Glorified Swimming Pool

On the evening of March 2, 1937, a fully dressed young man jumped from the high diving board into the carefully clorinated water of the Indoor Athletic Building's pool before a crowd estimated at about 2200. His action, unique as it was, went completely unnoticed. The rest of the crowd, the largest ever to fill the Blockhouse, was still exulting over the swimming team's 39 to 36 victory over Yale.

That evening in 1937 still stands as the high point in all the various forms of activity, athletic and otherwise, that have gone on in the building since it was opened 22 years ago. Yale's swimmers had won 163 dual meets in a row before the Crimson toppled them, and, as one undergraduate remarked that evening, "Charlie Hutter is next to God tonight." Hutter was the Crimson free-styler who won the 100, the 220, and finished second in the 440 to get 13 of his team's points. As he touched the end of the pool at the finish of the 440 to clinch the meet for Harvard he collapsed; the crowd gave him a standing ovation for 10 minutes. It was quite an evening.

For the most part, though, the IAB's history, like the building itself, has been solid and unspectacular. Its beginning, however, was enlivened by a sense of mystery brought on by the fact that the building's donor refused to make himself known even to former Director of Athletics William J. Bingham. "Alumnus Acquaticus", as he preferred to be known, first offered the University $100,000 for a swimming pool in 1926, and then, after a series of confidential talks, agreed to give a total of $250,000 for an athletic building. The University was to supply whatever additional funds were needed for the cost of the construction, estimated at the time to be $600,000. Expenses however, mushroomed so rapidly that the bill eventually reached $1,320,000.

Right from the start, the swimming pool--around which the entire building was planned--was the center of attraction. Because of the acquatic interests of the original donor--who after his death in 1949 was revealed to have been Ernest Stillman '08--the whole building was centered about the swimming pool. Indeed, the top floor with its basketball course was somewhat of an afterthought, and was not completed until the rest of the building had been in use for several months. The sense of light and airiness given to the pool makes it one of the most beautiful in the nation.

The main pool is 75 feet, 3/16 of an inch long--the extra fraction as added to make sure that all records made in it are legitimate ones. The walls and ceiling of the pool room are coated with a special plaster composition designed to kill the echoes usually found in such large tiled halls. Because many swimmers going in the same direction together set up great lateral water pressure, the pool is reinforced by bracings which extend to the outside foundations of the Blockhouse.

Water used to fill the pool is first filtered through enormous tanks in the sub-basement which contain a type of sand found only near Cape May, New Jersey. The water in the pool is changed over three times daily, but the pool itself is emptied and cleaned but once a year.

During the last war the IAB underwent its most trying days. In 1941 approximately 70,000 men were using the building, but by 1943 the figure had jumped to 426,000--under their compulsory physical training program the armed services units stationed at Harvard marched their men in by the company. Frank Vaughn, the present superintendent of the building, was at that time a very successful swimming instructor and trainer, but long hours of work with service units so damaged his voice that he had to give up teaching completely.

The war-time crowding that forced three men to share a single locker was replaced by the post war crowding that up to 1948 forced undergraduates to live on the top floor of the building at the start of each school year until other housing could be found. "It was like one big happy family, living up there on the basketball court," one old-timer recalls. Freshmen practicing fire escapes down ropes were a disturbing influence at times, but some men actually wanted to keep on living on the balcony when there was room elsewhere, according to Vaughn.

The building has facilities for all varieties of athletics, but lacks the fancy and expensive training devices found in many college field-houses. Ingenious Harvard athletes, however, have in part managed to make up for this lack of high-powered equipment. When obliged to take off excess weight in order to get in trim, Harvard wrestlers do quite well without a steam room. In the basement of the Indoor Building are steam tunnels so large that a man can easily run around in them--the combination of exercise and steam makes an ideal reducing agent.