Virgil's Aeneid. Homer's Odyssey. We go to Harvard. We took Literature & Arts C-14. We know the Classics.

But for a group of 13 male undergraduates, Classics has another meaning. When they showed up at the MAC last November to try out for Harvard's Classics, they left their Homer at home and brought something else--their high tops. For these guys, Classics means the chance to play basketball--good basketball.

"It's a great way to compete in a sport you really enjoy, within a team atmosphere but without the pressure of an intercollegiate team," Classics rookie Peter Arrowsmith said.

"Classics? It's a bunch of guys with an interest in basketball getting together and having some fun," teammate Rob Patton concurred.

The Classics is a club basketball team at Harvard that started more than two decades ago. Its level of play falls somewhere between the play of the varsity men's basketball team and that of intramural sports.

But back in the 1970s, the players claim, the team could beat the varsity squad.

"The teams have fluctuated in ability," two-year veteran Matt Newlin said. "Some years we're really strong, other we're weaker. Last year we beat the JV team. We usually do."

This year, the Classics game mysteriously was axed from the JV schedule. Classics players said their victorious history in the annual match-up led to the omission.

The Classics' popularity in Harvard basketball circles has snowballed since the team's inception. Their yearly tryouts in November bring 40-50 upperclassmen to the MAC for three days--two hours a day--to play some of the best pick-up games of the year.

"Tryouts are really competitive," Seppi Winkler said. "It's hard to make the team because since the returning players are automatically on, there are very few spaces for incoming people."

Because the team has no official coach, returning players watch and evaluate potential hoopsters. The players/coaches make preliminary cuts after day two and final ones after day three.

Although the system leaves them vulnerable to cries of favoritism--and the players admit that knowing someone in the club can't hurt--they argue that everyone has equal opportunities at tryouts.

"It helps to know the players, but you usually know everyone before you even get in there," Newlin explained. "You've played JV or intramural basketball with these guys for years."

"There is an element of who you know," Arrowsmith added. "[The selection process] depends on who you're friends with to a small extent but to a larger degree on how you play."

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