Just two weeks from today the Crimson oarsmen left the Nowell Boat House tank for their first taste of the Charles River this year. A year ago Harvard rowed for the first time on February 20, continuing this river work for almost two weeks. The crews were forced inside early in March, but were on the river for good on March 17.

Down at New Haven Head Coach Ed Leader sent his Blue oarsmen to the harbor from the tanks in the Payne Whitney gymnasium about two weeks before the Crimson moved out to the Charles. He has an exceptionally large, promising group, including such veterans as Charley Adsit, Frank Geer, Howard Johnson, and Paul Wick. For several weeks he had available for tank rowing 22 eights.

M.I.T Looks Good

At M.I.T Coach Valentine also greeted an exceptionally large group which got out onto the Charles before the Crimson. With over 65 men reporting for the Varsity and 150-pound crews, there are enough to man two or three more shells than were in the water last season. Coach Valentine has special hopes for the Freshman crew this year because he reports that he has two good Freshman crews--every man over 180 pounds in weight and more than six feet tall.

Princeton oarsmen began their out-door work on Lake Carnegie as early as February 15. Coach Fred Sphun, entering up on his first season as Gordon Sikes's successor, sent the Tiger oarsmen off to the their earliest outdoor practice in the twenty-seven year-history of intercollegiate rowing at Princeton. Seventy-two men under the leadership of Captain Phil Le Boutillier took to the water with the temperature hovering below the freezing mark.

Bolles, Haines, Love Are Awake

But Crimson Coaches Tom Boles, Bert Haines, and Harvey Love are not asleep on the job. They have the material down at the Newell Boat House this year and the coaches are making the most of it.

For several months the Crimson oarsmen practiced faithfully in the tank. With two weeks' rowing on the Charles now behind them they are now definitely shaping up into championship material.

Crimson Crew Is Promising

Harvard, which last year was undefeated at the sprint distances except for Navy, losing then by a third of a length, and which defeated Yale on the Thames River at New London in a record-breaking upstream race, has great prospects again this year.

The Varsity crew will open its season when it meets M.I.T. and Rutgers on the Charles River on April 30. Later follow races with Princeton, M.I.T. and Syracuse at Princeton on May 7; Cornell, Syrause and M.I.T on May 14; Navy and Penn at Annapolis on May 21; Columbia at New York on May 28; and Yale at New London on June 24.