THE Boat Race

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Of the Oxford and Cambridge crews, your sportswriter has written: "The British squads will race March 24 for the privilege of making the trip to America."

I think he's wrong. I think that they are racing Saturday for the million people who will line the 4.16 miles along the Thames from Putney to Mortlake for a short glimpse of The Boat Race, for the additional millions who will crowd around television sets to watch the telecast made by every camera which the B. B. C. can transport to the river, for the charwomen and university professors and factory workers and Members of Parliament who will cease all other activities to listen to the broadcast of The Boat Race, for the Oxford and Cambridge men and women all over the world who eagerly await the result of The Boat Race, for the glory of being pointed out deferentially for all time as "Rowing Blues," for the non-professional coaches who have worked over them since January, for the men who have rowed in The Boat Race since 1829, for those who remember the dead heat of '77 and still get excited when telling about it, for the readers for "The Times" who have followed each detail in their training for three months, and for those of us who are hoping for the first Dark Blue victory in five years.

Those oarsmen have been trained to a peak which their coaches expect to be reached on Saturday. The winners will doubtless row well in their race here, but it will be an anticlimax, for the race on Saturday is no more elimination to select a suitable foe for the local oarsmen. It is The Boat Race. William E. Slesnick 1G