Harvard's most recent rags to riches saga would cause even Horatio Alger to pull a three-point turn from six-feet under. Despite inadequate funding from a varsity-sport-obsessed Athletic Department, weather-beaten practice facilities and a severe shortage of even primitive equipment, the table tennis team is ranked numero uno in the East after its recent win at the Northeast Intercollegiate Table Tennis League championships.

Since this is the nation's only organized league, Harvard has itself an uncrowned national championship team. You would never anticipate the team's success, however, after seeing where they put the ping in their pong.

The pongmen pound their hollow white shells on homemade plywood tables in the basement of Richards Hall, a graduate dormitory where the dust is so thick that "any visitor with asthma would choke," team captain Nick Christakos said recently.

Blankets are strung across one end of the room to keep precious Nitaku balls from being lost under piles of junk and eaten by God-knows-what. The lighting is so poor that Harvard's team could only gain a competitive advantage if a tournament was held in the dark.

The quality of this year's team has been enough to make up for the adverse conditions. The undefeated team, undoubtedly the finest Harvard has ever gathered around the green-top, was led by returning stars Frank Chiang, Herbert Hui and Terry Maskin.

"Frank is one of the best players in the league," Christakos said of his number one player. "His importance to the team is hard to describe. His experience, dedication and natural ability provide a valuable anchor for us. We're really going to miss him next year."

Despite the loss of Chiang, next year's team promises to do well in the league. New to the team this year, and playing a vital role in the recent victory, are freshman David Margolin and first year Medical student Dominic Ho.

Team members rank Ho as one of the most consistent players in college pong; his unpredictable spins have left many good players with more butterflies in their stomachs than Princeton has on their equipment labels.

Wong and Margolin employ complete and diverse styles of play, including spins, drives, chops and tricky serves.

"There is just no question about it, we have the talent and the depth to maintain a winning tradition at Harvard," a confident Christakos added. The biggest challenge to Harvard's only national championship sports team comes not from pong strongholds like Rutgers and the University of Miami, but from Harvard's own Athletic Department. The team badly needs tables and a place to play--and if team members can't find tables, what about the rest of us?

The table tennis team can draw some consolation from the fact that it is not alone in its need for University assistance. Last year, the Athletic Department set aside little or no money in its budget for club sports. This year, the department earmarked $2000 to be divided among all the clubs by a newly formed club sports council. The council comprises representatives from each recognized club sport. If the needs of the table tennis club are any indication, however, this sum will fall short for all the clubs.

A number of the other schools in the league don't face Harvard's financial difficulties. Rutgers, always a strong contender for the league title, provides its team with 12 top-quality tournament tables and over $1000 a year to cover traveling expenses and new equipment. Cornell, last season's champ, has ten tables and the same funding.

"If we had the kind of facilities and resources that so many other schools provide for their clubs, we could not only build a much stronger team, but we could also organize an intramural program in table tennis to match MIT's," Christakos added.

Until the team receives more financial assistance from the University, the pongmen will have to consider alternative means of raising money and publicizing the team. Christakos has one idea: "I'd like to take my team on a tour of China. We probably wouldn't even beat the busboys in the hotel, but at least over there we'd be taken seriously."

He dumped two in the drink and pronto dook a triple bogey eight.

Fitzgibbons played the type of golf Walter Hagen once termed "unconscious." He started his round on the second nine and promptly birdied the par five 14th. He overshot the green on his second shot, a two-iron he caught flush, but chipped back and canned the putt. Like Dales, he also found a watery grave on the 16th but escaped with a bogey.

His only costly mistake came on the 18th, which, in this case, was the ninth hole of his round. Fitzgibbons plunked his five-iron into the woods and for lack of a steam shovel was forced to declare an unplayable lie and take a double bogey.

Fitzgibbons resumed his torrid pace coming in. On the second he missed a five-foot birdie putt. On number four he floated an eight-iron within a yard of the flagstick for a cast iron birdie. His third birdie of the day came on the seventh where he hit a wedge that touched down like a butterfly with sore legs six inches from the pin.

Yesterday's match was a preliminary for this Saturday's 36-hole Ivy League golf championships to be held over the Yale Golf Course in New Haven. Last year Princeton came away with the team title but coach Bob Donovan believes that after contending with Wollaston his squad will be in the proper frame of mind to tackle Yale's majestic 18. The individual title figures to boil down to a shootout between the Ivy "Big Three" of Vik, Yale's Peter Teravainen, and Princeton's Bruce Samaklis.