Though crew is traditionally thought of as a man's sport, the Radcliffe crew team has proven that you don't have to wear a jock strap to row competitively and successfully on the Charles River.

Radcliffe Lightweight Crew

1986 record (combined): 7-0

1987 record to date: 2-0

(Eastern Sprints on May 17)

Radcliffe Heavyweight Crew

1986 record (combined): 7-0

1987 record to date: 4-0

(Eastern Sprints on May 17)

Since its inception 17 years ago, the Radcliffe varsity heavyweight team has been a powerful force in the East, and this season the squad threatens to do what it has only been hinting at for the past two years.

For two years in a row, Radcliffe has barely missed winning the national championships. Two seasons ago the heavies lost to Princeton in a close race, and last year the Crimson lost in a photo finish to Wisconsin by a scant four-hundredths of a second.

This year, the Radcliffe heavies are working to see that something like that doesn't happen again.

The heavies have already started their season off strongly, defeating MIT, Northeastern, Princeton, and Cornell, capturing each race by at least seven seconds.

"Everyone always gages themselves off of Harvard and Radcliffe," MIT Crew Coach Mayrene Earle said. "They know that they're racing quality."

With only three returners from last year's varsity lineup and a few key rowers out with injuries, the impressive depth of the squad is attested to with each victory accumulated this season.

"B.U., Brown and Wisconsin are going to be strong teams this season," first-year Radcliffe Coach Liz O'Leary said.

Princeton is also supposed to be one of the better crews this season, but Radcliffe has already cruised by the Tigers, beating them by a large seven-second margin last Saturday.

The heavyweights will have a chance to face Wisconsin this weekend when they travel to Redwood Shores to compete in an invitational regatta sponsored by Stanford.

"Wisconsin and Washington are going to be our hardest competition," Captain Debbie Porterfield said. "It will be easier to predict the outcome of our season after this weekend. It looks promising."

Lights

In the 13 year history of the Radcliffe lightweight crew team, the Black and White have lost but a single regular season regatta--that to the University of New Hampshire in 1983.

The lights are the defending national champions, and two weeks ago recaptured the gold medal in the San Diego Crew Classic after a one-year absence from the event.

In San Diego they faced their "toughest" competition--University of California at Santa Barbara and University of California at Davis--and handily defeated them by 13-and 14-second margins respectively.

Radcliffe is so strong, in fact, that its main problem is finding competition. the wining part just seems to follow naturally.

Lightweight Coach Holly Metcalfe is trying to get crews from the Dadville League to compete in the Eastern Sprints.

"Hopefully now there will be more eights and fours competing," Metcalfe said. "Hopefully it will thicken up the competition for everybody."

"The lightweights have always been competitive," varsity lightweight Captain Allison Pugh said. "Training with the heavyweights [doing the same workouts] has a strong effect. We have a lot of high hopes."