Flop show at Harvard

The Harvard football team, already racked by the dismissal of its captain for alleged domestic assault and the five-game suspension of its quarterback for an unspecified transgression, plays its Ivy League opener at Brown today amid yet another controversy: the dismissal of a wide receiver over a sketch he performed on the team's traditional Skit Night.

Keegan Toci, 21, a senior from Tucson, has asked Harvard officials to reinstate him after he was cut from the team for a solo skit in which he recited 20 reasons why the school's Division 1-AA football program would never rise to Division 1-A. A number of players were said to consider Toci's skit less offensive than other acts, including one suggesting that the team's All-Ivy running back, Clifton Dawson, performed oral sex on Harvard coach Tim Murphy.

Murphy, who has coached the Crimson for 13 years, called a special meeting the morning after Skit Night and dismissed Toci in front of the team. Murphy said last night in a telephone interview he considered Toci's performance maliciously disrespectful to the program, the school, and Harvard's tradition.

``He was dismissed because of a mean-spirited attack on the training staff, coaching staff, players, strength coaches and Harvard University in general," Murphy said.

Both Murphy and Toci declined to discuss the skit or much else about the incident.

``I appreciate you contacting me," Toci said by phone. ``I am currently trying to resolve the matter administratively, but I have been unsuccessful thus far."

Harvard players have long believed they enjoyed immunity from discipline for their performances on Skit Night, an irreverent, sometimes raunchy, ritual that was considered part of their social bonding during the run-up to the season opener. But this year's event ended like no other, with Murphy later announcing he would abolish the Skit Night tradition because of Toci's performance and a number of racy, off-color acts such as the one portraying Dawson and the coach.

Murphy declined to state publicly why he believed Toci should be ousted from the team while players who engaged in suggestively lewd performances should not be disciplined, other than to characterize Toci's remarks as unacceptably malicious.

Efforts to reach Harvard athletic director Robert Scalise last night were unsuccessful.

After Murphy announced Toci's dismissal, he asked the 110-member team whether it supported his position. An uneasy silence ensued, then one player after another rose from his seat until about 20 stood in protest, with others apparently poised to follow, before Murphy abruptly ended the meeting and left the room, according to one witness.

Another witness said Murphy departed only after determining that a vast majority of the team supported his decision.

Toci, a star running back at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, was a backup at Harvard and saw limited action during his first three years on the team. His absence is likely to hurt the Crimson less than the loss of their former captain, Matthew C. Thomas, an All-Ivy linebacker who is awaiting trial in Cambridge District Court on domestic battery and other charges stemming from an incident in June involving his former girlfriend in her Harvard dorm room.

Thomas, 22, of Mount Airy, Md., was stripped of his captaincy and replaced by senior linebacker Ryan Tully, of Norfolk. Thomas also was suspended from the team and later dismissed.

Harvard (1-0) also enters today's game against Brown, the defending Ivy League champion, without junior quarterback Liam O'Hagan, 21, of Minnetonka, Minn. Murphy suspended O'Hagan before the season for five games for reasons he has yet to specify, other than to say O'Hagan violated team rules. O'Hagan's backup, Chris Pizzotti, was injured in last Saturday's 31-14 victory over Holy Cross, which means the Crimson will field their third-string quarterback, Jeff Witt.

Meanwhile, one of two players who were suspended for the Holy Cross game is scheduled to return. James Velissaris, a defensive back from Chicago, and Dan Lane, a tight end from Coral Springs, Fla., were suspended for a drinking-related altercation with a shuttle bus driver outside Currier House. The driver was immediately fired by the university, while the players received the football suspension but no administrative discipline from the school, according to Chuck Sullivan, communications director for Harvard athletics.

Velissaris will return to the field today. Lane has left the team of his own volition.