Harvard's Arne Duncan returns to Cambridge after taking a year off to research his sociology thesis in Chicago. Only in the Ivy League. (Sports Illustrated, Fall '86 college basketball preview)

Actually, Duncan's move was rare even for the Ancient Eight. Despite the attention the Ivies pay to academics, few if any top-flight players willingly leave school for academic reasons.

Yet Duncan, the Harvard men's basketball co-captain who plays his last collegiate game tonight at Dartmouth, spent the 1985-'86 academic year in inner-city Chicago, working on his thesis and volunteering at a ghetto school.

The otherwise-improbable choice of location was far from accidental; Duncan, you see, comes from inner-city Chicago.

"We live in a middle class neighborhood but it's bordered on three sides by the ghetto," Duncan says. "Obviously, playing basketball, that's where the best basketball was."

Sociological concerns, though, were what drew Duncan home for what would have been his senior year in Cambridge. Duncan, a sociology major, wrote his thesis on understanding why most kids fail escape the ghetto, and used personal experiences as research.

But Duncan did more than just observe. "It wasn't just to work on my thesis--though everyone thinks it was," Duncan says. "My mom runs a school in the ghetto and I was working there, teaching the kids, tutoring, coaching, that kind of stuff."

In a way, Duncan represents the other side of his own thesis work--he grew up in a family situation which allowed him to leave the inner city. "I could never have made it here [Harvard] without coming from that background," he said. "I'm just very fortunate--a lot of players a lot better than I was never made it out of the area."

There's still more than a bit of the inner-city left in Duncan. He talks with a thick accent, and his play is littered with flamboyant, dipsy-do, touches. Against Brown last month, Duncan, caught up in the air with his back to the basket, hurled a shot off the top corner of the backboard which spun into the net. Duncan ran downcourt with a completely straight face--you never admit luck on the playground.

The 6-ft., 5-in. forward's contributions have been far more than chance this season. Going into tonight's finale, Duncan leads the Crimson in scoring (17.0 points per game) and steals (53), ranks second in rebounds (121) and three-point shots (30-for-68), third in assists (92) and field goal percentage (50.8), and fifth in free throw percentage (75.7).

Statistics tell an incomplete tale, however. Duncan is Harvard's ice to fellow Co-Captain Keith Webster's fire, the cool floor leader who clams the young Crimson squad. Duncan is also a great ball-handler for a big man, and probably Harvard's finest passer.

"I think my best natural skill is as a passer, setting up other players," Duncan says, "but I had to take more scoring burden myself this year."

"He lives for basketball," Harvard Coach Peter Roby says, "and I think it's infected the rest of the guys."

"Arne has a tremendous work ethic and a tremendous love for the game," Roby continued, "and it's worn off on our kids. He's given us tremendous leadership and set a fine example."

That example extends to the classroom as well. Last month, Duncan was named to the 1987 GTE Academic All-District I men's basketball team.