Yale's Calendar Confuses Schedules

Yale's academicians have picked an unfortunate time to revise their school calendar With Ivy athletic directors now impeting in New York to integrate further the league's sport schedules, the unorthodox Ell calendar compounds their problems.

The new academic schedule--and announced by Yale two weeks age--moves mid-year examination from the middle at January to the first week after Christings vacation. It also expands the spring vocation from the customary ten days to there weeks, and it drops the opening of college back a week to Sept, 15.

Yale hopes the changes will boost morale during the usual mid-winter doldrums and cut down on the number of infirmary cases, besides eliminating from the schedule an unproductive post-Christmas, pre-examination period.

Common Problems

But these are problems common around the Ivy circuit. As one upset coach put it, they are symptoms of New England weather which no amount of scheduling can change.

Policy-wine, Yale's unique calendar presents the Ivy League with a number of scheduling conflicts. Athletic directors have enough trouble fitting seven winter sports teams into an orthodox schedule without Riving special consideration to one college. New these conflicts are compounded an the Ivy directors try to draw up a neat, well-oiled, round-robin schedule which includes all eight league colleges. Compensating for Yale's long vocation and new exam period will be difficult.

The directors may have in arrange a compromise schedule which gets off all competitions with Yale until the first of February. This entails and over-crowding of weekend sports programs, which is hard on the athletes. Compensating for Yale may also mean special tournaments at the end of the season, which is also unnecessarily hard on the athlete.

While is rival is practicing, the Yale sportsman will spend the first two weeks in January with his books. And when he is ready for competition his rival will be with the books, all of which means no competition for Yale during January, and gives Eli teams a decided handicap during the rest of the season.

Also, the extended spring vacation--a delightful time for intellectual relaxation--bears heavily on oarsmen and runers who are nearing peak-condition for the season's opening. The unusually long three weeks period means that coaches must lay off their squads for a week or more, while their squads for a week or more, while other teams are practicing. This is a serious loss which puts Yale behind the eightball even before the season opens.

Last year Harvard announced a ten year academic calendar which the University hoped would encourage other colleges to do likewise. New Yale has set itself apart from the rest of the league, and reports from Princeton say that Nassau may do likewise.

Probably the Elis feel that Harvard's program is too stiff, and the New England weather too severe, and the New England weather too severe, and have therefore decided to go it alone with an unorthodox and poorly-timed calendar.

Or perhaps Yale has hit upon a unique way to de-emphasize winter sports without directly offending the coaches involved. Certainly, it would not be improbable to expect a report from new Haven soon, announcing "unfortunate" reduction of winter coaching loads.