Trackmen Capture Third in Indoor NCAA's

After combining to give Harvard its best NCAA track finish ever, Keith Colhurn. Skip Hare, and Ed Nosal wore Yale track uniforms to the awards stand Saturday night at Detroit's Cobo Arena to protest the banning of Yale from all NCAA competition.

The NCAA banned Yale from post-season competition in all sports because Yale permitted Jack Langer to play intercollegiate basketball after the NCAA had declared him ineligible.

Victimized

The Harvard athletes, along with Yale itself, feel that Yale was victimized by the power struggle between the NCAA and the AAU. "We had hoped to show that the feud between the two organizations is hurting only the athletes." Nosal, the organizer of the protest, said last night.

"The press picked it up, but there was almost no crowd reaction at the meet," captain Colburn said yesterday afternoon. "Most people either didn't know or didn't care," he added.

Nosal said the Kwaku Ohene-Frempong. Yale's track captain, had been "enthusiastic" about the protest idea and that he had supplied the protestors with the uniforms.

Although the Harvard athletes had tried to persuade athletes from other schools to join them in the protest, no one else appeared on the awards stand in Yale uniforms.

'Under Pressure'

"Many of the athletes from the other schools agreed with us, but they did not want to express their feelings in this manner," Nosal said. "A lot of them were under pressure from their coaches and their schools," he added.

"I was proud that the athletes had the conviction to stand up for what they believed in." Harvard track coach Bill Mecurdy said last night. About one month ago. MeCurdy said, "It is an outrageous thing that somehow in our decisions we can't arrive at things that benefit the athletes involved."