Harvard's Buckeye Boys

The pair first met on the baseball diamond--Greg Ubert was on the mound pitching for Worthington, Brian Burns behind the plate, the St. Francis catcher.

Two Ohio boys, now seniors on the Harvard football team, slugging it out for bragging rights. Who could prove he was the biggest Buckeye Bad Boy.

Ubert pitched shutout ball for a few innings, and claims his Worthington Cardinals trounced St. Francis (Toledo), 22-4.

Burns says the game wasn't such a blowout--and his football won the state championship that season, anyway.

Ubert's team only won the league. Individually, however, he received All-State honors.

But Burns made the tackles, scored the touchdowns, and kicked the extra points.

In Ohio, football is the game that matters. And the Ohio State Buckeyes--Rose Bowl champions that January--are the kings.

Four years later, the pair share a suite in Mather and linebacking duties for the Crimson.

The room is straight out of an Ohio State frat house--the television blares the Monday Night Football Game, a kegerator and a bar sit over on the side. Posters of...um...some posters, line the walls.

Football? Well, they're still the Buckeye Bad Boys. Like to talk smack on the line. But it isn't Ohio State. It's Harvard and the bragging game has changed.

Burns has done more work, and gotten more questions right, on their Science-A problem sets.

Ubert won the best student-athlete award for all of Central Ohio his senior year of high school.

They take two classes together, and the grade competition is fierce.

Neither was asked to play for the Buckeyes. Ubert got a look--until the recruiters heard he was thinking about the Ivies. He became old news real fast.

"I was contacted by Ohio St., Miami of Ohio, Penn St.," Ubert said. "Then I told them I was looking at Ivy League schools and they scattered."

But Ubert and Burns aren't "dumb jocks" here. Harvard took them for how they perform in the classroom, as well as on the football field.

They've combined for 126 tackles this season. But Ubert has accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total (80 to Burns' 46).

This time, Burns was the one to point out that Ubert is winning the Midwest Masher competition.

"Ubey this year is just fantastic," Burns said. "He has more tackles than either of the guys last season."

Today Ubert and Burns take the field for their final football game. The Game.

It's not the Rose Bowl.

Somehow, that doesn't seem to matter so much anymore.