OPEN vs. CLOSED

Before the start of today's game, a grey-haired, 61-year-old former track star will be presented with a cup by the Editors of the Harvard CRIMSON.

But the cup won't be given for any feats as a runner, though the man who will receive it once held the all-time Harvard record for the quarter-mile dash.

Instead, in the words of its inscription, the cup is being presented to: William John Bingham Director of Athletics, 1926-1951 The Man Who Made "Athletics for All" A Reality at Harvard

More than any other words could, these sum up William J. Bingham's 25 years of service to Harvard athletics. Throughout his 25-year term as athletic director, he was motivated by the single principle that athletics at Harvard were for the education of its students--all of them.

This led to his two basic policies: that inter-college athletic should be amateur athletics, and that full-scale athletic facilities should be available, not merely to the stars, but to all students.

Thus it was that he developed Harvard's wide-spread intramural athletic program, the finest in the country.

Himself a former varsity athlete; he realized that the strength of a university's athletic program was to be measured not by the crowds it drew to its Stadium each autumn Saturday, but by the availability of its athletic facilities to all its students.

For his staunch belief in this policy, he was made the victim of many scurrilous attacks. Today's game, between two all-star House teams, is his vindication.