The varsity cross country team can put the finishing touches on one of the great seasons in Crimson history by winning, the Big Three championship for the first time since 1957 this afternoon at 2:30 p.m. on the Franklin Park course. For a change, the varsity's top opposition for the Main Trophy, emblematic of Big Three supremacy, will be Princeton, not Yale.

But the Elis still have the leading contender for the individual championship--Bobby Mack, the Mechanical Man, a long-time rival of Crimson captain Mark Mullin.

Mack may be favored, but this does not rule out the possibility of a five-man jam at the finish line. Besides Mack, the list of first-place candidates includes Ted Johnson and Mike Kingston (the 1959 champion) of Princeton and Harvard's own big three--Mullin, Eddie Meehan, and Ed Hamlin.

The Crimson's determined charge to a 7-0 record this season has engendered individual heroics all along the way. The team could not win without the services of the entire big three, and Mullin, Meehan, and Hamlin often stayed in the running when most men would have given up.

Mullin competed despite an infected toe and a sore leg in the Penn-Columbia and Dartmouth meets, holding on for ninth and fourth place finishes. Hamlin came back from a severe stitch to save the varsity's win over Cornell with a seventh-place effort, and rallied from another attack of cramps to take third against Dartmouth.

In the UMass meet, Meehan was sidelined for 30 seconds by the dry heaves, but still came in fourth. He was counted completely out of the Brown meet because of a cold which is still hanging on, but he showed up as the team bus was leaving for Providence, and eventually took fourth in a 25-30 Crimson triumph.

If Mack wins the race, and Princeton does a good job of splitting up the Crimson's so far indomitable big three, the Tigers could take the title. Pete Hoey, Byron Rose, and Bob Wilson will back up Johnson and Kingston.

Bob Knapp, Don Kirkland, and Greg Baldwin--steady performers all season--should also finish near the top for the Crimson today.

In the freshman meet, the Yardlings, led by captain John Ogden, are a solid favorite.