Crimson Ski Team Faces Slate Of Tough Late-Season Tourneys

After all other Crimson winter squads have completed their seasons save a few championships, the unsung varsity skiing team is just now approaching the thick of its schedule.

Still ahead for the team are the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Slalom on April 4 and the Harvard-Dartmouth meet on April 19. The skiers will be favored in the Big Three meet at North Conway, N.H., when acting coach Richard Eliot's skiers take on small Bulldog and Tiger teams.

The Dartmouth ski team, second only to Middlebury College as the top New England skiers, will be right at home at neighboring Mt. Washington, N.H., and are highly favored to beat the Crimson in their meet. The Crimson varsity will also compete in five championships in the coming weeks.

Captain Don Stephenson has been the standout this season for the squad. This week, at Andover, Me., he will try out for the 1960 American Olympic ski team.

Stephenson Tops at Carnival

Stephenson's top performance was in the big Dartmouth Winter Carnival, in which the varsity finished second to the University of Maine in the Class B competition. At Hanover the varsity captain was named skimeister, the individual with the highest average in all of the day's events--downhill, slalom, cross-country, jumping, combination downhill-slalom, and combination cross-country-jumping.

The ski team is now on a self-supporting basis since a faculty vote last year halted its financial aid from the Athletic Department. Eliot's team, normally coached by Ted Lockwood, can usually practice only during meets. In addition to training exercises indoors, the skiers manage an occasional session of skiing in Cambridge.