They Were the Glory of Their Times

...On Cumnock Fields, Where Harvard youth and prolate spheroids meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet... Mort Sadow '29

This compelling couplet is a eulogy to Arthur James Cumnock, who captained and coached the Harvard football eleven that defeated Yale in 1890. It was a supreme gridiron effort, as the Elis had triumphed in every game from 1876 to 1889 and the Yale squad that year included immortals W.W. "Pudge" Heffelfinger and Lee McClung. In commemoration of Comnock's triumph, a plaque was erected in his honor on Soldiers Field -- hence Comnock Fields.

Although the pen of Mort Sadow may not be a match for the Bard himself, anyone who chats briefly with Mr. Sadow will concur that there are few who can rival his encyclopedial knowledge of Crimson football lore. Sadow is such a devote of Harvard tradition that he disdains wearing a Crimson sweater, opting for what he describes as a bluer hue of red or magenta. Magenta was originally selected as the team color for Harvard on January 24, 1873 before Crimson was later adopted. By the way, the word "glowing" in Sadow's poem should be printed in "purple-crimson" ink.

Sadow's initiation to Harvard football began after the Rose Bowl game on January 2, 1920 when Harvard defeated the Oregon ducks, 7-6, in Pasadena. Sadow was then a newsboy in Boston and was enraptured by the account of the game. In a stentorian voice he recalls that one headline from that day's paper was "Oregon Captain Weeps."

Oregon was, in truth, a much more powerful team than Harvard that year and "the Webfoots," as they were called by Crimson partisans, had worn Harvard down to a frazzle in the early going. In the second half, the Harvard defense summoned up a truly classic inspirational effort and blocked two Oregon field goal attempts and repulsed another sally deep into their won territory. Harvard's star player Arnold Horween kicked the extra point to provide the margin of victory and Sadow persuaded his mother to name his younger brother Arnold after him.

Sadow says of that tempestuous encounter, "nobody knows where they drew the strength. When you hear that line `we'll fight for the name of Harvard until the last white line's been passed' remember that's more than empty words."

Even though he doesn't smoke, Sadow likes to spend his free time in Leverett and Peirce, where he can stand in a reverential revery surrounded by Harvard football memorabilia.

Since his undergraduate days, Sadow has been to every Harvard-Yale game. He supplements his first-hand knowledge of Harvard football by assiduously collecting articles and press clippings. He is especially devoted to the cause of freshman football. He points out that today will be the 95th time the Harvard and Yale freshmen have clashed. In that span, Harvard has won 44 games and Yale has won 44 games with six ties. "This is the rubber game," says Sadow.

He adds with great pride that Jim Rosenfeld, a current member of the freshmen team, is the son of Norman Rosenfeld, who played halfback on the 1941 University of Michigan team alongside the great Tom Harmon, who won the Heisman Trophy that year.

The two brightest starts in the Harvard football firmament when Sadow was an undergraduate were Art French and Dave Guaranacca, who played from 1926-29, while the head coach was none other than Horween. French and Guaranacca were known as "the lateral twins" because they excelled in pitching the ball and then throwing it to one other, a technique Sadow says they learned from two Canadian coaches who came to Cambridge to proselytize the forerunner of the multiflex.

The kernel of Sadow's devotion to Harvard football is his philosophy that one must live the fleeting, evanescent years of youth to their fullest. He delights in quoting the Robert Burns sonnet: "O man! While in thy early years how prodigal of time, mispending all thy precious hours, thy glorious youthful prime."

Sadow, though, by no means has a pessimistic view of dissipated youth. Quivering with pride on the eve of yet another pitched battle between Harvard and Yale he offers this advice to tomorrow's contestants: "'In the bright lexicon of youth,' said Richilieu, `there is no such thing as fail.' I hope the Harvard varsity and freshmen remember that on Saturday."