At first, he wouldn't talk to me. Then, after some prodding by the sports information director, he consented. He sat in a corner of the locker room with a bag of ice on his shoulder. I could barely hear him when he answered my questions. And I didn't feel like asking him to speak up.

I tried to interview Allen Bourbeau after the same game. "Got a minute, Allen?" I said. "I don't think so," he responded.

The Harvard locker room is usually a pleasant place. Not so the opposing locker room. After Harvard knocked off RPI, 4-1, in Troy, N.Y., I went to interview Engineer Coach Mike Addesa. I walked down a corridor toward the locker room. I was soon stopped by a heavy-set kid about 16 years old.

"Are you from Harvard?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Well, you better not go down there--unless you want your face kicked in. I'm not trying to be mean. That's just the way it is."

"Oh."

He pointed to the lobby at the other end of the corridor. "Coach Addesa will meet you down there," he said. Needless to say, I waited in the lobby.

Quotable

My favorite response came from Colgate Coach Terry Slater. His team had just fallen, 8-3, to the Crimson. I ran down to the locker room. He spotted me with my notebook.

"Harvard's the best team I've ever seen," he said and walked straight down the hallway and out of the arena.