Biblical Team

Familiar to most U. S. blasphemers is the ballad about the Biblical football game played on Christmas Day in St. Peter's old back yard. Last week before an eminently respectable audience--a father-&-son dinner in Brandywine Methodist Episcopal Church, Wilmington, Del.-- Football Coach Harvey John Harmanof the University of Pennsylvania picked a Biblical football team he would have liked to coach. The lineup:

Abner, l. e.

Job. l. t.

Peter, l. g.

Samson, c.

Moses, r. g.

Jacob, r. t.

Gideon, r. e.

David, q. b. (captain)

Daniel, l. h.

Joshua, r. h.

John the Baptist, f. b. When news of this talk reached Philadelphia, scandalized officials at two Bible schools announced they would "investigate." Rev. Dr. Elim A. E. Palmquist, executive director of the Philadelphia Federation of Churches, snorted: "Cheap publicity!"

A little more investigation would have revealed to Philadelphia's ministers that Coach Harman's Biblical team is no publicity stunt but the nub of a talk he has delivered at dinners and to young churchgoers some 200 times in the past six years. Son of a Lutheran minister and brother of another, bulky, slow-speaking Harvey Harman, 36, speaks once a week for nothing, as often as he is additionally booked for pay. Says he: "I like to help out the preachers, because they have a hard time holding the young people."

Coach Harman is a onetime University of Pittsburgh footballer, onetime coach at Haverford and the University of the South, now under a new three-year contract at Pennsylvania because his last season was so successful. His team talk, continually revised, shows Biblical as well as football sense. Excerpts:

"For center, Samson--he could take out all seven of the opposing linemen at once. For guards. Peter the Rock and Moses--Moses was so rugged, strong and able to give and take the gaff I'd not only make him a guard but put him on the Football Rules Committee, too. . . For halfbacks: Joshua, of whom the Bible says that he 'passed through,' and Daniel, who was resolute and stuck to the right. I'd put Daniel in charge of the training table, too, he showed he knew his simple fare was better than the pyorrhea-giving diet of the Babylonians. For fullback, John the Baptist--he'd prepare the way.

"For graduate manager, Joseph--he eventually owned pretty near everything in Egypt, and made people pay to get in and out. ... As pressagent. St. Matthew--he and Judas were the only two Disciples that could read and write, and he knew everything that was going on from the inside. As coach, the most important thing of all, St. Paul. He was quick-witted, of powerful physique, an upholder of sportsmanship. ... He believed in buying good equipment, for he said, 'Put on the whole armor of Christ.' "

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