Harvard Professor Profiles 'Mini-Mack' Herron

Dr. James McCoy Jones, an associate professor in Harvard's Social Psychology Department, may be headed for the bestseller list with an extraordinary work on a much maligned and misunderstood athlete, Mack Herron of the Atlanta Falcons.

Jones, who teaches "Psychology of Humor," "Black Lives," and the popular spring course, "Sport, Play and Society," is in the process of putting the final touches on an extensive sociological biography on Herron, a 5'5" dynamo running back who captured the fancy of New England Patriot football fans with a record-setting performance in 1974. 'Mini-Mac' eclipsed the all-time N.F.L. total offense record set by Gale Sayers with 2444 yards last year.

Jones majored in psychology at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he captained the basketball team. He chuckles when recalling a phone call he received from sports revolutionist Jack Scott (late of Patty Hearst case fame) when Scott was athletic director at Oberlin. "In 1972, Scott wanted me to drop everything and come out to Oberlin as the basketball coach. He was fascinated by sports psychology and wanted a coach who could impart that type of thing. He wanted to get rid of those people teaching courses on ankle wrapping."

After receiving his M.A. from Temple, Jones obtained a doctorate from Yale University. A year after giving a talk at Harvard to a department luncheon, Jones was offered a teaching position in the Psychology Department.

Jones' strongest views have to do with blacks at Harvard. "Harvard can never be a place where black people can feel comfortable and identify with Harvard," he says, "I can't identify with Harvard, I can work here, I can contribute, I can be intellectual, I can do research, but I certainly cannot feel as though my essence is expressed through the things I do at Harvard's institution."

"People know so little about Herron," Jones said in an interview yesterday. "They know he played in Canada, then some hazy story about a drug conviction, and then that the Patriots picked him up, The press, the fans, the coach, and the Patriot organization--none of them took the time to find out about the real Mack Herron."

Herron's stormy career came full-circle this season when suddenly the announcement came from Foxboro that Herron had been given his unconditional release. The official explanation of his release cited a party Herron had thrown for teammate Leon Gray, a Patriot offensive tackle, on a Friday night prior to a Sunday game.

Jones says the real reasons for Herron's exile from New England go far beyond the party incident and stem from a breakdown in communication between team-leader Herron and Coach Chuck Fairbanks.

"Fairbanks doesn't know how to deal with his players, to treat them like men. He can't begin to appreciate the pride they have in themselves. Fairbanks still operates on some misplaced notion that for Team, God and Country, men want to win. But they win for each other, not for the fans, not for the coach."

Herron's sudden change of venue came as a shock to Jones, who originally approached Herron with the idea of a biography last December.

Jones' book tries to look at football from the side of the human beings who play it. "Mack Herron has struggled to survive and make the most of what America has to offer when America hasn't offered him anything to work with except his wits, courage, and guts. He has come out of a virtual wasteland, the slums of Chicago, trying desperately to survive and to overcome the myriad of things that pull 95 per cent of all the people around him down."