Seldom downed, and never under-rated is Australian swim star Dave Hawkins. During the past season he broke Yardling records in almost every race he swam.

The 19-year-old freshman team captain was beaten only once-in the 150-yard individual medley event of the last meet of the season, he lost, to a Yale man, by a scant two feet. He swam undefeated in all other events.

Hawkins established new standards in both the 440-yard and 100 yard breaststroke, his favorites. His 1:01 time in the 100 set both a Harvard, and a national freshman record. He posted two backstroke records for the Yardling, and helped set three relay marks as well.

Record breaking is nothing new for the sandy-haired native of Manly, Australia. Hawkins is the youngest swimmer to win a breaststroke event in the British Empire Games; he placed a creditable tenth in the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1952 Olympics, breaking the 1948 record with a time of 2:39.8. In between these victories, he managed to break every Australian breaststroke mark.

Hawkins is quietly modest about his successes. He credits his ability to an early starts plus "a bit of work." His father, a New South Wales swim champion, started training him at five. At 11, he won his first contest, a grade school free style race.

At North Sydney High, Hawkins kept the record book reviser busy. In his fourth and fifth years (Australian high schools work on a unique five-year system). Hawkins swam in up to five events per meet, and won nine inter school championship meets practically by himself.

Swimming didn't occupy all his time however, for he participated in numerous other sports, debated, and served as "prefect," roughly equivalent to student body president.

Victories in the New South Wales state championships followed; then in 1950, he won the 220-yard breaststroke in the Empire Games.

New standards in all six Australian breaststroke events came shortly after. Finally, last January, he qualified for the Olympics.

Hawkins smiled back to the United States, and Harvard, after the Games. Why Harvard rather than another strong swimming school like Yale of Ohio State?

"Well," he explains, "you don't have the professional attitude toward sport."