Harvard's swimming team, as even the most indifferent skimmer of the sports pages may gather, is a pretty good one. The Crimson tankmen haven't dropped a meet in exactly 28 conteats over a period of almost three years, and on the evening in March 1937, when they started their string, they also shattered Yale's 13-year, 163-meet domination of Eastern aquatic competition.

This year, after two years of League championships and records, Coach Hal Uien and his boys may have to face the inevitable. Of the group of phenomenally fast swimmers captained by Charles G. Hutter '38, only one, Jim Curwen '40, remains. Most of the Old Guard have graduated and Willie Kendall has abandoned college leaving two intercollegiate records behind him. Uien, the sports-writers, and the fans are new forced to get accustomed to "normal" times. Only within the grasp of scholastically ineligible Curwen is the possibility of smashing a record in the Hutter story-book fashion.

The Good Old Days Were Better

Nowadays, the record-breakers are to be found in the. Yale and Princeton squads, and Harvard, instead of producing a team of supermen, has turned out merely a group of very good swimmers. Whether Coach Uien can make his fairly well-balanced aggregation prevail against an equally well-balanced Eil squad or a star-studded Tiger team can only be discovered after the actual meets are held. The Big Three presents a trio of almost perfectly equal teams and the competition therefor will result in a Italic battle for the League crown.

Before Princeton and Yale are to be worried about, however, the Crimson tankmen must consider the strong challenge Brown will make tomorrow evening to upset the Uien applecart. The Bruin swim team apparently has some of the glant-killing tendencles of its football men and will be correspondingly hard to beat. But Captain Rusty Greenhood's bunch is determined that the finish of tomorrow's meet will find Coach Ulen smlling. If a Harvard team has to have a 28-meet string broken, it's certain that either Yale or Princeton will be slightly more welcome as breakers than upstart Brown. A consoling thought for Coach Hal is that of all the teams he has tutored either at Harvard or Syracuse not one has ever lost to Brown.

Brown Ought to be Chummier

Old Brunonia, though, is so strong this year that it definitely ranks among the best Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League teams. Just why it has never joined the League is not clear, but this season the Bruins should rank after Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in Eastern swimming ratings. The order named above is this column's very much biased prediction of the 1939 tank struggles.

Columbia, Dartmouth, Navy, and Pennsylvania should finish the season in that order, according to what they've shown so far, although Navy has a team of sophomores which hasn't competed yet this year. Dartmouth may find a much higher spot in League rankings if Julian Armstrong, a sophomore who has turned in 23.5 in the 50 and 52.4 in the 100, can escape the Dartmouth equivalent of probation. Only one League meet has been held--Columbia's 46-29 win over Penn.

Penn First League Victim

Harvard's first League meet is with Pennsylvania on February 11. The Quakers ought to lose handily. Two non-league meets are scheduled before the 11th, one with Colgate on February 4 and the annual contest against the Boston "Y" on the 8th. No trouble is expected from either of those squads.

The now-famous Yale '42 vs. Exeter meet produced as brilliant a set of times as 1939 is likely to sec. A world record of 1:02.1 in the 100 breast, a national Freshman record for the 2:12.5, in the 220, a similar record for the 100 free-style with a 54.8 o'clocking, an Incredible 1:1.4 in the 100 backstroke, and a sizzling 1:22.5 for the 150 medley relay were the eye-opening results.

Incidentally, the Skinner from Exeter who broke the world's breastroke record plans to go to Michigan where he will renew acquaintances with Wolverine Coach Matt Mann.