Tracksters Sprint and Spring Into Action

You might say they're on the right track.

It is a bit hard to believe--given the disappointments most Harvard sports teams have suffered this year--that men's track placed seventh in the country in the recent NCAA indoor championships. And if some momentum carries over into the spring season, watch out.

Captain Geoff Stiles, who won the national champtionship in the pole vault with a galactic 17-ft. 3-in. leap, leads the thinclads into a season that begins with a training excursion to Florida later this week and concludes with a trip to England where a combined Harvard-Yale team will face a combined squad from Cambridge and Oxford.

Apple Pie and Ma, Too

Freshman sensation Adam Dixon, senior John Chafee and junior Thad McNulty and John Murphy also gained All-American honors at the NCAAs with an outstanding third-place finish in the two-mile relay. They form the nucleus of a solid corps of runners, which figures to garner many points over the course of the schedule.

The heaviest Ivy League competition the Crimson will have to deal with should come from Cornell and Penn. Although neither school managed to sneak into the top twenty at the indoor championships, both possess depth in several events and should pose a threat to the tracksters.

The thinclads will face a severe test April 14 in the opening dual meet of the spring, when Princeton prances into town. Despite a strong all-around Crimson performance in this winter's matchup, the Tigers prevailed by the exasperatingly slim margin of one point.

The only other home date is April 17, when another formidable adversary, Northeastern, invades Harvard Stadium.

The Penn Relays and the Greater Boston Championships occur a day apart, late in April, in what should be an exhausting weekend. The Heptagonal meet takes place the first weekend in May. The squad will try to improve upon the fourth-place finish it gained in the winter version of the Heps.

Fielding Power

Hammer thrower Tom Lenz, who qualified for the nationals last year, joins Stiles to provide the power in the field events. Otherwise, there are many variables which will figure in the overall field performance.

Gary Quantock leads the shot-putting crew, his personal best being just under 53-feet. (Because of a debilitating injury sustained on the football team, Quantock operated on a limited basis indoors.) Freshman Lanny Tron furnishes the depth in this event, which should be strong if Quantock fully recovers.

Seniors Dave Kinney and Mike Steward will throw the javelin, and both have tossed in the 220-ft. range. Joe Pellegrini, the Harvard record holder in the discus with a distance of 180 feet, is a big plus for the Crimson.

Although two jumpers have point-scoring potential, they lack depth.

Depth Perception

Mike Young, whose best of 6-ft. 9 in. is far and away the top showing in the high jump, has been hampered by injuries; and if he is not up to par, the Crimson will have problems in the event. Stiles high jumps occasionally, and number two jumper Martin Goethe sat out the entire indoor circuit with injuries.

Versatile Sola Mahoney leads both the triple jumpers and long jumpers. Bennett Midlo, Ying Dat Ho and freshman basketball ace Robert Taylor round out the long jumping crew, while Bruce Brooks backs Mahoney in the triple jump.

The runners, however, constitute the Crimson's greatest strength. Murphy, who captured the 1500 meters in the Heptagonals, should improve his already-blistering times when the squad moves outdoors. McNulty, Noel Sidmore and freshman Peter Johnson also compete in the mile.

A particularly strong event is the quarter mile, where Chris Nicodemus, Allan Harrington and David Frim are all in top-notch form. The 880, with Chafee, Dixon and occasionally Murphy and McNulty, promises to bring the team points galore.

McNulty, promises to bring the team points galore.

Peter Fitzsimmons, last year's Heptagonal champ, gives the Crimson a solid steeplechaser; while cross-country stars Ed Sheehan, Mark Meyer and Guy McCroskey spearhead the distance runners

One questionable track area is the hurdles, where Courtney Vance and Chuck Johnson enter the season fairly untested. The short distances should be reasonable events, with winter sprinters Joe Salvo and Joe Day joined by football players Wayne Moore and Ralph Polillio.

"If we can plug the thing spots, we should have a very successful year," associate coach Ed Stowell said this week.

Indeed they should