Year Makes Big Difference in Performance Of Star Crimson Wide Receiver Pat McInally

One year ago at this time, Pat McInally, Harvard's premier wide receiver, was languishing on the bench and watching his team trudge through a so-so 4-4-1 season.

This Saturday against Princeton the 6 ft. 7 in. junior will reassume his position as a leader of the Crimson's resurgent 5-1 squad, a team which finds itself in the thick of the Ivy League race.

How can a receiver catch only six passes for 78 yards one season and then rebound the next year to make 32 receptions in six games for 466 yards and five touchdowns? Has McInally changed, or has the team? McInally says he feels it is a little of both and speaks candidly about his failings.

"Last year it hurt not to play, to watch the games from the sidelines," he said yesterday. "But it was my fault. The coaches thought I put myself above winning and they were right. I was too cocky."

Teammates aside, many of the receptions McInally has made this year depend on his considerable individual talents. His towering size and exceptional speed allow him to dominate smaller defensive backs, and his sticky fingers are making the off-balance, one-handed grab his trademark.

"A 6 ft. 7 in. receiver in football has the same advantages as a 7 ft. 2 in. center in basketball," he explained yesterday. "As long as they throw the ball high I can catch it. The only disadvantage I can think of is that there's more of me to hit."

Nothing New

As might be expected, athletic success is nothing new to McInally. As a high-schooler in Villa Park, California, he quarterbacked and kicked well enough to draw offers from UCLA and Stanford. He also excelled in basketball, averaging 22 points and 24 rebounds per game for his school's state quarterfinalist team.

He chose Harvard partly for its academics and partly for another reason. "The Harvard alumni I met loved the school so much that I figured there had to be something here, he says. "And I love it. It's the greatest."

The comment typifies McInally's enthusiasm. He calls himself "hyperactive," is famous for clowning around, and is a master of overstatement and the pun.

But McInally's antics conceal a sensitive interior. He says, "I respect serious, quiet people like Jimmy Stoeckel. But I don't want to burden people with my problems, I'd rather give them delight."

McInally is captivated by the idea of playing professional football, but not as a wide receiver. He relishes the idea of becoming a professional kicker. He presently handles kickoffs for the Crimson, and regularly booms them beyond the end zone.

"My greatest love is kicking," he says. "My dad and I have been kicking together since I was eight-years-old. I kicked footballs over swing-sets, telephone wires, and finally my high school's goal posts. Even now I kick for two hours a day when I'm home."

But if McInally does not make it as a professional kicker, the long hours of practice will not have been wasted. He explains, "It has kept me close to my father. You've got to spend time with someone you love and kicking has given us that time to talk and to dream."