The trouble with many good Ivy athletic teams is that they are like the proverbial big fish in a small pond. Once they are taken out of their comfortable ivied environs, they usually become small fish in a very big lake.

One notable exception is the Harvard swimming team that hopes to establish itself as the king fish on the East coast in the Eastern Seaboard Intercollegiate Championships which are being held today through Saturday in Princeton, N.J.

The Crimson swimmers are rated among the favorites to take the meet but they will have to overcome some stiff opposition, especially from Ivy League runner-up Princeton, which holds a strong home-pool advantage.

North Carolina State, the perennial Atlantic Coast Conference power squadron, decided Monday to skip the contest in order to concentrate on the NCAA championships to be held in two weeks.

"I think it is going to be a dogfight for first between Princeton, NC State and us," Harvard coach Ray Essick said on Sunday. "In meets like this you just can't count on dual meet records," he said, referring to Harvard's 82-31 shellacking of the Tigers last month.

In last year's ESIC championships, Princeton took the crown with the Wolfpack edging out Harvard on the last day of competition for second. Coach Essick is worried that Princeton just might have enough incentive to pull off the same feat after its burial in Cambridge in February.

"We gave Princeton a cause," Essick said, "and we'll have to watch out for them, and their home advantage."

"We intend to go down there with a major preparation all the way," Essick said. "I wish we could take more men than the limit of 18."

The meet is structured to allow maximum participation by each swimmer. The 18 events are spread over the meet's three days. Each swimmer may participate in three individual races, as well as all three of the meet's relays.

Tomorrow's competition will feature the 500-yd. freestyle, the 200-yd. individual medley, the 50-yd. freestyle, the 400-yd. medley relay, and the 1-meter diving.

Crimson freshman Peter Tetlow and Princeton's freshman ace Joe Loughran are co-favorites in the 500-yd freestyle. Loughran has recorded a faster time than Tetlow this season, but the undefeated Tetlow bested his Tiger opponent in their head-to-head match in early February. Junior Rich Baughman and senior co-captain Fred Mitchell are also slated to swim in the long distance event for the Crimson.

Sophomore Hess Yntema and junior Dave Brumwell both rate at the top of the 200-yd. individual medley field. Yntema owns the best time in the East so far this season, with Brumwell close behind.

The 50-yd. freestyle should be a real barnburner, as the Crimson's Tim Neville and George Keim will be vying with Cornell speedster Chip Harrison and darkhorse Steve Winings of Bucknell.

In the medley relay, Harvard figures to go with sophomore Tom Wolf in the backstroke, freshman Ted Fullerton in the breaststroke, Yntema in the butterfly, and either Neville, Keim, or freshman Wes Raffel as the freestyle anchor man.

Sophomore Dave English will try to continue his string of strong performances in the 1-meter dive, while freshman Roger Johannigman will be attempting to rebound from a two-week layoff.