuated with disarmingly soft chuckles.

But when Kubacki talks about art or ballet or his music history course, his dull blue eyes widen. He says that he is interested in just about everything. And, when asked about his future, an odd smile spans his sculptured face. "Right now there's nothing I want to be when I grow up." The Kubacki chuckle. "I don't even living one day at a time, enjoying everything and everyone he can. His teammates will tell you that Kubacki is "loose" in a huddle. It is the looseness that comes, perhaps, from living with the uncertainty of whether he will be able to play or not, form believing, not in fate or manipulation, but only--and very quietly--in himself.

"That's what I like about it at Harvard," Kubacki says. "There are a lot of people here who do good things. I play football well."

But Kubacki had committed his first cardinal sin--bragging, or what he thinks is bragging. He tries to absolve himself, but, alas, it is too late for modesty.

"Well, maybe I don't play so well. We'll see Saturday."