It all started right here, on the Charles River.

The very first intercollegiate athletic competition occurred when eight men donned crimson bandannas and rowed a boat faster than eight men wearing blue bandannas. It was Harvard against Yale, the sport was crew, and the date was August 3, 1852.

The race took place on New Hampshire's Lake Winnepesaukee, but the victorious Harvard crew practiced on the same strip of water where the crews practice today.

One hundred and forty-one years later, 100,000 people fill the Rose Bowl every January 1 to watch a football game while millions more watch Keith Jackson and Al Michaels talk about it on television. The bandannas have become complex color-coordinated uniforms. "For the love of the game" has become "win at any cost."

Athletics are big-time now. Clear, clean Lake Winnepesaukee is a thing of the past.

While college athletics have seemingly gone professional, the Ivy League (and especially Harvard) has tried to go the other way. Sports, Harvard likes to say, are just that: sports, a challenge to the body the way philosophy is a challenge to the mind.

But that's not always the case. Harvard must still bow to the NCAA mandates of gender equity and athlete eligibility. A former professional athlete cannot play sports here, regardless of Harvard's "sound of mind and body" ideology.

On top of that, Harvard has the audacity to field several excellent teams (foremost among them the men's ice hockey and women's lacrosse squads) and encourage people to take notice of them. Harvard actually charges fans to watch the men's ice hockey team in action, and 35,000 people buy $20 tickets each November for The Game.

Bit by bit, the window opens wider. And before anyone notices, the wind blows out the candle on the altar.

Whether they like to acknowledge it or not, Athletic Director Bill Cleary '56 and his lieutenants, Associate Athletic Directors Patricia Henry and Francis Toland, run the largest athletic program in the country. Harvard fields teams in 41 sports on a budget of around $10 million. It's Division I, it's recognized around the nation as a model for sports administration, and it's big-time.

And it has problems it must face every year. This year, the question of gender equity threatens to upset the smooth-running old-boy network that's run athletics for so long. Several coaches have been hired to turn around oncegreat programs and results are being expected soon.

But the biggest question--as befits a thriving Division I big-time athletic program--is who will replace football coach Joe Restic, retiring after this season after 23 years at the helm.

Here, then, are the five biggest questions facing Harvard athletics this fall.

1. Who will replace retiring football coach Joe Restic next season?

The candidates have been pared down to a short list, but four months after Restic announced his upcoming retirement to the football team at its annual spring practice in May, no obvious successor has emerged.