"You are hereby absolved of the sale of 5000 hats at the cost two dollars apiece"--thus began the humorous letter to the Harvard women's field hockey team that arrived before Thanksgiving vacation. The letter was not, however, something to be laughed at, for it contained a check for $10,000 from an anonymous donor that was earmarked to cover the cost of the squad's proposed trip to Ireland next fall. With the check--which takes care of 2/3 of the trip's expenses--hockey coach EDIE MACAUSLAND says happily that the squad will definitely be flying to the Emerald Isle on September 1, 1982 to play some of the country's club and university teams. "The trip is going to happen--I can't believe it," she enthused. The squad expects to raise the additional $5000 necessary for the trip through hat sales, a dance at the Metro disco in the spring, and a Friends fundraising letter...Juniors KATE MARTIN and MAUREEN FINN were selected as the hockey team's co-captains for the 1982-'83 season at their recent banquet. Finn served as a co-captain this season, and Martin is currently acting as a co-captain of the women's basketball team.

At the recent cross country AIAW Nationals in Pocotello, Idaho, the Harvard women harriers weren't the only Crimsonites huffing and puffing in competition. Head coach JOHN BABINGTON entered the coach's race--which covered the same course the women were to run the following day--and finished 16th. "I obviously wasn't in great condition," he laughs...Although the lean members of the squad have to watch their weight to maintain the wolfhound slimness necessary to do well in competition, the Harvard harriers aren't above an occasional pig-out session--like the ones they had at Elmer's Pancake House in Pocotello during the Nationals competition. Devoured in mass quantities were cream-filled pies, rich donuts, and bowls of ice cream; two runners managed to adhere to their spartan food regimes, however. Freshman standouts KATE WILEY AND JENNY STRICKER ordered apples and oranges for dessert.... Co-captain KRISTIN LINSLEY found out what it's like to be a pilot in Pocotello. Because the city is not large enough for a major carrier to fly in and out the harriers flew in a puddle-jumper to Salt Lake City after the competition, where they caught a plane bound for Boston. The plane was so tiny, however, that Linsley's seat was next to the pilot up front.

Freshman diving sensation DANNY WATSON is well on the way to totally rewriting the Harvard record books--as well as the record books of numerous other colleges and universities. Last weekend in dual meets against Columbia and Navy, the Ashland, Kentucky native set five new records--both the 1-meter and 3-meter standards for Columbia and Harvard, and the 1-meter mark at the Naval Academy. Because the dual meet against the Middies was the first ever in the spanking-new LeJeune complex, every event-winner set a new record; junior JEFF MULE set the new 3-Meter standard as Watson dove exhibition in the event.

New training practices seem to be common on the Harvard campus this season. Consider the body-building technique practiced by a few of the Harvard women's swim team. Coming back from workout last night, several members of the squad were bursting with excess energy, which they decided to unleash in push-ups conducted at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Boylston St. on the "Walk" sign. "Our goal is to do five on the green light instead of the red," sprinter DEBBIE MARKSON says.

Don't spend too much time envying the Harvard men's basketball team their trip out to Stanford University last weekend--they saw more of the inside of airports, gyms and hotel rooms than of sunny beaches and San Francisco sights. Rising at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, they went to the airport, flew to San Fran, had a two-hour practice, ate dinner, and then observed a 10 p.m. curfew by going to bed. The following day they played Stanford and lost miserably, and Monday morning they caught a 5:15 a.m. plane bound for Boston. There were tiny patches of fun during the trip, however. After the match against Stanford, the 12 squad members went to a Harvard alum's house where they ate and drank, and then they returned to the Palo Alto Hilton where they attended a party that sophomore JOE CARRABINO's family had rented several rooms for. Carrabino, who hails from the more Southern California city of Los Angeles, was followed by a clan of Carrabinos wherever he went--"It looked like Joe had developed a fan club like Ferry (freshman BOB FERRY) has," junior LAMAR FLATT said...Junior JEFF SINEK turned 21 during the Western odyssey.