Between bites, Matthews put questions to Restic ("You'll obviously be passing a lot..."), and Restic usually answered, "Well, Dave..." or, "You see Dave..."

After a while, a woman peered her head in to call Matthews to the phone. "That was Larry Claflin from the Herald," he said when he hung up. "He wanted two seats in the stands. I told him they were all sold out. So he said, 'Ask Joe the next time you see him."' Matthews laughed. So did his assistant, Bob Donovan, who had accompanied Matthews and Restic to lunch.

"The next time you see him," Donovan repeated, then he laughed again.

"I told him that Joe had his hands full," Matthews said, turning to Restic as if for confirmation. Matthews is very fond of Restic and tries to hard to please him.

"That's right," Restic said softly.

***

They had lunch together the next day, Matthews and Restic, but not alone. It was Tuesday, day of the weekly football coaches and writers luncheon at Boraschi's restaurant in Boston. Sportswriters, remember, hate legwork, so they gather upstairs at Boraschi's each week during college football season to talk with coaches...collectively. About ten writers, ten coaches, a few hangers on--all there at once, to make things easier.

Matthews hates the lunches. The coaches stand, one by one, to analyze the game their team just played and talk about their upcoming battles. He finds what they say so boring, so painfully corny:

"It's always better when you win more than you lose," said the Bridgewater coach. Matthews, sitting at a long banquet table, fiddled aimlessly with his cuff-links.

"We're looking forward to next year," said the Tufts Coach, whose season had already ended. "We're looking for the future..." Matthews played with his spoon.

He would not have come this week--he often sends Donovan, his assistant, instead--but the reporters had last minute questions about plans for the Yale game, the biggest by far of the upcoming weekend. They wanted to know if enough telecopiers would be available to send their copy back from the press box after the game ended, and whether there would be a post-game coaches' press conference. And they wanted to bitch about tickets: either that they did not get enough seats in the press box, or could not get enough seats in the stadium for their friends and relatives.

The game was sold out, but still reporters expected Matthews to pull seats out of the air for their pals. He would always tell them to talk with Gordon Page, Harvard's ticket manager. Page is sometimes able to help desperate sportswriters and alumni, and when he does, he often gets gifts of whiskey at Christmas in gratiude. Page does not drink, so he sells the liquor to the Varsity Club, and recently he used his earnings to build a tool shed at his Bedford house, a few blocks from where Matthews lives.

Finally the cigar-chomping M.C. introduced Restic, who stood and said earnestly, "This [Yale] is the best football team I've played against since I've been at Harvard, without a doubt. By far." Matthews rested his chin in his left hand, gazing at his coach. It was hard to move behind Restic's placid look and guess what he was thinking. Was he worried about the Yale game? Harvard had bumbled away last Saturday's Brown game, and would have to beat undefeated Yale to share the Ivy championship. A piece of the Ivy title was important to Restic, and important to Matthews, who had never seen Harvard beat Yale in the three years he has been Director of Sports Information. Matthews does not have many winning teams among the 29 he publicizes for Harvard, and a championship football team...well, that is the dream of every "DSI," as they call Matthews's job in college sports circles. And although they are not very gung ho about things down at the Sports Information office--Matthews tells athletes not to waste time with interviews if they have school work to do, "this is not Ohio State"--beating Yale might make the easy-going Matthews even more easy-going than usual when he cleared football debris off his desk early next week to begin hyping the less exciting winter sports.

By the time Restic had imparted his last homily to the writers, Matthews was visibly restless, anxious to escape the heavy cigar smoke and drive back to Cambridge. (But at least this was not as bad as the last sportswriters luncheon Matthews had attended, during Dartmouth week, when the M.C. announced it was time to eat by blowing a shrill whistle and yelling "Half-time"; when Restic said admiringly of a Harvard tackle there to receive a player-of-the-week award, "I have not heard Bob Shaw say two words on the football field. It's not because he can't talk. He can. But he just gets the job done..."; and when one of the hangers-on in attendance, an old Boston football expert asked by the M.C. to explain why that week's games had been such high-scoring affairs, answered: "This may sound like a stupid remark, but now you've got a lot of colored boys playing football, and they're damn good athletes who put a lot of pep into the game.")

When the lunch program ended, the Globe's Ernie Roberts stopped coaches on their way out to ask for "humorous anecdotes" for his column. Matthews waited for Roberts, eager to feed him a story. But this was not a Harvard story. Matthews wanted Roberts's help with a cause, of sorts. The president of the University of Vermont had decided to dismantle the school's competitive athletic program to save money. Matthews was horrified. He grew up in Burlington, right next to the school's football stadium, and later graduated from the University. When he finally got Roberts aside, Matthews urged him to write a piece supporting reinstatement of the program. Roberts puffed a cigar, looking disinterested.