It was the worst day of my life.

It happened in New Jersey a year ago today. It was the swim meet that would determine the Ivy League championship.

We--the Harvard men's swim team--had held the Ancient Eight crown for the past six years. On that ill-fated day, Princeton wanted to take it away. They wanted it bad.

The score was tied at the start of the last event of the meet, the 400-yard relay. The poor acoustics of Dillon Pool amplified the deafening roar of the crammed in, fire-hazard crowd of 1100 Princeton fans--students, parents, and especially that God-awful band. The frenzy just seemed to build.

As the day's final swimmers came in for the last lap they were almost even. In the final lunge, the difference between us and them was only a bat of the eye.

It was only a tenth of a second, but the win gave the Tigers a year's bragging rights as Ivy champs, bragging rights that had been a unbroken tradition for Harvard Swimming. Thenightmare was real.

With a golf ball in my throat, and stunned bythe unbelievable celebration going on all aroundme (at Princeton, the teams sit with theaudience), I knew then that it would take thepassing of a year before the bitter taste in mymouth could be cleansed away.

Like a dent on a vintage car that was once inmint condition, that loss diminished the beauty ofa runaway victory at Easterns, an almost perfectdual meet season, and a streak of Ivy titles.

There is only one drink that can wash away thetaste of bitter defeat: sweet revenge.

Today at 4 p.m., in Blodgett Pool the Harvardmen's swim team will be striving to settle a scorewith Princeton. And today it is Harvard who wantsit bad.

This year the setting will be different. Thecrowd will be on the side of the Crimson; thestarting blocks, the diving boards and the faceswill all be familiar.

But the most important difference will be thatthis year it is the Crimson who have everything togain. In every swimmer there will be the stabbingmemory of last year's upset, the acrid taste oflosing.

Princeton created a monster last year in theHarvard team. A monster that is now coming back tohaunt the Tigers. A monster that can only besatiated by sweet revenge