There are a lot of things you can say about Perry Wayne Moore.

You can say that he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, with a quick wit, a dry Arkansas drawl, and the best sense of humor this side of North Little Rock. You can say that he had a passion for running the football, and for playing the game, that surpasses any passion most people have for anything their whole lives. And you can say that he had the most pure running talent of any back ever to attend Harvard University. And that he never got a fair shake here.

You will get arguments on the last two points--if from no one else, certainly from Joe Restic and the Harvard coaching staff--but you will get no arguments on the first two points. And you will get no arguments if you say it's a goddamned shame Wayne Moore broke his ankle last week, and that his place in the Harvard scrapbook will be limited to three brief, glorious moments last fall and this.

*****

Wayne Moore is talking to a friend on the phone in his single atop Leverett G-tower Friday morning. He is wearing two things--a blue bathrobe and a plaster cast entending 2/3 of the way up his right thigh.

"Yeah, last night was miserable," he says with lifted eyebrows. "I moaned (pause) and groaned (pause) and beseeched God (special emphasis) to deliver me," he continues with a grin.

"Naw, I'm not goin' out today," he says. "It's too wet out for this leg. I'm going to fast, and read my Bible."

Hanging up the phone, Moore turns to the subject of football.

"Fifteen years I've been playing football," he says. "That's a long time, isn't it?"

He smiles, and it's the only time in the course of the conversation that his big, broad smile looks the least bit pained.

"I was a tailback in high school. In that part of the country, football's really wild. We had a great team, and huge guys, and we ran all over everybody. My senior year I carried the ball something like 308 times.

"It was just on an impulse that I came out freshman year. I really was thinking of not playing, 'cause I thought maybe I'd just get away from it all.

"I got a bad hip pointer and missed three weeks, but I broke two long touchdowns against Navy and I was starting to get in the groove pretty good.

"Sophomore year, the intention was that the returning varsity players were going to play unless someone really went out there and beat them out badly. It isn't the talent type they want here, it's more who's been out for a while, and understands the system.

"I can understand that, but the fact remains that you could line me up in a sweep that year against any of those guys--and I could run right past 'em.