Heights sports editors sometimes think alike, I guess. In October 1966, I wrote a column in the Heights entitled “Ivy Envy,” in which I extolled the virtues of football played in that league. The following year, Reid Oslin, previously sports editor, penned a column with the headline “Ivy Eagles?” and he went a little further, suggesting BC should consider emulating the league.

Both columns may have been inspired by mediocre football records for the Eagles in each of our junior and senior year seasons. Reid and I, however, had another perspective as well. We also had been classmates in high school and a fellow high school classmate, Gene Ryzewicz, was the all-Ivy running back and later quarterback for Dartmouth, then called the Indians.

Gene Ryzewicz leading Dartmouth players into Harvard Stadium, 1966.

As my column back then mentioned, the UPI New England coaches’ poll in October 1966 placed Harvard #1 and Dartmouth #2. BC was ranked 6th. Sixth . . . in New England! I attended the Harvard-Dartmouth games in 1965 and 1966. Those games were fun to watch. Football was less “professional” back then (the NFL was way short of being the center of American sports attention) and Ivy players, at least some of them, were as good as the better players at BC and other major teams.

Even now, some BC fans are not fans of the direction BC athletics has taken, i.e., joining the ACC. The feelings become stronger when BC teams are not especially competitive in the conference. Maybe the Ivy approach is no longer among the possibilities for BC, if it ever was, but the concerns about an institution that claims high academic standards competing with institutions, particularly public ones, with admittedly lower standards are not likely to disappear.