The cycle repeated itself again last month when Penn whipped Harvard on the Charles in the Adams Cup regatta, only to lose at Worcester the following weekend. And since the Crimson has decided neither to race at the I.R.A. nor follow Penn to Henley in July, the issue will still be open.

But it is not Harvard's refusal to accommodate those who would crown a titlist as much as it is the Crimson's attitude towards the sport that baffles its critics. The reason that the Harvard oarsmen gave this year for racing Yale is the same one their predecessors gave in 1965, when the Crimson was allowed to have its will without much protest. It is the aura of tradition which surrounds the race, as well as the intriguing idea of a four-mile test of strength, that makes the Yale race so much more attractive to Harvard, and despite the fact that the Crimson has won the last seven races by a combined margin of 521/2 lengths, both sides feel that the margin is somewhat secondary to the spirit of the race.

"We have a clear-cut set of goals," Evans explains, "and winning championships doesn't place extremely high on the list. We want to do our best, of course, and that usually means winning at the Sprints as well as at the other regattas. But regardless of how well we do at Worcester, we don't feel as though we have to prove our superiority anywhere else to anybody. As long as we satisfy ourselves, the season has been a success."

Evan's approach, which is shared by the vast majority of Harvard oarsmen, goes a long way in explaining why the Crimson decided not to go to Henley this summer for a match race with Penn, and why it refused to race Western Sprint champion UCLA thisonth, even though the Bruins were willing to come to Cambridge for the race after passing up the I.R.A.

The UCLA offer, although tempting to the Crimson, would have necessitated a disruption in Harvard's special training program for the four-mile race, and coach Harry Parker felt that such a disruption would probably prevent the Crimson from doing its best in either race.

Parker, in a very real sense, has formed the Harvard rowing philosophy, Unlike Nash, who took over head coaching duties from Burk this year at Penn, Parker shuns the gungho, Storm Trooper approach that has been a trademark of the Quaker program since Nash's arrival. He is the master tactician, never panicking, highly analytic-and thus inspires the highest confidence in his oarsmen, win a race, there's no question about it," says senior Charlie Hamlin. "His stress on style and conditioning as well as the calm, rational attitude he takes has convinced us that if we row our best race we'll be sure, or almost sure, to win."

More importantly, Parker places a higher value upon rowing one's best rather than winning. In fact, when his seven-man hurt his hand so severely before the Stein Cup race last April that he was a questionable starter, Parker allegedly told his crew that he would seriously consider forfeiting the regatta, one the Crimson was sure to win easily, if the oarsmen could not compete. He was that concerned about the shell staying together as a unit.

He was equally concerned about his varsity's participation at Worcester last month, when there was a question about the propriety of rowing during the student strike over Cambodia.

"Harry made it clear that the decision to compete at the Sprints was entirely up to us," Hamlin recalls. "If we had chosen to stay away, he would have backed us, just as he did at the Olympics when the crew became involved in the black protest."

It is to a large degree the result of the Crimson's confidence in Parker' morcover, that Harvard has managed to turn the trick on Penn at the Sprints with such authority in each of the last two years. In each instance, Penn's margin of victory in the Adams Cup a week earlier had seemed to make the Quakers insuperable at Worcester. But after each defeat Parker noticed something that he and his oarsmen corrected during practice sessions, and at Worcester, it was Harvard that was insuperable.

Both of Penn's Adams Cup victories were achieved with the help of an explosive start that got the Quakers out front early, and kept them there. If Harvard could only burst off the start equally fast, Parker thought the Crimson's traditional ability to move on a boat while understroking it could win it the race. And in each case, that is exactly what happened.

Unused to rowing in a bow-to-bow race, Penn desperately tried to break Harvard by means of an unusually high stroke count. It had worked at Philadelphia and it had worked at Cambridge. And in each case the Quakers had been ahead safely enough so that if the rapid fluctuation in cadence backfired, it had a comfortable lead to fall back upon.

But at Worcester' Penn never had that lead either year. Last month, with Harvard rowing at a 36 through the body of the race, Penn jumped as high as 48 in an attempt to close the margin, and never succeeded. Harvard won, without question, by the 1500-meter mark in each case.

"It came down to the fact that we knew that no crew can row a 48 down the course that early in the season without paying for it later in the race," Evan feels. When Penn was ahead, it wouldn't hurt them to jump the stroke. When it was bow-to-bow, it was fatal."

Hans Eckstein, the coach of the Einheit Dresden eight which whipped Penn in the Henley finals last summer, had a similar analysis.

"The Pennsylvania crew was in very fine condition" he said, "but their technique was all wrong."

It is for that reason, primarily, that several Harvard oarsmen believe that what is true at the Sprints would be true at the I.R.A., or at Henley, or anywhere Harvard met Penn after their first race. When both crews row their best, Harvard seems to win. That is what the Crimson proves to itself at Worcester. And that is why Harvard is rowing at New London, rather than at Syracuse, this weekend.