Last Friday at 9:08 a.m. more than 25 worried members of the freshman track team began a four-hour bus ride to New Haven. In a little more than six hours they were to face a powerful team from Princeton and a relatively weak Yale squad in the highlight of the indoor track season.
Somebody on the Crimson's amateur scouting squad must have goofed, however. When the meet was finally over, the Yardlings had swept nine of 13 first places to trample the Tigers and the Bullpups 76-41-30.
Lanky captain Jim Smith led the team to victory with wins in the mile and two-mile runs, Smith churned the distances in times of 4:31.7 and 9:51.2 respectively.
Crimson ace Harvey Thomas was the meet's only other double-winner. He leaped 22 ft., 5 1/4 in, in the broad jump and took the 60-yard high hurdles in 0:07.9.
The flaws that developed in the team's armor were relatively minor. When the Crimson didn't take a first, it invariably took a second.
In only two events was the team clearly outclassed. Yale's Robert Greenlee took the shot put with a mammoth throw of 51 ft., 1 in., almost 3 1/2 ft., farther than the best toes of the Crimson's Tom Choquette, and in the pole vault Dave Bell fell nine inches short of the winning height of 12 ft., 8 in. The team's other losses came in the 1000-yard run and the one-mile relay.
Aside from these minor tragedies, Friday's meet must have seemed more like a dress rehearsal than the climax to an active indoor season. From the opening scene there was never any doubt which team would win. The only important question was the margin.
John Micketts took the 35-1b. weight with a throw of 40 ft., 11 in., and George Patterson won the 600-yard run in a time of 1:13.8. The other victories seemed to come as easily: John Newman cleared 6 ft. to win the high jump, and in the 60-yard dash Wayno Anderson zipped home in 0:06.5 to win that event. The two-mile relay team, undefeated this season, won with a time of 3:17.7.
In the week's other major contest, the Crimson did not fare as well. The swimming team narrowly lost to Princeton, 50-45.
The losing effort, however, probably rates as the team's best to date. Of the 11 events, the Yardlings took first in six, and in the process set two national and three Harvard freshman records.
Clearly, the meet's highlights were the performances by Jim Seubold and Australian Neville Hayes: Hayes snapped the national freshman mark in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:00.5, and Seubold took 1.2 seconds off Roy Saari's old national record of 1:51.0 in the 200-yard freestyle.
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A Challenge
