Squash Team Trips Tigers

The squash team got over the first of its two big hurdles in intercollegiate play by turning back the seven-man Princeton squad 4 to 3 at Princeton Saturday. The other important opponent is Yale, and the rest of the Harvard intercollegiate schedule merely consists of dress rehearsals for that epic duel. For example, Dartmouth had a fine squash team this year, and in the words of its coach, Red Hoehn, "had a good chance to beat Harvard at last." The result was an 8 to 1 pasting absorbed by the Green in their own back yard. Williams was gobbled up 9 to 0 in Cambridge, and so it goes the rest of the way along the line. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are the kingpins of intercollegiate squash, and the end of their reign is not yet in sight.

The Harvard squash team lost heavily by graduation last June, but it only made Coach Jack Barnaby start his rebuilding task a bit earlier in the fall than usual. Gone were such stars as Kim Canavarro, Jim Rousmaniere, Johnny Palfrey, and Bill Wood, but on the plus side of the ledger was a bumper crop of Sophomores and the customary rigorous non-intercollegiate competition. Matches in the Boston A, B, and C leagues are the training grounds for good intercollegiate play and make phenomenal individual improvements possible. Without this abundance of high-class competition, Coach Barnaby would have a much more difficult time in taking a green man in hand and making him a Varsity standout in a couple of years.

Captain Don Marvin

It was no ordinary rebuilding task which confronted the Crimson squash squad this year. Captain Don Marvin was the only man who had played in the nine-man Yale match the year before, and unfortunately Don was unable to tackle his squash as soon as the rest of the squad. He made a series of speeches in the recent presidential campaign and could not find time to work his way up into the first five until the Williams match. Marvin's rise up the ladder was not an easy one because there was a collection of prize Sophomores and much improved upperclassmen barring the way. Gene Nickerson and Sonny Lyell, a pair of Seniors, had come from nowhere to vie with Galen Felt for number one ranking. Nickerson's rise was of the story book variety. Infantile paralysis cost him the use of his right arm so he took up squash left-handed. Last season he was number ten; last week he was number one in the Princeton match, giving famed Charley Brinton all sorts of trouble with his delicate soft game. Lyell, the tennis captain, is one of the many who were comparative beginners in the game of squash as Freshmen. His victory over Tiger Johnny Humes was probably the turning point in the Princeton match. Fast-improving Sophomore Galen Felt and Harold "Stretch" Baker round out the first five, Felt has come a long way since his Middlesex days, and Baker is probably the best natural star on the squad.

Strong Bottom Men

Those five can hold their own with almost any sort of opposition, and the Barnabymen are usually able to sweep the last few matches. This team is almost as strong in the last three positions as it is in the first three. Sophomore Decker Orr is one of the hardest-hitting players Harvard has had in years and literally whales a rival into submission. Another great second-year man, Sandy Parker, comes next on the list. He is tireless, has a sound game, and only lacks a complete supply of finesse shots before becoming a topnotcher. Dave DeKruif, a Senior, Doug Cochrane, a Junior, and Dudley Palmer, a Sophomore, are all in the thick of the fight for the last couple of jobs, not to mention Junior Orme Wilson and Sophomore Bill Frothingham.