Continued success marked the Varsity Club throughout the '60s as athletic participation continued to increase. Women joined its previously all male ranks soon after most of Radcliffe's educational activities were taken over by Harvard in 1977.
Throughout the '70s, however, enthusiasm for the club suffered as interest in House life increased. Training meals, a tradition since the club's inception, were discontinued and the club's board began to look for smaller quarters.
In the summer of 1981, the Varsity Club sold the 14 Quincy location--and the History and Literature Department moved in--and the club moved into its present-day headquarters, a renovated wing of Carey Cage at Soldiers Field.
THE CLUB'S RELOCATION to its present site marked more than a physical change. The move signaled the end of the Varsity Club as Harvard athletes of the past had known it.
No longer was the club a gathering place for athletes to congregate. The clubby atmosphere and camaraderie H letter winners had enjoyed for the better part of a century was greatly curtailed.
"When training meals stopped, the role of the Varsity Club was greatly diminished," says Greeley. "There has been a great diminution in the social aspects which were so fundamental to the club."
The club's Carey Cage location may be closer to the athletic facilities themselves, but it lacks the spacious living and dining areas of its previous home.
"We hoped the move to Soldiers Field would stimulate that social interaction, but it has not really worked out that way," the president says.
One manifestation of the transformation in the club is its changing membership requirements. Whereas it had once been open only to varsity athletes, the club has begun to admit junior varsity letter winners as well. "You don't even have to be a graduate of Harvard, let alone an ex-athlete to be a member," says Pickett.
Greeley says the club is a support system for Harvard athletes in a spiritual rather than a physical sense. "We aren't positive we know what we're doing, but we are positive about our philosophy, which is to support intercollegiate athletics at Harvard," Greeley explains. "We want to ensure that Harvard provides the best possible opportunity to compete at the highest athletic level possible."