Cross Country

Though Harvard track teams have had regular and sometimes discouraging ups and downs, cross country has rarely had a season not brilliantly successful. In the history of Harvard-Yale cross country competition the Crimson forces have met defeat only three times, in 1924, 1933, and 1936. The ten year interval between 1924 and 1933 was not to be immediately repeated, and whether last year's low ebb was but bed rock for another long series of victories over the Blues is highly doubtful. For this fall Coach Jaakko Mikkola is faced with the dull prospect of preparing a now starless team for the combined Harvard-Yale-Princeton run November 5 at Cambridge.

As usual Jaakko's troubles can be laid partly to last June's graduation, for it took the two point-winners of the last contest. The 1936 November run over the hilly course at New Haven was won by Yale's Captain Wilbur T. Woodland. In third place came Hayden Channing '37, and Henry Marcy '37. With these two men gone, there remain a handful of hopefuls, but no winning performers. Captain for this year is John W. Erhard of Boston. Erhard ran very well against Yale last year, and showed deserved improvement by his third place in the mile race last spring at New Haven as a member of the track team. It is hoped that he will fill one of the vacancies left by former captain Channing, and Henry Marcy.

Ranking with Captain Erhard among the hopeful harriers is two miler Bill Wright. Jaakko has hopes for Wright as a successful cross country man. On the track last year he showed steady improvement. Though earlier in the season he steadily trailed Henry Marcy in the long run he gradually drew up to Marcy and finally claimed the lead. Roswell Brayton is a man who may come into the light this year. Whereas Erhard and Wright are coming into their last year of college and intercollegiate competition, Brayton has the advantage of being only a Junior this year, and if he needs another year to bring him to his peak, he can afford it.

Alex Northrop's health is a constant heckler to Jaakko, for during the last year there has always been something to jeopardize his possibilities. In the winter it was bronchitis which left him in poor condition for the mile on a board track, and in the spring just as he was getting in good shape, he came down with a case of the measles. Nevertheless in the spring Yale meet he won the half-mile in the excellent time of 1:55.4. And what may prove to be the climax of his dogged career was his mile performance in the Oxford-Cambridge Meet, that hot July day when he crossed the finish line after the bespectacled Brown in 4:18.

Handicap Meet Friday

No fair estimate of the Varsity cross country team can be made until the group has been put under the test, and the test comes Friday for those that are prepared. Jaakko every fall at the outset of the cross country season holds a University Cross Country Handicap Meet over the course which starts at the College side of Anderson Bridge, runs along the river to the Watertown bridge and follows up the other side of the river to the Field House.

Jaakko emphasizes the shortness of the cross country season. Lasting but a month the competition begins this Friday with the Handicap Meet, and ends November 5 when the last runner (A Blue) crosses the finish line in the Harvard. Yale-Princeton triangle meet. The Schedule for the harriers is as follows:

October 8 University Handicap Meet

October 15 Holy Cross

October 22 Dartmouth and New Hampshire

October 23 Second Freshmen against Andover (away)

October 29 Open Intercollegiate

November 5 Yale and Princeton

Some Promising Freshmen

Less can be said about a Freshman team even than the Varsity. Most preparatory schools do not have cross country, and jaakko must take the milers and half milers that appear and try to adjust them to the longer distance. The Freshman prospects Jaakko declares are pretty good, but there is a lack of experienced distance men that have the stamina to run the cross country distance. Brightest prospect perhaps is C. H. Oldfather, a miler from Hotchkiss. Jaakko also states that Robert Russell, a former Exeter half-miler, has the build for a longer distance man, and something is expected of him in cross country this fall. R. B. Nichols may develop into a good man for Harvard also, he having been captain of cross country at St. Paul's. Another experienced cross country man that reported is C. D. Bertram.