GRAPPLERS TO TACKLE JUMBOS IN SEASON OPENER SATURDAY

With a National Open Wrestling Champion of India (155 pound class) in G. S. Karki '48 and an eastern high school champion (128 pound class) in Donald B. Ray '49, Coach Jay Thomas of the wrestling squad will be able to muster a good team for the coming mat campaign. Despite the great preponderance of Freshmen prospects are good for the first match of the season against Tufts Saturday afternoon on the gym floor of the Indoor Athletic Building.

Thomas, who was National Weight Lifting Champion in the 123 pound class in 1941, and who wrestled second to a four-year national champion on Oklahoma A. & M.'s famous squad, announced that competitions for the eight Varsity spots would be held this afternoon.

Pointing for the Yale match, Thomas will try to keep his squad in shape during examination periods.

The weights will be seven weight classes plus the unlimited, or heavy-weight category. The team at present is without a heavyweight, and Thomas said that a lighter man would have to wrestle in the position. The entire squad, he declared, could use some bolstering in man power, as only 19 men are now out. He is issuing a call for any men, whether experienced or not.

When asked how he came to be a weight lifting champion, Thomas said that he had been in a severe auto wreck his Freshman year in College, and had taken up weight lifting to build himself up from 90 pounds after a six-month stay in the hospital. He kept at the sport and this year plans to enter the national championships again.