When one thinks about Mike Clark and Joe Kross, one thinks not so much about their accomplishments on the football field, but more about all the things that haven't happened to them--the attention in the press they haven't received, the big showboat plays they haven't made and the "Coop Player of the Week" awards they haven't won.

Mike Clark starts at right guard for the Harvard football team; Joe Kross starts at right tackle. Together, they comprise one of the best chunks of an offensive line this side of State College Pennsylvania.

No Cheerleaders

They are similar kinds of players, to an extent. Both are experienced (Clark's a three-year starter); both play with power and uncanny consistency; and both lend a quality of quiet, non-rah-rah leadership to the Harvard program. And both are very, very good.

"If they play well, we play well. If they don't, we don't. It's that simple," Crimson offensive line coach George Karras said this week.

"We don't rely on any one side of our offense," Karras continued, "but when it comes down to a situation when we have to get the job done, those are the guys we go to."

*****

You look at Joe Kross; he looks like he should be a football player. Look at Mike Clark, and he doesn't.

Everything about Kross is big--listed in the football guide as 6-5, 249, he has a massive frame and a large, pleasant face. And if his size doesn't clue you in on what he does for extracurricular activities, a nagging scab on the bridge of his nose tells you that he's been butting heads in the trenches.

Atypical

Clark is smaller, a little thick through the middle, perhaps, but not, at first glance, a football jock. Listed as 6-1, 220, in the press guide's inflated figures, Clark has a broad, square-jawed face and curly hair.

They're known as "Library Joe" and "Captain Nasty," which tells you that the carbon-copy metaphor of two big, quiet, talented linemen goes only so far.

The contrast probably has something to do with the positions they play. Tackle is a brutal pit position, requiring unfailing consistency and punishing straight-ahead blocking. Guard demands a greater variety of skills, the quickness to pull, trap and range around the field.

So "Library Joe" has more of a methodical approach to the game, while "Captain Nasty" has a more passionate approach.

"I think Kennedy or somebody once said there are two things that make a man--war and football," Clark said, sitting across from his linemate at breakfast yesterday morning.