Illness Drops Key Men From '62 Squash Team

As squash coach Jack Barnaby said last night, "We've had our head chopped off." First the team lost its captain and possible number one or two man, Roger Wiegand, to an attack of mononucleosis diagnosed last week. Then Hampy Howell, who played number two on last year's team and was a prime candidate for the top spot this winter, came down with the same disease.

Wiegand and Howell were the only returning players out of last year's top four and the squash team will be hard put to replace them. Nevertheless, the loss does not totally deprive the Crimson of potential number one men: it only reduces their number from six to four.

Barnaby can still can on Doug Walter, Paul Sullivan, Lou Williams, of Vic Niederhoffer. He hopes to raise all four to the point where Harvard can challenge Yale's once-in-a-decade team "at the top, as well as the bottom of the ladder."

The challenge will be a difficult one, for Yale has every member but one of the team which won the Intercollegiate championship last winter. In Ralph Howe, Bob Hetherington, and George West, Yale certainly has three of the best five players in college squash today, and possibly three of the best three. No team other that Harvard, with the possible exception of Princeton, can hope to top the Blue.

But Yale is still a long way away. The Crimson's season will open officially on Dec. 3, in a home, non-league match against McGill. The first league match will be at West Point six days later, against a team which the Crimson defeated last year and has lost a lot of men to boot. Cadet varsities, however, are always in extremely good physical condition, and the contest could be a suprise.