There may be a Harvard water-polo season this year. There may be a season, that is, if somebody can scrape together enough cash to buy the team a ball to play with, or to buy bus tickets to a few away matches. Or maybe to hire a coach, or to rent a pool where the team can practice more than two or three times a week. Last year, Harvard's Athletic Department shelled out $250 to keep the waterballers afloat. This year, the squad has been told to sink or swim--without a penny from the University.

This afternoon in the I.A.B. pool, the highly-talented but underfunded aquamen will swim head-on into the watery fray in an exhibition rematch against league rival Yale.

Despite a multitude of hardships and the fact that water polo has yet to attain varsity status at Harvard, team co-captains Dan Daiss '76 and Warren Otto '76 are nonetheless predicting a successful season.

"We're a scrappy team," Daiss said yesterday. "It comes from having to fight just to get practice time in our own pool."

In their first four exhibition outings of the season, the underwater aces didn't seem to suffer too much from a lack of practice.

Although they emerged soaking wet after matches against Yale and Brown in the recent Brown Invitational Tournament, they came up for air long enough to soundly defeat UMass.

Momentum from that victory carried the aquamen to victories over MIT two weeks ago and arch-rival Exeter last week.

Hangs in There

This afternoon's starters will include six returning players as well as freshman goalie Stuart Miller, a former high school All-American who, co-captain Otto said, "really hangs in there."

Keeping the Yale waterballers out of Harvard's territorial waters and mounting the Crimson's offense will be returning starters Daiss and Otto, as well as Juniors Wes Raffle and Neil Oxnard, and sophomores Jim Jones, Jerry Feliciano, and Tom Tanaka.

The team will compete in the New England Regional Tourney on October 24, followed by the all-important Easterns on October 31.