The following article on the University track team was written especially for, the Crimson by George C. Carens, Sports Editor of the Boston Evening Transcript.
Captain Jimmy Reid of Harvard's track team, speaking at the Varsity Club dinner Wednesday night, lauded the coaching of Eddie Farrell, giving it as his opinion that the reasons for Farrell's success traced, first, to his knowledge of the technique of the events he teaches, and, second, to his ability to inspire the students who come under his wing.
Team's Morale High
This intangible quality of inspiration has a great deal to do with winning athletic contests. Some coaches feel it is best for a team's morale to wear a long face before important contests, particularly in the presence of newspapermen. If someone speaks of a Gildobian atmosphere, it doesn't require any diagram for a normal college student to know that that is a short way of saying "the gloom is thick enough to cut with a knife." And yet, on the opposite end of the scale, it would be doing Farrell an injustice to declare that his optimism is of the Pollyana sort. Mingle with the athletes and you will understand what I mean.
Farrell's Teams Fight Hard
Farrell's Harvard teams have beaten Yale only once in the five years he has been head coach. That was last year when Harvard waded through the Stadium mud to beat the Elis 78 to 57. But one of his other teams lost to Yale by one-third of a point and Harvard, although frequently outmanned, never has been smothered by Yale during the Farrell regime.
Yale has a fine track team--well balanced, well coached, alert, competent. In toppling Princeton 86-49, Yale won the 100 yards in 10s, the 220 in 21 7-10s, the quarter in 49s, the two miles in 9.54 7-10, the low hurdles in 23 3-5s, the shot at 44.5 1-2, the hammer at 165.2 1-2, (breaking a record of 25 years' standing), the discus at 135.7 1-4 and the pole vault at 13.4. Furthermore, two other Yale vaulters cleared 12.5, and its best high hurdler was a scant three yards behind Ben Hedges, the great Princeton captain, in 15s. Therefore it requires no expert to appreciate the magnitude of the task confronting the Harvard athletes at New Haven tomorrow.
Harvard a Lively Underdog
Nevertheless, Harvard is a pretty live under-dog. It isn't barking very loud, but there wouldn't be great surprise if Harvard squeaked through with a fraction more than the necessary 67 1-2 points.
A contemporary writer has been going around to find if the rah-rah stuff is fading out of college sports. He finds that it is. Well, perhaps the enthusiasm in the stands "ain't what it used to be," but that does not mean that a supreme effort on the part of Captain Reid's team would not be appreciated in a quiet manner by the present-day undergraduates. On paper the die is cast against Harvard; on the cinders, in the shot, discuss and hammer circles and in the jumping and vaulting pits the story may be something else again. Everlasting enthusiasm and spirit has been crowned by success in the past.
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