The first thing you notice about Harvard Coach Joe Restic is The Nose. Large, long, and crooked as a crag, it functions in conversation as a kind of vagrant puppy dog, pursuing your glance with friendly persistence. You squirm and wiggle in your chair, brush imaginary lint from your shirt and tie your shoes a couple of times to avoid its forthrightness, but it's no use. Slowly, surely, you settle into your chair, turn to The Nose and submit to his intent eyes.

I'm sitting in Coach Restic's plain, slightly-cluttered office in Dillon Field House on a cold, ugly November day. I've covered the football beat all season, attending all the home games and traveling as far as Williamsburg, Va. and Ithaca, NY to see the 3-5 Crimson. Now, I am going to get my due: for the first time all season, I'm going to conduct a long, in-depth personal interview with the greatest football coach in Harvard history and one of the greatest innovators in the history of the sport.

I have big plans. I am going to start from his very first memory and move through his 66 years with the fastidiousness of a Philadelphia trial lawyer. Early influences. Formative moments. Biggest secrets. Greatest experiences. I will tease and tug until they are all mine, and they will all fit together in one perfectly neat history. All the while, I will remain wholly detached and, above all else, completely in control. No concessions. No regrets.

"O.K. Coach, how did you get started in coaching?"

He smiles, clears his throat.

"I think--for anyone--it's a matter of where you played and how much the game has meant to you," he said. "I've been fortunate to have had a great life with football.

"You know, there's a lot more to coaching than you'd think," he says suddenly, abruptly leading the conversation away from his past and into a discussion on the forces presently stultifying the joy of coaching.

I cringe.

Three minutes into the interview and I'm already out of control.

To say that Restic has a history to tell is like saying that Elvis was a rock musician, Ernest Hemingway was a novelist and Marilyn Monroe was a woman. Framed by the three formative events of his generation--The Great Depression, World War II and post-war prosperity--the myriads of interesting details in Restic's life make it prime movie material.

It all started in the small town of Hastings, Pa, about 110 miles east of Pittsburgh. There, Restic was one of 10 children born to Louis Restic, a Ukrainian-born coalminer, and his Polish wife. He attended a one-room red schoolhouse in the city where all eight grades were taught by a Mrs. Mary Kline, a woman crippled by polio. Every day for all of Restic's eight years at the school, she would painstakingly write lessons on the board with her crippled right arm.

Restic began working in the coal mines when he was 15. According to Pennsylvania state law, you were supposed to be 17, but because his boss was a family friend and because his family needed money, Restic was hired. Thus, while many students his age spent their time after school at the drugstore drinking sodas, Restic spent his shoveling sand out of 45-ton boxcars.

This tough balance between school and hard, hard labor worked to mature Restic very quickly, a fact evidenced by his volunteering for the Army Cadet Program in 1943 at the age of 16-and-a-half. Because of the different nationalities of his parents and the ethnic variegation of Hastings in general, Restic was proficient in three languages: Slovak, Russian and Ukrainian. This background made him an ideal candidate to be a Special Agent in the European Theatre of Operations.

So, at age 17, when kids today are just old enough to get in to see R-rated movies, Restic became a special agent. Working mostly alone, he penetrated enemy lines, merged with the masses of Europeans fleeing Hitler's terror, and relayed information back to the Allies. Putting his life on the line several times while dealing with double agents, the brave, hardworking youngster earned the overwhelming respect of his superiors.

After the war, Restic went to college. Discovered by Jim Leonard, the head football coach at St. Francis College in Loretto, Pa. while kicking a football in his barefeet in his yard, Restic went on to play for Leonard at St. Francis and later at Villanova as a receiver and a defensive back. He starred for both teams, earning the nickname "Razor" from his teammates for his 6-4 195 pound frame, lightning speed, and hard-hitting tendencies. Restic received his degree from Villanova in 1952.