The Class of '51 soccer team went 27-14-2 over their four years and was one of the most successful teams on campus. The team was not fazed by an experimental 1951 NCAA soccer rule change, which eliminated throw-ins and instead rewarded free kicks from the sidelines. Needless to say, the rule did not survive to the modern day.

Hockey and basketball dominated the headlines in the winter, while crew took the spotlight in the spring. Despite the success of these sports, fan support was not as strong as it was in the fall. As one Crimson article noted, "It's a contradictory--if not unusual--fact in this year's athletic picture that as spectator interest declines, the sports prospects take a general turn for the

better."

Over the Class of 51's tenure on the basketball courts of the Indoor Athletic Center, the Crimson quintet struggled only to a 25-73 record. But as is typical of Harvard teams to this day, a single victory over one of the Killer P's--perennial Ivy powers Penn and Princeton--made Harvard's season.

When the Crimson took on the Tigers on Feb. 27, 1951, an outstanding individual effort from Harvard captain Ed Smith `51 propelled the Crimson to victory. Smith's drives drew three fouls from the Princeton center in the game's opening nine minutes.

Smith, the Ivies second leading scorer that season, went on to score 31 points on the night, including a game-clinching dunk after sneaking behind the Princeton press in the final minutes to seal a 64-59 victory.

The Harvard men's hockey team had a mixed bag of success during the same stretch. The Crimson split the 1948-`49 Pentagonal League regular season title with five-time defending champion Dartmouth, but fell to the Big Green in a playoff.

Dartmouth went on to lose in the NCAA championship game that season, while Harvard slipped to fourth in '50 and then last in the league the year after.

The bitterest pill to swallow during the 1950-51 season was a 10-9 loss to future Beanpot rival Boston College. To this day, the defeat marks the only occasion that a Harvard hockey team has lost a game after scoring nine goals.

The crew teams were Harvard's most successful among the spectator sports. Under Coach Thomas H. Bolles, the Crimson won EARC titles in 1947, 1948, and 1949. The most spectacular victory of the Bolles era came during that 1947 season, when the

Crimson traveled to Lake Washington to face off against California and Washington in a National Sprint Regatta-a rare event in the history of collegiate heavyweight crew. The Harvard boat blew away the competition and the world that year, crushing the course record by a full 48 seconds.

Talent on the margins

It was in the lesser-followed sports that the class of 1951 achieved its greatest successes.

Members of the class brought the Crimson its first-ever squash title in 1951 under National Intercollegiate Squash and Racquets Association Hall of Fame Coach Jack Barnaby.

That season, the Crimson-led by national champion and team captain Henry Foster `51-defeated the previously dominant Yale, 7-2. Before 1951, Yale had beaten Harvard for each of the past 10 years.