Top Thinclads Compete, Protest Ruling at NCAA's

With a political incentive to spark them, four Crimson thinclads will clash with the nation's best collegians in the NCAA indoor track championships today and tomorrow in Detroit.

To profest the banning of Yale from all NCAA competition, the Harvard athletes who place among the top five in an event will mount the award stand with Yale uniforms on.

All four athletes earned starting berths by recoiling qualifying times for the meet in previous competition.

Although there is practically no chance for a team victory, both captain Keith Colburn and Ed Nosal have excellent shots at first-place crowns and will almost surely place high enough to be asked to appear on the award stand.

Fresh

Colburn. fresh from running a 4:03,6 mile in the ICAA's. will switch back to the 1000-yd. run and should easily better the fifth-place he captured in the NCAA 1000 last year.

Colburn has not been beaten in the 1000 in an intercollegiate meet this year, and about a month and a half ago he ran the 1000 at the Milrose Games in 2:07-9, 0.1 seconds faster than the winning time in last year's NCAA meet. Kansas State's Ken Swenson, who ran the 1000 in 2:07,2 earlier this year, should provide Colburn with his stiffest competition.

Inconsistent

Nosal, Harvard's best 35-lb. weight man, has also bettered last year's winning NCAA mark in his event this year. But Nosal, unlike Colburn, has been inconsistent this year. Since throwing the weight 61' 100" in the BAA's, Nosal hasn't bettered 60. There is a possibility that Nosal will unleash a throw that will earn him first, but it's much more likely that he'll battle for fourth of fifth.

The Crimson's other entrees-miler Royee Shaw and long jumper Skip Harvard little chance of grabbing any points for Harvard.

Neither of the two thinclads placed among the top five competitors in their events in the IC4A's, and the NCAA competition will be more difficult than the IC4A's.