"Oh, Brokaw, Where Is Thy Sting" Is Theme of Bedraggled Rooters for Crimson Paddlemen at Princeton Splash Fest

Followers of Harvard swimming have read all about the trimming Princeton administered to Harvard Saturday afternoon. They have studied the summary and scanned the stories. Perhaps the only viewpoint which has not been inflicted upon them is that of the Crimson rooters at the meet.

That is not surprising. There were six pro-Harvard persons in Tigertown excluding the squad members. Three Crimson men, one Crimson man's date, and Johnny Macionis, whose Yale team lost to Princeton last year, comprised the Harvard cheering section. There was also a sorrowful alumnus who used to swim for Hal Ulen. These people saw the meet and had one more important observation to make.

Pool Hinders Mermen

This was that although Ned Parke, Al Van de Weghe, and Dick Hough constituted the chief opposition to the Crimson, they had a very strong ally in good old Brokaw Pool--better known as simply old Brokaw Pool. This bath, built in the days when the trudgeon was man's fastest way of cleaving the waters, is not designed for modern intercollegiate swimming as most any Princeton man will readily admit. The tank is but four lanes wide and this narrowness results in a pretty rough surface when four sprinters are making their splashy way down the lanes.

Aside from its general resemblance to a bathtub, the Nassau tank generously overflows into the laps of the spectators during every race, all of which does not promote good will toward the padding sport. Also, life was tough for the backstrokers. As they surged along on their respective backs they were forced to see not a decent ceiling, but a be-girdered roof cluttered with Tiger fans clinging to the rafters. One eager Bengal rooter even dropped his raincoat into the tank, but not during a race--it was only during the dive.

Rooters Claim No Sour Grapes

The Harvard cheering section had no complaint to the effect that the Ulenmen would have won in the home waters. But with a wistful sigh they reflected that it would be nice if Princeton and every other college in the league had similar, standardized pools. If that were true, a team competing away from home would not be confronted with conditions as unfamiliar to them as a crater in a football gridiron would be to the pigskin-pushers.

Columbia's pool is notoriously slow, Brown's is so small that only two men can swim at the same time, Penn's leaves much to be desired, swimmers have to paddle across the odd-sized Navy bath, and Yale offers a round-cornered affair with a high-diving board that frightens many a visiting leaper into a poor performance, while a high-diver at Princeton would leave his scalp on a rafter without much effort.

The upshot of it all was that the Crimson rooters left Brokaw gloomily, hoping some kind Tiger alumnus would contribute a new pool. Princeton men answered that the funds, if forthcoming, will go to a new library first.