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THE SPORTING SCENE

Foul Shots: Take It Away

By David L. Halberstam

During Saturday's Harvard-Williams lacrosse game, with the taunts, directed at the Crimson bench becoming more derisive in direct proportion to the number of beers consumed in the home stands, a varsity player turned around and addressed the assembled boys and girls: "Amazing what eight years of prep school can do for a guy," he commented.

This is about as accurate an observation on Williams House Party Weekend as a fellow can make. It is more or less of a turn on the old chestnut concerning the high school senior who asked his father about the advisability of his going to Williams. "Sorry, son," came the reply, "the family already belongs to one country club."

The lush Williams campus nestles in the Berkshires, and the visitor gets a feeling of complete isolation there. On House Party Weekend--most sensational social event of the year--the Willies really go to town. They break out large numbers of water pistols, were all kinds of collegiate garb, and import many good looking women, who also man water pistols and run around in white shirts to boot. Before and after the game, the lacrosse players speed to and fro in fast motor cars, many of them new convertibles. In the Williams milieu, the frat house is paramount at all times.

As far as the lacrosse game went, Harvard lost, 12 to 4, to an excellent Williams team boasting an outstanding goalie in diminutive Mickey O'Connell, yellow waistcoat and all. The latter is intended as a target for enemy shots and let legal because O'Connell has his number taped on.

Harvard played the two halves like two different teams. The score of the first half was 9 to 0; the second, 4 to 3. The visitors could not overcome a smooth working Williams club, but they did make a respectable showing in the last 30 minutes. Perhaps, between periods, the Crimson got a chance to a chance to peruse some poetry by the editors of the Williams Record, which, in previewing the weekend's sporting events Saturday morning, noted that: "Lacrosse is gambling for very high antes, they face Harvard and crimson panties."

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