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You definitely won't find Dave Mitts on the bench, not now, not next year, not ever. You won't even find him on the roster because Dave Mitts, high school football captain and all the rest, terminated his Harvard football career before, it even got started--after the training camp of his sophomore year.

Mitts is now a junior; had things going his way, he would not doubt be suiting up against Yale tomorrow, perhaps as a starter. But things did not go Mitts's way, and as a result, his football activity is now limited--by his own choice--to the house variety.

What happened? Nothing drastic, nothing too unusual, in fact it happens every fall. It's just that it had never happened to Dave Mitts before.

After returning for training camp a year ago. Mitts, a starter for most of the season on the previous fall's freshman team, found that he was being overlooked. He did not move up the depth charts, and after impressive, at least according to him, performances in the preseason scrimmages failed to alter his status on the team, he saw the writing on the wall.

Now you have to understand that once the depth charts are determined--before the opening game--they pretty much remain that way for the rest of the season. And Mitts preferred not to be the fourth-string left defensive tackle for the entire season.

"After the season starts," Mitts said yesterday in his Kirkland House room, "there's no chance to move up unless by injury or a guy playing really poorly, which you don't expect. I was pretty much being told [by Chet O'Neill, defensive line coach] that I've improved a lot, but not enough for me, yet everybody else knew I did well."

So what were Mitts' options? He could hang on with the varisty, go to the practices (which he did once a week), play in the J.V. games and then warm the bench on Saturday. Except that at the practices, he would have to play on the "scout" teams and be a bagholder for the first-and second-stringers, a job he terms "depressing. It seems you can get cheerleaders to do that."

Mitts did play in the J.V. games last year, but he terms the J.V. program a joke, and this year limits himself to just house football--"a real blast. Most sophomores on the team are resigned to not playing but I'm not that type. After playing in high school, to be told that you're not going to play, that's baloney."

So Mitts selected another option--he quit. "Anyone can lose interest," Mitts states, "but I think it takes a strong person to lose interest and then quit. Most people hang on because football has been a big part of their lives for a long time, and it's difficult to break with that.

"I don't particularly want to get involved with the Harvard football organization again," Mitts says. At least, that is, when for him, the Harvard football organization is associated with a bench, one he did not think he would ever get off.

* * * * *

Andy Puopolo, now why Andy Puopolo? He's not a bench-warmer, you all know that, but one of the starting defensive cornerbacks. In fact, Andy Puopolo (whose name is easier to pronounce than type) was one of the Harvard Players of the Week last Saturday as he intercepted two passes against Bob Graustein and Pennsylvania.

So why Andy Puopolo? Because Andy Puopolo also knows what it's like to garner splinters; he did so for most of the last two seasons.

Sophomore year he hardly played at all, and last year, he was injured in the Columbia game, which he started. But the injury, a torn knee cartilage, was not diagnosed for over a month, during which time Puopolo did a lot of hobbing and an equal amount of spectating.