Radcliffe Sports: Wind-up of Fall Shift into Winter

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of frantic and varied activity on the Radcliffe sports scene. The approaching winter season offers a packed schedule of intramural, inter-collegiate, and co-ed sports.

The Cliffie ski team has been engaged in rigorous conditioning -- including early morning soccer games and weekend mountain climbing -- for over a month. Radcliffe fencers are helping to spear the New England intercollegiate Championship Trophy for the fourth year in a row.

The basketball team has started practice in earnest, with the Cliffie hoopsters scheduled to play at least eight inter-collegiate games against such Boston area powerhouses as Wheaton, Northeastern, and the Boston College School of Education.

Co-Ed Philosophy

The co-ed philosophy has been carried over from fall co-ed soccer, touch football, swimming and sailing. On long winter evenings Harvard men will be able to join Cliffies in the Radcliffe gym for either badminton, volleyball or submersion in the pool.

Swimming, which continues year-round has the largest participation of any sport at the 'Cliffe, according to Mary M. Paget, coordinator of sports. The program, which offers classes from beginning swimming to senior life saving to synchronized swimming, involves over one-half of the undergraduate body.

Squash and Skating

This winter the 'Cliffe will also, courtesy of the Harvard Athletic Association, get the use of Hemenway Gym for squash and Watson Rink for skating lessons.

The fall season was disappointing. The field hockey team, which dominates the inter-collegiate schedule, didn't win a game. The girls lost fiercely-fought games to Wellesley, Spee, Fly, and Porcellian and tied a weaker Jackson squad.