Harvard's varsity athletic program always wins more games than it loses. Each winter, in his annual report, President Pusey acknowledges this achievement, extolling the "gay and serious" jocks for maintaining the best overall winning percentage among the Ivies since the League got started formally over a decade ago.

Rarely is one year different from another in this pattern of success. One team a season wins a championship, two or three others challenge for the top spot, and although unsuccessful, inflate the victory percentage in the process and the remaining one or two flounder miserably in the Ivy cellar, earning the undying emnity of the Department of Athletics statistician.

1967-68 followed this trend through the Fall and Winter campaigns. The cross country team went undefeated for the first time in a decade but the soccer team finished third in the League and the football team was fourth. As the weather got worse so did the record; Harvard won titles only in squash and suffered miserablely in basketball, wrestling, and fencing.

But the Spring was different. In a flurry of success which parallels UCLA's national domination last year, Harvard won four Eastern championships, lost a fifth in track by four points and enjoyed its best lacrosse season in several years.

There is of course, no logical reason for this abrupt turnabout. The winter facilities are inadequate, but most coaches agree that the quality of the auditorium does not transform the chump into a champion. All the spring teams got their share of breaks, but in most cases, they made their breaks.

Football

6-3 overall; 4-3 Ivy, fourth

The 1968 football team started the season with impressive trouncings of Lafayette and Boston University and then continued its winning ways in the League against Columbia and Cornell. As in so many years past, the reunion-day game with Dartmouth loomed as pivotal in the Ivy race.

Harvard fell behind 17-0 before rallying behind the running of Ray Hornblower and Vic Gatto to take a 21-20 lead with only a few minutes remaining. But Dartmouth pulled out the game and a lot of Harvard spirit on Pete Donovan's last-second field goal.

The next week Harvard rebounded to dump Penn, 45-7. It was the calm before the storm. In Soldiers Field Nov. 11, before 38,000 witnesses, Princeton murdered Captain Don Chiafaro's crew, 45-6. The Tigers' fullback Ellis Moore scored five touch-downs in his role as chief assassin. Brown fell, though not without a struggle, 21-6.

In the finale, against already-crowned League champion Yale, Harvard fought back from another 17-0 disadvantage, only to lose, 24-20, when All-East quarterback Brian Dowling hit Dan Marting--whose defender had slipped--in the clear. It was a bitter ioss for the Harvard team which had entered the game a three touchdown underdog.

Next year's team will be long on running backs and linebackers, but must prove itself at quarterback and in the line.

Cross Country

9-0. Heptagonal Champion

Sparked by Jim Baker, the Harvard cross country team raced to its first Heptagonal (the Ivies plus Army and Navy) crown in over a decade. No harrier squad had put together an undefeated dual meet season, a Big 3 victory and the Heps title in one campaign since the late 30's.