Restic leaned forward. "The one thing I do here more than anything else is not football," he said. "I write recommendations. For business opportunities, for graduate school. The other things? Not even close.
"I believe that football on this level should be amateur. I believe in the League, I believe in the philosophy. But even as I say this, things are starting to change a little bit, and that concerns me. But not at Harvard. Not...at...Harvard."
At his team's spring practice in early May, Head Football Coach Joe Restic announced he would retire following the upcoming season. The 1993 Game, held at Yale on November 20, will be his 23rd and last.
Restic will leave as Harvard's all-time winningest and losingest coach. He will also have coached Harvard football longer than anyone else in the school's history.
When Restic first came to Harvard in 1971, he was a hotshot fortysomething coach from the Canadian Football League with many unorthodox ideas about how football should be played. Now, as he prepares to leave, his "radical" ideas--such as single-back formations and the importance of a strong passing game--have become the norm in both the college and professional leagues. But Restic is still an oddity in college sports. In this era of "big money" college athletics, Restic has become one of the nation's leading spokespeople for the ideal of the student-athlete and the value of football as a life-shaping experience.
"The philosophy of 'win at all costs' and the attempt by many to make football a high-powered promotion and a money-making business could quickly change its nature and destroy the value of the game," Restic said in 1977.
Restic's legacy in this era of creeping professionalization has been to fight it Not at Harvard, he says. Not at Harvard. Joe Restic once struck out Mickey Mantle. Restic was a pitcher for the Philadelphia Triple-A farm club, and Mantle was on the fast track for the majors. Restic doesn't like to tell this story, and it shows. He's bored. It was a long time ago. But at one point during his narrative, his eyes light up. "Mantle, of course, goes on to be a great player," Restic says. "And he could hit from both sides, both sides of the plate." Like Mantle, Restic built a career on the philosophy that doing many things is better than doing one. Although he didn't start playing football until he was 15 (a high school coach saw Restic kicking a football with his friends and recruited him on the spot, George Gipp-style), Restic and his "Multi-Flex" offense opened doors for coaches throughout the sport. Instead of featuring a conservative three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust attack, the Multi-Flex was designed to attack a defense on every front. Putting men in motion, spreading the field, throwing the ball--the Multi-Flex probed for a weakness and exploited whatever it found. Restic wanted the defense on its heels, not sure of what was coming next. He wanted confusion, and he got it. In his first Yale game, Restic put the quarterback in motion. The ball was snapped to the fullback (who was also a backup quarterback), and he threw it to the original quarterback for a touchdown. The play made the papers as far away as Louisville, Kentucky. "If you saw the eyes on [Yale's] two defensive backs," Restic says fondly. "I watched those eyes as the quarterback went in motion, and those Yale backs, their eyes got so big..." "That was typical of the innovation he brought to football," says Donald Ignacio '72, the first football team captain under Restic. "It was really refreshing, very innovative and flexible." The roots of the Multi-Flex grew out of the nine years Restic coached in the Canadian Football League before he came to Harvard. The CFL's rules--12 men on the field, three downs to go 10 yards and unlimited motion in the backfield--encouraged offensive imagination and crazy plays. So when Restic came back to the stodgier American game, his ideas pushed the limit of the rulebook. Game officials had to be briefed before each game. (One referee commented that he had difficulty telling which receivers were eligible and which were not, but always gave Restic the benefit of the doubt.) In 1973, former Northeastern Coach Joe Zabilski called the Multi-Flex "the most imaginative offense around, the thing of the future." He was right. The ideas Restic brought to the football 20 years ago are mainstream ideas today. "I think there's been many changes in how football is played as a game today," Restic said. "When I first came here, I was talking about some single-back sets and no-back sets and people said, 'You can't do that!' and 'You can't play the game that way!' But you see a lot of it today. The single-back set. Opening up the spread sets. The exciting part of the game." The NFL Calling Restic could have ridden his New Age football into the NFL. In 1976, following the second of Harvard's five Ivy titles under Restic, the Philadelphia Eagles knocked on his door, holding out a multi-million dollar contract and the lure of coaching the team for which he had once played (number 82--check your 1953 roster). Restic nearly accepted the offer. The Eagles even called a press conference to announce his hiring. But the lack of talent in the Eagles organization scared him off. Today, Restic's tactical mind isn't the hot commodity it once was. The splashy success of the '70s and early '80s has worn off as football has caught up to where Restic was 20 years ago. But although there have been other offers to move on, Restic says, he has always stayed at Harvard. Harvard is one of the few remaining schools in the nation with a football philosophy that matches his. "Whether you win or lose, you do it in a class way," Restic said in 1989. "That's what I've always tried to teach here, because that's what playing football is all about. I think that's what coaching is all about, also." "If I wanted to have the best record in the country--the best--I would be at a school where I felt I could do the most in the recruiting area, have a big budget to take care of that, and do everything I could to win that football game," Restic said. "Would I be at Harvard? No." Restic's personal philosophies can only be called conservative. "I believe the family comes first," Restic told The Boston Globe in 1974. "That's the base. Then I have strong religious beliefs and I love my country." During World War II, Restic's language skills helped him get a job with the OSS interrogating prisoners. He was 17. As a football coach, Restic sees himself as the father to his players, using football to mold his kids into strong individuals. Football, Restic says, instills teamwork, loyalty, dedication, self-discipline, sacrifice, unselfishness, determination and hard work. "If that's not what we're talking about, then we're talking about making money, building a program, sacrificing people," Restic says. 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? "And the other part is, what's going to happen to the freshmen academically? They've never been here. Coming in, without the benefit of even one semester, I can only see one thing happening; great attrition in the freshman and junior varsity programs." It's a losing battle Restic is fighting, a one-man Alamo garrison. It's part of the reason Restic's getting out after 23 years. "I would coach the rest of my days if I felt the sport would go in a good direction," Restic says. "There are a lot of things that need to be done. Football isn't going to survive the way it's going today." But it will survive at Harvard. That--not the five Ivy titles, not the 113 or so wins--will be Restic's legacy. Not at Harvard, he says. Not at Harvard. "Harvard's been doing it the right way." Restic said, enunciating for emphasis. "The Ivy League has been doing it the right way. I just see things happening....Harvard has to be out in front when it comes to that part. Harvard has to be a beacon in that respect. Not only to the League, but to the game." John B. Trainer is a Crimson staff writer. He wants to note that in 1980, Restic said that if he believed in reincarnation, he'd want to come back as a sportswriter. He also said that John should be the next head coach of Harvard football. RESTIC FOR THE RECORD A collection of quotes from over the many years.... * July, 1973, on the proposed legalization of gambling on college football: "The idea of legalizing gambling on amateur sports by Massachusetts could only result from a moral breakdown similar to Watergate." * December, 1981, after Ivy League football was demoted to I-AA status: "I'm very disappointed. I just can't believe what's happening....How can you justify a battle for TV money on an educational basis? There is no question that young football players have become commercial pawns." * November, 1989, after winning his 100th game: "Win or lose, do it in a class way. That's what I've always tried to teach here, because that's what playing football is all about. I think that's what coaching is all about, also." * June, 1993, on whether he might have visualized himself in this position 22 years ago: "I don't look that far ahead. I don't have five-year plans. I don't have 10-year plans. I don't believe in communism. It doesn't work."
Read more in Sports
1987-'88 Harvard Men's Basketball Final Statistics
