In the tumult outside the Harvard locker room, one man stood quietly aside from the hysteria. He spoke slowly and softly about his team.

Respect

"We didn't prove anything to ourselves," Mike Brown, Harvard's 106th football captain said. "We knew we could do it all along."

In addition to a triumph for the team he led, The Game was a triumph for the offensive line, where Brown and his hefty mates ground the much-vaulted Yale defense into the turf. The running game, especially on the 76-yd. touchdown march that opened the contest, proved to be Harvard's not-so-secret weapon.

And it was the right side of the line, where guard Brown and 6-ft. 260-lb. tackle Mike Durgin patrol, that Burke St. John plowed through on his touchdown run that sealed the victory.

But the senior wanted to talk about the team, his team: "All season long, we knew we could do it. I think we proved something to some other people."

All season long, that was Brown's theme. We know it. Let's show the skeptics--and there was no shortage through six long Saturdays. Brown's smile was that of a vindicated man.

"If the season started today," he said, "we'd go 9 and 0."

But 1-0 in The Game was just fine with Mike Brown.