Sports: October 11, 1995
TWO-ARMED TIGERS TAKE TWO
QBs Nakielny and Harvey lead gridders over Cornell, Bucknell
More than a blindside hit or a complex defensive scheme, the events of the last 11 months have challenged Brock Harvey's resolve. The senior quarterback was demoted to second string after a slow start in 1995. He watched from the bench for the rest of the season as sophomore Harry Nakielny directed the Tigers' offense. He may have wondered if he'd close out his Princeton career as a second-stringer, what with the not-so-subtle hints from head coach Steve Tosches and other members of his staff that Harvey might want to consider using his talents at another position, say, defensive back or wide receiver. Yet Harvey continued to prepare each week as if he would be the one taking the snaps from center on Saturday afternoons.
The senior's stubbornness proved fortuitous on September 23, in the second game of the season, when Harvey, starting in place of an injured Nakielny, directed the Princeton offense to a 20-3 win over Bucknell in Palmer Stadium. And though Nakielny looked impressive in the Tigers' opener, a 24-22 victory against Cornell on September 16, Harvey's performance may have left fans wondering if he would start at quarterback against Brown on October 7, since Nakielny's thumb, which he injured in practice September 19, would probably be healthy in time for the game.
Against Bucknell, Harvey's performance partially obscured a superlative defensive performance by Princeton, which stopped the Bison's vaunted running back, Rich Lemon, from gaining 100 yards rushing in the game (thus becoming the first team in nearly two seasons to do so). A week earlier, the Tigers had held Cornell's Chad Levitt, the Ivy League's leading rusher in 1994, to 89 yards (though Levitt's two second-half touchdowns succeeded in making that game interesting until the final moments).
The defensive unit-particularly its front seven, led by lineman Darrell Oliveira '96 and linebacker Dave Patterson '96-was expected to be the team's bulwark, so its showing in the first two games came as no surprise. What did surprise observers was the possibility that Tosches might have a quarterback dilemma, for the coach appeared to have filled that spot during spring practice, when he gave Nakielny the starting job. Harvey, meanwhile, continued to politely resist Tosches's suggestions that he change positions. "He's always felt he was a quarterback at heart," Tosches said. "That's his prerogative; we're not going to force any player to play a position he doesn't want to." For Harvey, being a backup has meant working with the second team in practice and being relegated to special teams on game days. In the opener against Cornell, his penitence was two kickoff returns for a total of 32 yards.
"Once you play quarterback, other positions don't interest you," Harvey explained. "That's the truth, at least for me. There's no other position where you can have an effect on every play, and that's what I need to enjoy this game. Every game I've been preparing myself like I'm playing, and that's why it kills me when I'm not playing, because every game I'm ready to play."
And against Bucknell, he looked ready to play, though his performance was not without flaws. He completed just six of 12 passes and mishandled several snaps from center John Nied '96. However, Harvey's game had some spectacular moments, plays that demonstrated the quarterback's sheer inventiveness. In the third quarter, the senior from Farmington Hills, Michigan, twice capped scoring drives with quarterback-option runs that left defenders clutching at his shadow. The second of these runs, a six-yard jaunt that gave the Tigers their final points of the afternoon, was a piece of improvisation even Harvey couldn't explain completely. "I'm going to have to watch the film to see exactly what happened," he said.
By comparison, Nakielny had observers offering comparisons with former Tiger greats Jason Garrett '89 and Doug Butler '86 a week earlier, as he completed 22 of 28 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns.
From the opening drive, which ended in a perfectly executed scoring strike to wide receiver Kevin Duffy '97, Nakielny was a model of poise and confidence, qualities the junior from Sayreville, New Jersey, had displayed only sporadically in 1994. "He has great instincts," Tosches said. "He's the type of kid that, as a coach, you want to choke before the game. I sit in here with the quarterbacks, and of course I'm as tight as a guitar string, and he just sits there with a grin. You want to ask him, 'Are you serious? Are you ready?' He'll look at you and say, 'Don't worry. I got it.' Then he goes and plays well."
Thankfully for the coach, there are no personnel dilemmas on the other side of the ball. Princeton's defense shut down two excellent running teams in its first two outings. Bucknell's Lemon was coming off a 37-carry, 178-yard outing the previous week against Fordham and was closing in on the NCAA record of 20 consecutive 100-yard games. At halftime against Princeton he had fewer yards (5) than carries (9, and by game's end he had managed just 15 yards on 13 attempts. Tosches deemed the squad's performance "as good a team defensive effort as we've had around here."
"Our motivation is to prove every week we're an excellent defense," said Oliveira, who also had two sacks in the game. "If it's Rich Lemon or somebody else coming in, we set our own standards. We don't try to play to anyone's else's level. It makes a difference when a guy's coming out here trying to break an NCAA record, but I don't think the enthusiasm would have been less without that."
Princeton's defense had its spectacular moments. In the fourth quarter of the victory over Bucknell, Patterson added an exclamation point with a crunching, head-on tackle of Bison quarterback Jim Fox. The hit left spectators gasping, and seemed to take the air out of the Bucknell passer as well. Though the team was at Princeton's 29-yard line at the time, a woozy Fox threw an interception to defensive back Tim Greene '98, halting the drive. "There's nothing else like it," Patterson said later. "It's the equivalent of a big play on offense that can get everybody pumped up. Even more so, just because of the way defensive guys are. When somebody makes a big hit, it just raises everybody's level."
Patterson had demonstrated another of his talents, an uncanny nose for the ball, late in the fourth quarter against Cornell, when he forced Big Red running back Levitt to fumble just as he was about to twist into the end zone. A touchdown would have cut Princeton's lead to 24-19, pending the conversion; instead, Princeton got the ball. With the clock on its side, all the Tiger team needed to do was get two or three first downs. But in contrast to the Bucknell game, an outstanding play from Patterson wouldn't end the drama. Perhaps because Cornell's defense knew it had its back to the wall, the Tiger offense got nowhere. Princeton tried to run the ball to get a little breathing room, but as it had for most of the day, the running attack was crushed at the line. (Running back Marc Washington '97 ended the day with 75 yards on 25 carries. Against Bucknell the following week he ran for 154 yards on 27 carries.)
So on fourth down, with freshman punter Matt Evans standing in his own end zone, Tosches elected to have his kicker step out of the end zone for an automatic safety for two points, which made the score 24-15. The decision had the coach sweating later, when a four-yard touchdown run by Levitt followed by a PAT made the score 24-22 with 1:23 left. Cornell could now win the game with a field goal. But Princeton's defensive squad stopped the Big Red at midfield, and time expired.
As this issue went to press, the Tigers were preparing to travel to upstate New York to face a struggling Colgate. It's likely that the quarterback situation will take a back seat for this game, but it may flare up again in time for Princeton's next Ivy game, on the road against Brown. In the meantime, Tosches appeared to leave the door open for Nakielny's return. "When Harry is healthy, then we make a decision as to what is best for the football team," he said. "We've had a policy for a long time that you don't lose a position because of injury."
If Harvey bears any resentment through all this, it is well hidden. "Any scenario you can think about, I've envisioned," he said. "[Being benched] is a definite possibility, and if I was betting, I'd probably bet that would happen. But that's the way it is. That's a decision the coach has got to make, and that's why his job is so tough." His evenhanded take on the situation, when he's faced with the prospect of landing on the bench, leads one to believe the chemistry.
-David Porter
Penn alumnus David Porter is executive editor of The Sports Campus, an on-line college sports service.
EX-WRESTLING COACH WINS JURY VERDICT
A former wrestling coach, Chester Dalgewicz, won $140,000 in damages when a Mercer County jury decided he had been the victim of employment discrimination. Dalgewicz, who had served as an assistant coach for 22 years, was fired in 1990.
In the case, which was heard last spring, the university asserted it had let Dalgewicz go because of budget cuts. His attorney, Arthur Penn, argued that the coach had actually been targeted because of a bad back he had suffered in 1975 when wrestling with a 250-pound heavyweight. Penn said the injury had prevented his client from wrestling with members of the team in practice sessions but had not otherwise impaired his abilities as a coach. The jury found the university at fault for terminating him because of his physical handicap, even though his injury did not prevent him from performing his job.Penn also asserted that Dalgewicz had been fired because of age (he was 45 at the time of his dismissal), but on this charge the jury did not rule in his client's favor.
Superior Court Judge Phillip Lewis Paley entered the judgment for $140,000 in June, after denying the university's motion for a new trial. Dalgewicz is now an assistant director of athletics at Rider College, in Lawrenceville. After the decision, he told The Times of Trenton, "I feel relieved that it's over. I'll give another sigh of relief when I finally receive my check."
The Friends of Princeton Wrestling lent moral support to Dalgewicz and had offered to pay his $40,000 salary after his dismissal. Friends chairman Clay McEldowney '69 called the coach's firing "the first nail in the coffin of Princeton wrestling," which in 1993 was cut by the university from its roster of varsity sports.
SCOREBOARD
Men's Cross Country
(0-0 overall; 0-0 Ivy)
Lafayette Invit.-1st
Fordham Fiasco-1st
Women's Cross Country
(5-0 overall; 2-0 Ivy)
Lafayette Invit.-1st
Columbia, Navy,
Penn, Rutgers-1st
Princeton 43,
Manhattan 20
New England Invit.-5th
Field Hockey
(3-2 overall; 1-0 Ivy)
Princeton 6, Richmond 1
Princeton 4,
Boston Univ. 3 (OT)
James Madison 1, Princeton 0
Syracuse 2, Princeton 1
Princeton 6, Cornell 2
Football
(2-0 overall; 1-0 Ivy)
Princeton 24, Cornell 22
Princeton 20, Bucknell 3
Men's Golf
Bucknell Invit.-4th
Women's Golf
Dartmouth Invit.-1st
Men's Soccer
(4-0-0 overall; 1-0 Ivy)
Princeton 2, Lehigh 1
Princeton 2,
Hartwick 0 (OT)
Princeton 5, American 2
Princeton 1,
Cornell 0 (OT)
Women's Soccer
(1-3 overall; 0-1 Ivy)
Princeton 2, Seton Hall 1
Maryland 4, Princeton 1
Rutgers 3, Princeton 0
Cornell 1, Princeton 0
Volleyball
(8-1 overall; 0-0 Ivy)
Princeton 3, Wagner 0
Princeton 3, Lafayette 0
Princeton 3, Hartford 0
Princeton 3, Colgate 1
Princeton 3, St. John's 2
Princeton 3, Army 0
Colgate 3, Princeton 2
Princeton 3, Cornell 1
Princeton 3, Colgate 1