Frank Haggerty '68, the head coach of the Harvard men's and women's cross country teams, is not the type of person to tempt the gods of hubris.

When asked how his respective teams look in the upcoming season, he restrains himself from saying anything that gives the slightest inkling of boldness.

"I don't like to say too much early," Haggerty said. "You never know what's going to happen."

But who can blame him for being cautious? Haggerty has seen how injuries can devastate a team, and he won't let any evil karma come his way.

In 1993, then-freshman Karen Goetze injured her ankle right before the Heptagonals--the most important meet in the team's season. Last year, male runners Killian Lonergan and Danny Herlihy began the season disabled, and Jenny Martin missed the last two weeks with mononucleosis.

(No wonder Medicare is going broke.)

The thing is, though, that either team will have a decent show at winning Heps should the runners remain healthy. The women's team returns practically all of its top runners, while the men possess perhaps the league's best runner in junior captain Ian Carswell.

The women don't have many question marks. Goetze, now a junior, finished first in last year's Harvard-Yale-Princeton triangle, leading the Crimson to its first victory in that meet since 1986. There's also sophomore Margaret Angell and juniors Martin, Cricket Sheppard-Sawyer and Jessica Mikszewski, all of whom finished in the top 10 at the H-Y-P's.

MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY

Record: 1-3

Heptagonals: Eighth

Coach: Frank Haggerty

Captain: Ian Carswell '97

Key Returnees: Brian Walsh '96, Darin Shearer '96

Key Loss: Daniel Satran '95

Only Sheppard-Sawyer's health is a cause for concern, as she is currently recovering from a appendectomy she had in August.

"There's two roadblocks," Haggerty said. "First is health...knock' on wood, and the second would be Dartmouth."

Dartmouth edged out Brown and Cornell, 46-51-52 respectively, to capture the 1994 Heps championship. Harvard finished fifth, with 118 points, two points behind Navy.

Prospects for 1995 look very good, however. The team is still young, and there's no reason to think that it won't get better.

For the men's team, everyone is simply relieved that the Big Green graduated everyone.

Dartmouth blew away the rest of the Ivy League at Heps, scoring only 23 points. The second-place team, Princeton, had 93.

Dartmouth's top three runners from that juggernaut are gone, however, making the Ivy League much more open in 1995.

And the Crimson hopes to be in the thick of that race. Its top runners are Carswell, who competed at Nationals last season, and senior Brian Walsh, who was the second Crimson finisher at Heps and the H-Y-P's. Seniors Darin Shearer, who is a Crimson editor, and Matt Bundle also placed well throughout the season.

The problem in 1994 was that a huge gap often existed between Harvard's top finishers and the others, which cost the Crimson key races.

This was especially true at Heps. Carswell finished fifth and Walsh 12th, but the next Harvard runner, Shearer, came in 45th. The Crimson finished eighth at Heps out of nine teams.

As with the women, however, all the important legs from the 1994 team are still in place.

Of course, Haggerty didn't give any indication either way.

"We'll take it one day at a time, as the old saying goes," he said.

WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY

Record: 4-0

Heptagonals: Fifth

Coach: Frank Haggerty

Captain: Megan Agy '96

Key Returnees: Karen Goetze '97, Jenny Martin '97, Cricket Sheppard-Sawyer '97

key Losses: Meredith Fitzgerald '95, Kelly Benke '95