Charles F. Grover '50 is waiting for a letter. Slightly over a week ago, Charlie Grover read in the Boston newspapers that the Professional Swimmers Association had selected him for its highest award: the title of Professional Swimmers of 1949 plus $500.

Charlie Grover has still to hear from the Professional Swimmers Association.

Grover is a 32-year-old Navy veteran from Boston, a resident of Lowell House, and a militant booster of Crimson swimming coaches Hal Ulen and Bill Brooks. It is his considered opinion that Ted Norris, who was graduated in June, is the greatest distance swimmer in America.

Charlie should know. He won the professional long distance endurance championship of America at Lake George in 1948, setting a new record of 31 miles in 23 and a half hours, and successfully defended his crown last summer.

He won the Boston Harbor Swim in 1936, '37, and '38, and again in 1946, '47, '48, and '49, setting a new course record in 48. This annual five-mile grind from L. Street in South Boston to Squantum and back provides the winner with a small purse and a large trophy in the name of the mayor of Boston. Grover has had little trouble getting the prize money for his seven victories, but last year was the first time the trophy came through.

Turned Pro in '47

This state of affairs has not embittered him. "Professional swimmers are a bunch of fools," he says; and as far as his professional swimmin gis concerned, he does not expect to be treated like anything but a fool. Four years of steady competition has given him a philosophy: "The biggest thrill in pro swimming is when you get the prize money right in your hand."

Despite his amazing record, Grover has averaged only slightly over $2000 a year since he became a full-scale professional in 1947. Last summer, for instance, he placed in four major races: third in the 20 mile world championship at Lake Ontario in July, first in the Boston Harbor Swim in August, third in the two mile race at Lake Ontario later in that month, and first in the endurance test at Lake George in September.

Charlie was graduated in 1936 from Boston English High School, where he had swum in his junior and senior years, and proceeded to "bum around," as he puts it, until he enlisted in the Navy in 1938. He served in the Pacific, mostly on the battleship West Virginia, and won the Pacific Fleet 220 and 440-yard free "Only five people have ever made good money out of swimming," he declares. style titles in '38, '39, and '40.

Discharged in '46, Grover entered Harteam, specializing in the 440. In '47 he set vard and became captain of the freshman a 23-minute record for the New England Athletic Union mile, held at City Point, South Boston.

That summer the Scituate Yacht Club hired Grover as swimming instructor and "deckhand." In the course of turning out the clubhouse lights one night, Charlie ignored a peremptory request by a solitary individual he had never seen before that the lights be left on. The individual turned out to be an ex-commodore and person of some standing in the club.

4 Way With Children

When the club brought Grover up for court martial, the children to whom he had been giving lessons picketed the club-house, weeping voluminously and crying, "We want Charlie. We want Charlie." "The officers gave me 15 minutes to clear off the premises," says Grover, "or else they would arrest me for inciting the little so-and-so's to riot." He finished the summer swimming in all the pro races he could find.

Grover gets his winter practice in the Indoor Athletic Building, where he swims a mile a day. In the spring, he moves to City Point for two or three hours a day. "The big secret to cold water swimming," he says, "is to ease in. If you jump right in and start fast, your heart takes a tremendous beating, your breathing goes bad quickly, and you get cramps."

Long distance swimming, Charlie says, is all in the mind. "If you convince yourself you can win and then keep concentrating on winning, you can't be beaten," he believes.

When he gets out of College this June, Grover plans to apply for admission to the Business School. He sees no future for himself in professional swimming.

But before he quits, he hopes to take a crack at the English Channel--this summer, if he gets the backing. "If you hit the tides right (a glint appears in his eyes) you can make it over and back!"