Love Grooms Big Squad for '52 Oarsmen

Two-thirds of the aspirants for the freshman crew never rowed in crews before this spring. But inexperienced material is old stuff to Coach Harvey Love, who each year must manufacture three boatloads of oarsmen from a mass of would-be Frank Strongs.

Freshman crew always attracts swarms of candidates in the fall because relatively few secondary schools have rowing teams, and those uninitiated to the art of oar pulling are intrigued by the idea of gliding along the Charles River in slinky shells with bottoms one-sixteenth of a inch thick.

Weeks of tugging in the Newell Boat-house tanks during the winter months, however, convince many that crew is too rough a road to water travel.

As soon as the temperature creeps over 32 degrees Fahrenheit at winter's end Love shunts those still with him out into the open air and onto the open water. "It's the miles of rowing we get in before the season starts, not the time we spend, that determines if our team is ready when the season starts," Love explained.

Freshmen Unpredictable

Love got his team on the Charles two weeks earlier than last year. This was a break and he feels pretty good about his material in general. 'We're quite a bit farther along for the length of time we've spent this spring than we were after the same time spent in 1948.

"But then your never know about freshman rowers," Love remarked hastily. "For instance, last year's freshmen had a dismal start, improved gradually during the season, and beat Yale in the last meet."

There are enough men with competitive rowing behind them on the present freshman squad to fill two and a half boats. Love, however, expects to have several of the many novices he has been training since October on his first two eights and a large number of them in the third boat and in the reserves.

"A good many of the inexperienced caught up with the old hands early in the winter," Love said, "but I'm often disappointed in the work some of the boys do outdoors after looking so good indoors."

By the end of the vacation, Love thinks be might have a pretty definite idea of who will fill the 24 slides and three coxswains' seats available at the opening race against Princeton and MIT, Saturday, April 23. Right now he's naming no names. He just wants to pile up mileage and watch.