Bill McCurdy has the coach's habit of crying "Wolf!" before the big ones. So last winter, when he said his unbeaten runners would be fighting for their skins against Navy in the Heptagonals, everyone figured it was so much baloney. It wasn't. The Crimson just squeezed by the Middies, 43 1/2 to 42.

The 1965 Heps will be run in Ithaca today, and once again Harvard looks like a winner. But once again McCurdy says watch out for Navy; it could go either way. So what do you do? Pick the Crimson to win, of course, but credit the Middies with enough strength to make it just as close as it was last year.

Navy is unquestionably more than McCurdy's straw man. Of the thirteen events on the Heptagonal program, the Middies have bettered Harvard's top performances this winter in seven and equaled the Crimson's best in an eighth. And Harvard is a team that prides itself on balance.

Navy pole vaulter Mike Brown, who has cleared 16 feet, is the meet's closest thing to a sure winner. Teammate Courtland Gray, who beat Elias Gilbert, Ralph Boston, and Aggrey Awori to win the BAA high hurdles, ranks a close second among the solid favorites.

Navy Strong All Over

And the Middies have strong contenders for first place in six other events. In the 600, Jay Prout has registered a 1:11.7 clocking, equaled only by Army captain Hal Jenkins. Cadet Rance Farrell and Princeton junior Terry O'Keeffe are a fraction of a second slower.

The 1000 looks even fatter for the Middies. Bill Wright has a 2:12.5 effort to his credit, more than a second faster than the winning Heptagonal time last year posted by 1964 Harvard captain Ed Meehan. If Wright can equal that time today, he's a winner.

Wright and three buddies have combined for a 7:48.3 two-mile relay this season, and that tops by 0:00.3 the Heptagonal record set by a Harvard quartet last year. The Crimson, with a 7:52.5 time, Army, and possibly Brown will challenge Wright and Co. for first place in this one.

Other wins for the Middies could conceivably come in the broad jump, the dash, and the mile relay. In the broad jump Bill Bliss has registered a 22 ft., 10 in. effort. Awori has bettered that jump, but not since the season-opening meet with Army.

Gray has run a 0:06.3 60-yard dash, as fast as the best by Harvard's Awori and Wayne Anderson, and about everyone else in the league this year. But the exhausting series of trials, semi-finals, and finals in both the hurdles and the dash just about precludes the possibility of Gray--or anyone else--winning both.

Needless to say, if all these possibilities pay off for Navy, it's the ball game. But if three or four of them don't--and this is likely--the Middies are through. The reason is evident in the results of last week's Army-Navy contest. Navy took the lion's share of the first places, but Army swept the lower positions and the meet, 60-49.

Harvard Has Depth

Without depth, the Middies have to count on victories from their front-line performers. The Harvard stars can stagger a little and the team will still stand up.

And Harvard will have its first places, too. Barring an unlikely upset by Yale's Kim Hill, Chris Pardee will win the high jump, as he has in every one of the Crimson's college meets this season.

Aggrey Awori, perhaps inspired by the memory of his fantastic triple win in Ithaca two years ago, will probably take the broad jump, the dash, or the hurdles, and maybe two of these.

Hewlett is Ready

And then there's Walt Hewlett. A sore foot and a bad cold kept Walt out of almost half the Crimson's winter competition, but apparently he's ready to go today. Last year, as the solid favorite, he ran with a slight cold and plodded around the Cornell gymnasium like a man on a treadmill. Almost lapped by a runner he had beaten easily the week before, he looked miserable.

"Walt will break his Heptagonal jinx," McCurdy said confidently yesterday. If he does, Navy may have trouble even keeping close.