The University finds difficulty in accepting the reality that we are out of the days of Hamilton Fish. The promise of athletic excellence that McLaughlin wants can't be achieved easily, because the great athletes who went Ivy in the early 1900s now go Big Ten or Pac Eight.

But as different as Hamilton Fish and Al McGuire are, they have a basic common element: they are totally committed to being only themselves. They assume no facades to appease other's feelings.

Fish lives today with the same ethics he preached forty years ago. Though his expressions of anti-Communist sentiments and gratuitous-sounding pitches for black equality make the '70s children uncomfortable, he remains constant to his world. He is totally committed to preserving the America he idolizes.

McGuire, through his words and actions, lives dedicated to the belief that "you have to be tough and play to win." He is the advocate of the self-made man, the "orchestra leader" who shaped a basketball power by harmonizing the minds of his players

And last night, he showed that Harvard was playing a discordant tune. University brass are promising athletic gains with one hand and unyielding academic standards with the other. It can't be both ways; the two must blend. Promising athletic success without the conviction to make it happen just increases frustration.

Co-captain Glen Fine said last night we need three things for a successful basketpall program: a new arena, a 6-ft. 10 in. anchor man, and another full-time coach. Harvard wants to make it with half an arena, a big forward and a part-time assistant.

It's difficult to reconcile the realistic and idealistic elements in McGuire's ideas. Harvard is grappling with the problems that reconciliation involves. But to think that the troubles will just go away is to live deluded, and McGuire was saying last night that we have to beware of the compromise ethic that brings not only delusion, but frustration. Both McGuire and Fish are products of avoiding such compromises; it is our turn to judge if we can live with such extremes.