Harshbarger is the son of a school teacher and the Brethren chaplain of Penn State University.

When the young athlete entered Harvard in the fall of 1960, he encountered a dramatic cultural shift from his hometown of Pennsylvania Furnace, Pa.

But Harshbarger's friends say that whether on the freshman football team or in any social situation, he quickly became a standout among peers and eventually was voted a Class Marshal.

Richard G. Darman '64, one of Harshbarger's Eliot House roommates and chair of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration, says that the transition was "irrelevant."

"He was an instant success at Harvard, helped undoubtably by his attractive personal style," Darman says.

While Darman and a third member of their Eliot House suite were both members of the Owl Club, Harshbarger did not join a final club.

Many of Harshbarger's friends said his upbringing has given him a strong moral background.

"He was a person who was totally confident of his own values," Darman says. "[His parents] are the world's most solid people in the way of values."

The attorney general says that the 1963 Yale Game remains one the strongest memories of his time at Harvard.

Harshbarger and his teammates were practicing for The Game when they learned that President John F. Kennedy '40 had been assassinated.

The Game was postponed a week as the University and the nation went into mourning.

Harshbarger, who grew up with Kennedy as a hero, feels that Kennedy's commitment to public service was one of the central principles of Harvard culture during that era.

"I was in college when public service was the most noble thing you could do," says Harshbarger.

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, Harshbarger took a fellowship at the Union Theological Seminary in East Harlem in New York City, where he spent a year working with church and community organizations.

After leaving New York, Harshbarger spent three years at Harvard Law School and graduated in 1968.

Instead of returning to Pennsylvania after school, Harshbarger chose to settle in the Boston area and now lives in Westboro, Mass. He has since married and has three children, including Anne M. Stephenson '98, who lives in Eliot House.