In two years, Clifton Dawson has distinguished himself among the best running backs ever to don a Harvard uniform. In the next two years, the sophomore may prove to be the best back in Ivy League history.
Not a bad start for a guy who two years ago had to convince Harvard coach Tim Murphy that he really wanted to play football in the first place.
Dawson appeared to be too good to be true to Murphy. After red-shirting his freshman year at Northwestern, he decided he wanted more from his college experience. Football—which he had always considered just a part of his identity—had become his life. In the winter of 2003, knowing he wanted to make a switch, he surveyed his options and settled on Harvard. All he had to do was convince his future coach that he really wanted to play.
“I worried in all honesty that he was coming here only for the academics, and only for the culture,” says Murphy of his first impressions of Dawson. “I’ve seen his film and he was a Big 10 caliber football player, and I said, ‘Why do you really want to come here?’ I was suspicious.”
But disproving people’s suspicions has in large part been Dawson’s motivation on and off the field ever since he set foot in Cambridge.
Two years after telling Murphy that “I want to go to the best school I possibly can, and I want to win,” Dawson is accomplishing both with incredible success.
Re-writing the Books
“The most impressive thing is that he’s so consistent. It seems like it’s easy to him. It’s like no defense can stop him.”—Chris Menick ’00
Just over 20 minutes into his second season, Dawson sprinted down the right sideline at Harvard Stadium, outran the entire Holy Cross secondary and held up three fingers as he crossed the goal line following his 74-yard dash to the end zone.
With that one run in the Crimson’s opening contest on Sept. 18, Dawson let it be known that his success from last year wasn’t a fluke. He was back—a year older and a year better.
Dawson’s three touchdowns—which he helped us all remember in case we forgot to count—and 184 yards rushing would count as a great game for any back, no matter how much success he’s had in the past. But for Dawson, while he’s happy anytime the team wins, he knows he can do even better.
“Earlier on in my career I would’ve said 100-plus yards and scoring a touchdown or two would have been a really good game,” Dawson says. “But now as my individual stats have risen, I kind of expect to have those kinds of games. Anything lower than 200 or 250 yards I don’t get as excited about.”
Even coming from a Big 10 school, Dawson’s quick success at Harvard has surprised pretty much everyone except himself. Coming into last season, he was senior Ryan Tyler’s backup. But when Tyler went down with an injury to his ribs, Dawson—literally and figuratively—took the ball, ran with it and never looked back.
Heading into Saturday’s season finale, Dawson has amassed 2,367 yards on the ground through his first 19 games in a Crimson uniform. His 1,182 yards rushing so far this year are 85 yards shy of the school record of 1,267 set by Chris Menick ’00 in 1997.
On top of that, Dawson is getting his yards where they count. He has become the most dominant scoring threat in the Ivy League. His 16 rushing touchdowns this season have eclipsed Menick and Mike Giardi ’94’s record setting marks of 13. The sophomore has also jumped to the top of the list as Harvard’s leading scorer in a season, breaking a record held by Charlie Brickley ’15 which had stood for over 90 years.
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