The Curse of the Harvard Sports Poster

It was truly a shame that Harvard football Captain Tom Callahan appeared on the Harvard football poster this year.

It was a shame because Callahan barely got to reap the benefits of having his visage pasted up all over Harvard Square. After all, the questionable poster showed the back of Callahan's head, so that most admiring fans wouldn't have recognized him in person even if the 6-ft. 6-in. offensive lineman spat on them.

And like his counterparts on the two other Harvard sports posters--hockey's John Weisbrod and basketball's Ralph James--Callahan was tagged with what proved to be the curse of the sports poster. All three athletes suffered devastating injuries early in the season which kept them out for a large portion of the year.

Callahan's dooming moment came during a practice the week after the Crimson's second game of the season--a blowout win over Northeastern which lifted Harvard's record to 2-0. While turning after a routine compression blocking drill, the Kirkland House resident incurred a seriously herniated disk.

"I had the feeling as I was walking off the field that that was my last time in football pads," Callahan says.

The injury required surgery, leaving a prominent scar on Callahan's back. To this day, Callahan has trouble even jogging. It meant the end of playing days for an athlete who was a standout not only on the gridiron but also on the basketball court as a member of the Harvard Classics.

And during the Crimson's 5-5 season, Harvard's 117th captain was assigned the tough task of playing the role of team leader from the sidelines.

"Once I couldn't be a leader on the field anymore, I felt pretty useless. I felt like a 270-lb. cheerleader," Callahan says. "When you're playing it seems that playing is the most important thing in the world. You get the feeling that the team can't go on without you. Seeing everybody go on without you is a little bit humbling."

The curtailment of Callahan's athletic career was particularly rough for someone who had been an Honorable Mention All-Ivy the year before and who had been contacted last summer by a number of professional scouts about a career in the NFL. A prospectus of the 1991 NFL draft pinned Callahan as the 36th-best offensive tackle in the country-- even with the injury.

"It was tough to look at that and think what might have been," Callahan says.

But now that football is no longer an option, Callahan has begun to pursue other paths. After graduation, he will travel westward to Los Angeles, where he will begin work in a law firm. Callahan hopes to eventually go to law school at U.C.L.A.

Despite sitting out his senior year, Callahan's Harvard football experience was an extremely positive one. He has the pleasant memory of the Crimson's unlikely 37-20 victory over Yale in 1989, which robbed the Elis of the outright Ivy title. And most of all, Callahan had the great distinction of being elected by his teammates as the Crimson's leader.

"Your life changes. Coach Restic holds up your jersey and you have to be responsible all of a sudden," Callahan says. "I think I grew up a lot and learned a lot."