Mostly, though, Jiggetts charmed last night's audience with stories.

Like the one about Rudy Sorey, the lineman he roomed with rookie year who has gone on to be an NFL star: "People told him he was a joke rookie year, that he'd never make it in the NFL. He'd gone to Boys' High in Brooklyn and then to the University of Illinois, where he majored in being cool. But he's done pretty well now."

Or about Doug Plank, the head-hunting Bears safety: "I remember one time at our training camp at Wake Forest when I kept hearing this banging. I walked over to where I heard it and saw Doug banging his head against the wall. 'What are you doing?' I asked him, and he just said, 'I'm trying to get my equilibrium back.'"

Or about Darryl Stingley: "It's hard. I worked out with Darryl and Vince Evans all last summer, and I know Jack [Tatum] personally. We've given Darryl twice the usual annual benefits for a crippling injury, raising it to $24,000, but there's no way you can compensate for half of of someone's life being lost."

Walter

Or about Walter Payton: "Walter's a very close friend and a great guy, but you realize after a while that he's pretty crazy. We were on a cruise one time when Walter grabbed some guy by the leg and started barking--you know, like he was a dog. The guy nearly fell overboard."

Or about the "Honey Bears," Chicago's cheerleaders: "Yeah, not too many of us go out with the Honey Bears, actually. Now if you'd asked me that question a year ago. I might have been able to tell you something," he said, smiling now and turning toward me, "but I see that someone's writing this down over there."

Or about an encounter with a 6-ft. 10-in., 320-lb. defensive lineman: "At first I tried to muscle him with my upper body, but he threw me back about three yards--and that's not easy to do. So then I said, let me put this Harvard education to work. Use some leverage, cut out his legs. The whole time he was yelling at me, telling me he was gonna bite my neck off and stuff. I didn't care."

So whether it's leverage on a defensive lineman, working out the details of the players' contract with the owners' lawyers, or just shooting the breeze with a bunch of kids at Eliot House, Danny Jiggetts has indeed "put his Harvard education to work."

And he hasn't changed all that much. He's older, wiser, sharper in front of a crowd. But he still follows the Crimson diligently--he ribbed senior guard Mac DeCamp last night about several bets he'd lost this year to teammates like Yale's Gary Fencik. And he's still involved in athletics at Harvard, attending a Visiting Committee meeting yesterday and complaining about the continuing lack of blacks in the program. Most of all, he's still the same smiling, gentlemanly, classy guy.

The same old Danny Jiggetts. Doing fine.