WINTER SEASON MAY MEAN SUCCESS IN SPRING TRACK

With the winter season of the University track team now completed, and the spring season but a few weeks away, speculation is already beginning to turn to the chances of Coach Farrell's men during the coming series of outdoor track contests which will culminate with the Harvard-Yale dual meet in the stadium in June.

Judging from the record of the winter season, the track team is as present unseasoned and uncertain. It has vulnerable weaknesses in certain--fields; in others it has shown marked strength. If, during the coming months, the coaching staff can reinforce the weaker branches of the team, and coordinate them with those in which lies the greatest strength the University is assured a team of consistent power during the spring months. Otherwise, it must expect the same checkered career of success and failure which it encountered during the winter.

Entered Five Contests

In the five principal indoor meets of the past season, the University has had several triumphs.

In the B. A. A. games on February 2, the Crimson relay team defeated Yale by nearly half a lap in the yearly two-mile race. And in the one mile relay at the Intercollegiates, last Saturday, an untried Harvard team entered against a score of crack college teams, finished in second place, being beaten by only a fraction of an inch by the famous Yale quartet in close to world's record time.

In the annual Harvard-Dartmouth-Cornell Triangular meet, the University placed second with a score of 37 1-5 points, while Cornell led with 49 1-13, and Dartmouth came last with a score of 29 11-15. In this meet, the Crimson athletes captured a large share of the first places, smashing triangular meet records in two events.--the shot put and the two mile run.

Scored at Open Meets

In the three open meets held by the B. A. A., the Knights of Columbus, and the American Legion, University entrants numbered many among the medal winners on each occasion. But in the intercollegiates on Saturday, the Crimson made a showing which, but for the brilliant performance of the relay team, would have been discreditable. For of all the men who had been counted on before the meet as possible point winners, only one succeeded in scoring. R. D. Gerould, '24, who tied with several others for second place in the high jump.

To realize the true significance of the winter season, however, it is necessary to look at more than the results and scores of these five meets, and to consider the work of the squad and coaches in daily practice in the cage and on the wooden track at Soldiers Field.

The training of the squad this winter has been in the hands of an entirely reorganized coaching staff. Upon the recent withdrawal of Mr. E. W. Martin, former Penn State track coach, from the position of head coach of the Harvard track team, the team was placed in the hands of E. J. Farrell, former field event coach; and a group of graduate track men were appointed to act as his assistants in coaching the various events. Among these were D. F. O'Connell '21 in the distance events, E. A. Teschner '17, in the sprints, C. J. Hauers '23, in the hurdles, and R. W. Harwood '21, in the pole vault,--all one time record-holders from recent Harvard track teams.

New System Satisfactory

This system of graduate coaching, for several years employed on the first University football squad, was first begun for track in the fall of this academic year. It has received its first trial during the past winter season. That this trial has proved entirely satisfactory is declared by the track advisory committee, the H. A. A., and the members of the squad itself.

In explaining the merits of this system, W. J. Bingham '12, former director of athletics at Harvard and coach of the last track team to defeat Yale, declared yesterday to a CRIMSON reporter.

"By having this staff of younger men to assist him in training the men for their various events, Coach Farrell is relieved of many of the details of coaching. He is able to act in a more supervisory capacity, and in particular, to pay attention to the more inexperienced members of the squad.

Few Prep-School Stars

"Harvard gets far fewer of the so-called prep-school stars than do Yale and Princeton. And the majority of the men who come out for track here come as a rule with little experience and no established reputation. For that reason it is the job of the head coach to pick out the inexperienced men who appear to have possibilities and to develop these men to as great an extent as possible. It is by training men like these to win third and fourth place, as well as by coaching the first place stars, that we can get winning track teams.

"That has been the theory of track coaching at Harvard in the past. To the best of my knowledge it is the theory which is being carried out by the present coaching staff."

Cites Unusual Examples

As an example of this sort of coaching, Mr. Bingham cited the work which has been going on during the winter to develop new men for the pole vault, the hammer throw, and other events in which no veterans are available this year. At present, for example, one of the most promising men who is being trained for the pole vault by Coach Harwood, was a high jumper last year, and another was a discus thrower. In conclusion, Mr. Bingham said.

"After all, the main purpose of the winter track season is to lay the foundations for the spring meets. If this winter season has developed men who will be point winners in the spring against Yale and Princeton, then I consider that it has been a success."