Keeping the Faith

Over the years, Restic has become one of the few remaining strident defenders of the student-athlete in the nation.

When the NCAA News, a weekly NCAA publication for college coaches and officials, published a debate on Proposition 48 (which requires athletes to score at least 700 on their Scholastic Aptitude Test to be eligible for competition) and mandatory drug testing in 1986, Restic was one of the people asked to submit an opinion.

"You're given 400 points [on the SAT]....realistically, you only have to get 300 points out of 1200," Restic wrote in favor of the resolution. "We're not talking about Rhodes scholars, now, are we? As far as drug testing goes, these are students who should be responsible for their judgments. They are old enough and should make the right decision. You're not going to solve the problem by testing."

But Restic is on the national fringe. "Well, la-ti-da," a writer for the Houston Post wrote in response. "Harvard's never lost a recruit to Prop 48."

The rest of the country has difficulty understanding Harvard and the Ivy League. Ever since 1954, when the Ivy League voted not to give scholarships to athletes, football has been a different game in the Ancient Eight. While it is a revenue-producing sport, it is not the big-money sport it is at the Michigans and Miamis of this country.

"Money's the name of the game at that level," Restic says. "You've got to make money to have a successful program. You either win or you're going to get fired. It's that simple. If you don't win and you want to win, you have very few options. You have to cheat, or you have to take advantage of the rules and hope you don't get caught."

A Strong Voice

Like Thoreau's simpler life on the shores of Walden Pond, Restic takes refuge in the simple life of the Ivy League. And like Thoreau, he is trying to convince the rest of society that his way is the best way.

"I've tried to be as strong a voice as I could possibly be," Restic says. "I've always felt that's the way college football should be. Let's not be hypocritical here. Let's say this is either amateur, or it's professional, or semi-professional. One or the other. And we have tried to keep it as amateur as we possibly can.

"But everyone's moving in the other direction. Even the League. Why? Why? If you have a philosophy, you shouldn't put a price tag on it. If you believe this is the way it should be, then you have to try and make it work."

At times, Restic must feel like he's standing on a sandbar as the tide comes in.

Even the Ivy League is moving away from its commitment to sports for the sake of sports. Last year, the conference passed a resolution to allow schools to drop freshman football, one of Restic's most cherished institutions. Every Ivy school but Harvard cut its freshman program.

Mention it to him now, and his response is predictably vehement. The League's logic behind cutting the freshman programs was primarily financial, but Restic believes that logic is misguided:

"I don't buy that argument, not at all," Restic says. "I think that everybody's going to find out that you're going to spend more money bringing people back for pre-season than continuing the freshman program. It's been in existence since 1876, and all of a sudden there's something wrong with it?