Breaking the Mold

In two years, Clifton Dawson has distinguished himself among the best running backs ever to don a Harvard uniform. In the next two years, the sophomore may prove to be the best back in Ivy League history.

Not a bad start for a guy who two years ago had to convince Harvard coach Tim Murphy that he really wanted to play football in the first place.

Dawson appeared to be too good to be true to Murphy. After red-shirting his freshman year at Northwestern, he decided he wanted more from his college experience. Football—which he had always considered just a part of his identity—had become his life. In the winter of 2003, knowing he wanted to make a switch, he surveyed his options and settled on Harvard. All he had to do was convince his future coach that he really wanted to play.

“I worried in all honesty that he was coming here only for the academics, and only for the culture,” says Murphy of his first impressions of Dawson. “I’ve seen his film and he was a Big 10 caliber football player, and I said, ‘Why do you really want to come here?’ I was suspicious.”

But disproving people’s suspicions has in large part been Dawson’s motivation on and off the field ever since he set foot in Cambridge.

Two years after telling Murphy that “I want to go to the best school I possibly can, and I want to win,” Dawson is accomplishing both with incredible success.

Re-writing the Books

“The most impressive thing is that he’s so consistent. It seems like it’s easy to him. It’s like no defense can stop him.”—Chris Menick ’00

Just over 20 minutes into his second season, Dawson sprinted down the right sideline at Harvard Stadium, outran the entire Holy Cross secondary and held up three fingers as he crossed the goal line following his 74-yard dash to the end zone.

With that one run in the Crimson’s opening contest on Sept. 18, Dawson let it be known that his success from last year wasn’t a fluke. He was back—a year older and a year better.

Dawson’s three touchdowns—which he helped us all remember in case we forgot to count—and 184 yards rushing would count as a great game for any back, no matter how much success he’s had in the past. But for Dawson, while he’s happy anytime the team wins, he knows he can do even better.

“Earlier on in my career I would’ve said 100-plus yards and scoring a touchdown or two would have been a really good game,” Dawson says. “But now as my individual stats have risen, I kind of expect to have those kinds of games. Anything lower than 200 or 250 yards I don’t get as excited about.”

Even coming from a Big 10 school, Dawson’s quick success at Harvard has surprised pretty much everyone except himself. Coming into last season, he was senior Ryan Tyler’s backup. But when Tyler went down with an injury to his ribs, Dawson—literally and figuratively—took the ball, ran with it and never looked back.

Heading into Saturday’s season finale, Dawson has amassed 2,367 yards on the ground through his first 19 games in a Crimson uniform. His 1,182 yards rushing so far this year are 85 yards shy of the school record of 1,267 set by Chris Menick ’00 in 1997.

On top of that, Dawson is getting his yards where they count. He has become the most dominant scoring threat in the Ivy League. His 16 rushing touchdowns this season have eclipsed Menick and Mike Giardi ’94’s record setting marks of 13. The sophomore has also jumped to the top of the list as Harvard’s leading scorer in a season, breaking a record held by Charlie Brickley ’15 which had stood for over 90 years.

“He’s going to crush a lot of these records,” says Menick, who as a coach for Fordham last year had the opportunity to watch Dawson on film. “And it’s not just Harvard records—he’s going to go and get some Ivy League records as well.”

By the time his four years at Harvard are done, Dawson may not just get “some” Ivy records—he may own pretty much all of them.

The 2,369 yards he’s accumulated on the ground so far already put him over the half way mark of reaching Cornell great Ed Marinaro’s Ivy record of 4,715 career yards. And his 28 career rushing touchdowns also put him on pace to eclipse Marinaro’s Ivy record of 50 by the time 2007 roles around.

Add to this that captain Ryan Fitzpatrick and senior receiver Brian Edwards will be playing their last games on tomorrow, and Dawson may become even more of a focal point of the Crimson offense over his final two years, bringing records such as career carries into reach.

All of this has led to national recognition and the chance to become the first Harvard recipient of the Payton Award, presented annually to the best player in Division I-AA.

While Dawson thinks he only has an “outside shot” at the honor, he knew from day one that he could put up some impressive numbers once he got an opportunity.

“Without sounding overconfident or cocky, yes, I expected this kind of success,” Dawson says. “I did expect to have athletic and individual successes here. My experiences at Northwestern really led me to believe that given hard work I could have successes there or here or anywhere.”

Demanding Respect

“Off the field, yeah, he’s the nicest guy... On the field, he is the fiercest competitor out there, between him and Ryan [Fitzpatrick] they would brawl anybody out there.” -—Brian Edwards

It was not more than half an hour after Harvard demolished Princeton 39-14 on the Tigers home turf. Dawson had just finished his best statistical game of the year with 201 yards rushing and three touchdowns.

But Princeton linebacker Zak Keasey wasn’t buying into all the hype.

“I don’t think he’s different from any other back we’ve faced this year,” Keasey told reporters following the game.

For Dawson, comments like those just add to his drive.

“Stuff like that absolutely infuriates me,” says Dawson of Keasey’s comments. “When I don’t feel like I receive a certain level of respect from my opponent the natural response is to be upset. I can’t wait next year to play Princeton.”

“Clifton demands respect,” says his teammate and roommate, fullback A.J. Kennedy. “He always says ‘I’m not just going to earn respect. I’m going to demand respect.”’

It’s that lack of respect that has pushed Dawson to work harder on the field and stay more focused off of it. While he’s best known around campus as a running machine, he realizes that his toughest challenge at Harvard is gaining respect away from the field.

“A lot of student athletes, a lot of football players have a lot to prove not just to themselves but to everyone,” Dawson says. “I definitely do work a lot harder because I know I’m battling the social perceptions of football players.

“There are definitely times when I’ve wondered what professors’ preconceived perceptions of me are.”

But after 10 minutes around Dawson, you realize that you’re dealing with someone who could be better categorized as president of a reading club than star football player. Unless you steer him in the direction of talking about football, he’ll never bring it up himself. Sitting with him less than 24 hours after he ran for 160 yards and a touchdown to help the Crimson clinch the Ivy title over Penn, he doesn’t mention football until someone comes over and congratulates him. Even then, he turns to his injured roommate sitting across the table and says with a smile, “Yeah, man, congratulations, great game.”

“He’s a humble guy,” Kennedy says. “He enjoys being a football player but that’s not all he is. He’s a pretty calm guy.”

Calm—as long as you give him his respect.

The Next Level

“There are so many experiences I want to have and so I look at the NFL as maybe one of those experiences for a little while, but there’s so much I want to do.”—Clifton Dawson

While NFL scouts showed up in bunches this year to evaluate captain Ryan Fitzpatrick, it’s likely that throughout the next two years it’s going to be Dawson they’re coming to see.

Fitzpatrick aside, it’s not often that NFL scouts consider Ivy skill players as serious prospects, but Dawson’s sheer dominance of the league might make them take notice.

The most notable Ivy backs in recent memory to have success in the NFL are Keith Elias from Princeton and Jim Finn of Penn. Dawson’s numbers figure to be far superior than both of those players by the time his time wearing Crimson is done.

“He’s going to have to stay focused,” says Menick regarding Dawson’s future success. “And he’s obviously done that by how consistent he’s been. You just can’t think about the big picture and have to really focus on what’s happening right now.”

Dawson’s still not sure what he wants his “big picture” to look like. He came to Harvard so that his college time would consist of more than just football, and he’s hesitant to pursue a life following college that would limit him in any way.

“There are so many things to do,” he says. “And football may just be a part of that.”

—Staff writer David H. Stearns can be reached at stearns@fas.harvard.edu.