RUGBY

Playing a game that is, if anything, tougher than football over 60 men are now working out each trying their best to gain a position on the squad of 20 that will travel to sunny Bermuda during the Spring Vacation to open the season's official schedule. Started in 1929, the popularity of the sport has grown rapidly, until last season the team was undefeated. This year it is hoped that three teams will be kept out all the time.

Of their ten opponents this season only a few will be from other colleges because of the fact that besides Harvard, only Yale and Princeton have teams here in the cast. Pennsylvania used to have a team; and Gar Davidson started one for his football players at West Point. But these have gone and only the Big Three remain.

You Run and Run

Anyone watching rugby who is unaquainted with its rules and regulations is completely mystified. It is sort of a combination between soccer and football, with all the ruggedest and most tiring features of the two games incorporated. There are 15 to a team, but there are no substitutions and no delays. You run and run right through each forty minute half if you play. Anyone, whether a forward or a back, can carry the ball. There is tackling--but no interference; regular play--but no signals.

Organized unlike any other sport in the College, rugby receives no official support whatsoever except permission to use the name of Harvard and a little laundering service. So, as it is a club, Freshmen and graduate students are eligible for the teams and a sprinkling of each is usually found on the team each season. This year 16 of the 62 out on the squad are Yardlings.

Among Those on the Squad

Among those on the team one will find an odd sprinkling of persons well known in other activities and those whose sole sport is Rugby. There have always been some football players; last year Shaun Kelly, captain of the eleven, made the first fifteen, and this year Pete Knapp, the Jayvee football captain, is among the most promising of the candidates.

Harrier Hayden Channing each year forsakes track in the spring and goes in for Rugby; this season he is the captain of the team, while Alan Simpson holds out as the President of the Club. With the rather vague title of Secretary-Treasurer, Ned Whitney is what any other sport would call a playing manager.

Johnny Harkness, the 175 pound wrestling veteran; Austie Scott of the Varsity soccer team; and skiier George Clowes are among the veterans who will probably be among those taking the Spring Vacation trip to Bermuda. Meanwhile, there will be several practice games, though the one that was scheduled for this Saturday will probably have to be postponed due to the wet field.