Lining Them Up

Virtually the least-heralded of all Crimson cold weather teams, Jack Barnaby's squashmen have claimed nothing this winter but have delivered everything in the way of intercollegiate success. With but three more matches to hurdle before the close of the '47-'48 season, the Crimson racquet squad could easily wind up with one of their most impressive campaigns to date. Wins have already been garnered over Dartmouth and Williams, but the real surprise came when the team returned from its recent invasion of Canada with ringing triumphs over McGill and Toronto, teams featuring some of the hottest squash players anywhere.

The future spotlights matches with Yale and Princeton, who currently share the intercollegiate league lead with the Crimson, and, typical of Big Three battles, this promises to be a honey, as the eyes of squash fortune are also shining on the Bulldog and Tiger this year. Besides their regular intercollegiate play, the Varsity may enter the national championships in Boston at the end of February. Most important, however, are the intercollegiate singles championships at the start of March. The Crimson will probably enter its top trio in this competition which will bring together over 20 of the East's top racquet-swishing colleges.

Standout among this year's squashmen is Adam Foster, whose smart playing has sparked the team for two seasons. In number two spot is Bill Weight man, whose mother is the donor of the Wightman Cup in tennis. Other regulars are George Stevens, Milt Heath, and Lane McGovern, whom earlier this year Coach Barnaby described as the most improved of his men.

Saturday, Foster will journey to New York, together with the top men from Yale and Princeton, to compete in the annual Harry Cowles tournament, which attracts some of the highest-ranking squash players in the land. Cowles, often termed the "Babe Ruth of squash," was Barnaby's predecessor in the Crimson coaching berth.

While the college front has remained clear, the metropolitan league in which five Crimson teams participate in almost daily matches, has presented some problems. Here, the squash men are having their hands full with older, more experienced teams from such clubs as the Union Boat Club, University Club, and Harvard Club of Boston, which claims some of the sharpest players around the Hub. But standings here mean little to the Crimson, as court men repeat the old story; it's experience that counts.