Dyer Leads Swimmers to 5th in NCAA

Captain Chouteau Dyer took the 100- yd. freestyle and led the Crimson to an unexpected fifth place in the NCAA Swimming Championships held at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the last weekend in March.

But the wonderful one-horse (Tim Jecko) shay from New Haven ended up giving the team trophy to an aggressive and well marshalled Michigan. Yale was hurt badly by the absence of freestyler Roger Anderson, who was out with mononucleosus, and by the failure of David Armstrong to qualify in the 100-yd. freestyle.

The Crimson scored 27 points, behind Michigan (69), Yale (61), Michigan State (52), and Indiana (48). The varsity beat a slightly favored North Carolina team by three points and finished four points ahead of seventh place Oklahoma.

In addition to the 100-freestyle, Dyer finished second to Bob Keiter of Amherst by two knuckles of a finger length in the finals of the 50-yard freestyle, which was so close that the judges took more than five minutes to decide.

Keiter's time, for an NCAA Championship meet record, was a blistering 22.1--only two tenths of a second off the American record and one tenth better than Dyer's best time of 22.2. Dyer was clocked at 22.4, but the timer's margin was not visible at the finish.

In the 100, however, there was little doubt about the winner. Dyer went out very fast and the rest of the field was swimming around his knees for the first 60-70 yards. The Crimson captain then held out against his opponents' closing sprints to win by a head. Olympic freestyler Dick Hanley of Michigan finished second, but was disqualified for missing a turn.

John Hammond finished fifth in the finals of the 100-yard butterfly in 56.4. Hammond's qualifying time was only a tenth of a second slower than that of Yale's Tim Jecko, who set a meet record in the finals with a 54.6.

With victories in the individual medley and 200-yard fly (another meet mark), Jecko became the first man since the late John Marshall in 1951 to win three championships.

Crimson diver Frank Gorman showed his lack of experience badly when he sneaked into the final round of the one-meter dive with 190.75. Although Gorman scored well in the semi-final round, faulty diving in the first round and one bad dive in the final round of four optional dives kept him out of the scoring.

Similarly erratic off the three-meter board, the varsity's only entrant in the dive went into the final round in fourth position but spoiled one dive and marred another to finish sixth.

The Crimson's remaining points were scored in the medley and freestyle relays, where the varsity took fifth and third respectively.

In the 400-yard medley, Bill Murray, Sigo Falk, John Hammond, and Dick Seaton finished ahead of the University of North Carolina in 3:56.3. Michigan tied with Michigan State for the first place which accomplished the astonishing upset of Yale