Big-name professors fall in this category: you've seen their picture, you know their name, maybe you sat in on a lecture, but they don't know you from a hole in the ground. I think it is sad that almost all of the Harvard students who have high C-ratios are athletes.

Everyone knows who Scott Fusco is, and what he looks like. A picture in The Crimson on March 31 didn't even bother to identify him, he's so familiar. During the football season, virtually everyone recognizes the quarterback. Sometimes a basketball star attains the same status.

And who else? Brian Offutt, the Undergraduate Council chair? Sure, but half the student media attention to him is negative--the type of articles that would never appear on sports pages.

Why is it that we choose to glorify those students who are good athletes, more than those who are good students, or good musicians, or good actors, or good writers? These others gain personal notoriety only occasionally, while sports stars are continually buttered up, written about, and fussed over.

It seems silly that we should choose our celebrities on the basis of muscular ability. Moreover, such a choice seems inconsistent with the educational and academic premises on which the University is based, since no one tries to argue that Harvard athletes are the biggest brains on campus.

THE "STUDENT-ATHLETE" myth objection. It is a shallow stereotype that jocks are large, stupid, beer-swilling, anti-intellectual goons recruited and virtually paid to bring glory and attention and money to Harvard by their athletic prowess. There is, of course, an alternative stereotype, which portrays Harvard team members as upstanding scholar-athletes, forsaking countless hours of free time to bring glory to their alma mater.

The truth is somewhere in between, with notable cases fulfilling and perpetuating both myths.

But the official version draws solely on the positive stereotype. A two-minute promo presumably filmed by the Athletic Department and aired during a televised Harvard football game showed the team captain, books under his arm, speaking as eruditely as possible on the moral advantages of a fine education and a non-scholarship team.

That advertisement was certainly not an appropriate moment to discuss some of the seamier aspects of the Harvard athletic industry. But then, no moment seems to be appropriate for such a discussion.

Outsiders seem to buy the scholar-athlete myth. A March 31 story in The New York Times on the NCAA men's ice hockey final used an extended David vs. Goliath metaphor to praise Harvard's noble effort.

Missing in all this repetition of the positive stereotype is any mention of contradictory information. I have yet to read about Harvard's recruiting and admissions practices for potential big-sport athletes. Is the rumor correct that these people get special treatment in Byerly Hall?

The traditional response to such allegations is that Harvard gives "special consideration" to applicants who are talented in any number of ways: piccolo players, journalists, and actors get the same treatment as linemen and forwards. But is the rumor true that athletes get even more special treatment than the others--that Harvard does not have to sacrifice as much academic ability when it admits piccolo players as when it admits athletes?

There is a story, undocumented, supporting this position: it has to do with a bunch of football players sitting around comparing SAT scores. This is normal freshman year behavior, but there was a twist. Apparently the athletes were bragging about who had the lowest SAT scores, because the lower scores meant Harvard must have credited them with greater athletic ability.

Such anti-intellectual attitudes, if true, would seem to be in direct contradiction with Harvard ideals and standards.

And it is not just the players, or some of them, who fail to fulfill the positive scholar-athlete stereotype. The Department of Athletics also may play fast and loose on occasion. Percs--such as better meals, no work "jock jobs," and tutoring--are rumored to help make athletes' college lives more pleasant.