Radcliffe Teams Might Change Names to 'Harvard-Radcliffe'

The women's field hockey team has voted to change its name from the "Radcliffe" hockey team to the "Harvard-Radcliffe" team because the team felt it is a Harvard Athletic Department program, Carlene Rhodes '76, the team's co-captain, said yesterday.

All the other women's teams are still discussing possible name changes.

Rhodes said that she had preferred "Harvard" for the team name, "but we didn't want to alienate anyone. A lot of old Radcliffe players would be sorry."

Alison Muscatine '76, women's tennis team captain, said the name question had come up when the University gave out varsity awards last spring.

"We'd struggled so long and finally got equal access to Harvard facilities--then we wanted the same awards," Muscatine said. When women varsity-letter-winners received Harvard "H"'s, she said, "we began to think: who are we really?"

Muscatine said she estimated the tennis team would opt for "Harvard." She said that "to a lot of people 'Radcliffe athletics' is a ha-ha, a question mark. We want to be taken seriously."

Captain Katherine P. Moss '76 said yesterday that women's crew will almost certainly stay with "Radcliffe," its internationally "established identity."

On October 25 the crew team for the first time will receive oar pins of recognition from the Friends of Harvard Crew--the pins will bear R's, not H's, Andronike E. Janus, the assistant director of athletics, said yesterday.

The Athletic Department "ought to have a name policy and lay it right on the line," Robert B. Watson '37, director of Athletics, said yesterday. "I think it ought to be a policy of laissez-faire," he added.

Watson said that in the next two or three years, as Harvard-Radcliffe relations develop, women here might all want to be called "Harvard." He said he did not think this will not disturb the men's teams' identity.

"When you hear 'Harvard track,' it's men, right?"