Lightweight Crew Faces Columbia, Rutgers Today

Harvard's untested lightweight crew will open its season against Columbia and Rutgers today in a 2000-meter race on the Harlem River in New York.

With four members of last year's varsity eight forming the nucleus of a boat that has no visible weak spots, the Crimson lightweights-undefeated in intercollegiate competition the past two years-should be powerful again.

While Rutgers could challenge Harvard, there is little chance that Columbia will even be in the race after the first 500 meters.

Although Rutgers lost to a mediocre Penn team last Saturday, there is a good chance the Scarlet Knights will give Harvard one of its toughest races this year.

In terms of manpower and experience, the Knights are strong. They lost only one oarsmen from the eight which finished second to Harvard at last year's Eastern Sprints.

In the Penn race, Rutgers got off to a terrible start, but then came on strong in the last 300 meters to lose by only a few seats.

Harvard coach Steve Gladstone said the Rutgers coach blamed his team's loss to Penn on overconfidence.

Last spring the Rutgers lights also began slowly, losing to Penn by ten seconds in their first race. But the Knights improved steadily during April and finally captured second at the Sprints in May, losing to Harvard by less than three seconds.

If the Knights' problem was cockiness and not uncohesiveness last week, their unexpected defeat could have given them a shock that will enable them to better last year's rate of improvement.

Columbia, which lost to Princeton last week by more than twenty seconds, should not fare any better against Harvard.

Two important factors that could possibly hurt the Crimson are a lack of aggressiveness in actual competition and an inability to work as a team.

Gladstone, after seeing the members of the first boat row together this week, said Thursday. "The eight has been doing quite well, although a full indication of the team's ability to work together has been slow in coming because of the bad weather."

The returnees to the first boat are juniors, Dave Harman, Dick Moore, Kim Kiley, and Rod Peterson. The newcomers are junior Chuck Hewitt and sophomores Jim Richardson, Tony Brooks, and Phin Sprague.

The Harvard junior varsity and freshman crews will meet crews from Columbia and Rutgers in preliminary races. Because so many members of the junior varsity boat came so close to making the first boat, the junior varsity should win easily.