Rugby Club Plans Vacation Trip With Three Games in St. Louis

(Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of pre-season summaries of the outlook for Crimson spring sports teams.)

Taking its first spring trip since the ill-fated, "ungentlemanly" mission to Bermuda two years ago, the Harvard Rugby Club will travel to St. Louis for a series of three games with members of the Missouri Rugby Football Union this vacation.

New enthusiasm for the sport in that part of the country, together with a considerable amount of advance notice in the St. Louis news media announcing the Crimson's visit, point toward a week of frenetic activity for Harvard. The fifteen faces St. Louis University on Apr. 3, Washington University on Apr. 5, and Notre Dame on Apr. 7, all games to be staged on the Forest Park playing grounds in St. Louis.

The trip will mark the Crimson's first activity since last fall's encouraging 7-2 season. The journey to England that had been planned for Christmas vacation had to be called off at the last minute because of a lack of funds.

As for this spring's fifteen. "We have many welcome additions from the football team, and for that reason, we should play a much meaner and faster brand of rugby than we did last fall," team secretary Lee Freemen remarked yesterday, looking over the prospects with captain John Van-Schalkwyk and treasurer Keith Julian.

Footballers Join Team

Coming to the team from the football ranks are Jim Beery, Ted Halaby, Ron Juvonen, Jeff Pochop, Chuck Reed, Gene Skowronski, and Bob Stringer. They will join John Damis, Ed Smith, and Jim Reark, football players who have played rugby before, to round out the gridiron support on this spring's team.

With the football players and the experienced team executives, the following should carry the bulk of the load this spring, according to informed sources. Forwards: Mike Auer, Lyle Micheli, and Tom Robinson. Backs: Dick Baker, Jim Brooke, John Hutchinson, Micky Morgan, Ian Pasley-Tyler, Charlie Rowe, Al Rutan, and Ray Waitkins.

In all, there are 45 candidates out for this spring's team, scheduled to play in the "B" League of the Eastern Rugby Union. The schedule includes games in Cambridge with Williams on Apr. 14, the Boston Rugby Club on Apr. 18, Villanova on Apr. 21, the Montreal Barbarians on Apr. 28, and M.I.T. on May 2.

On May 5, the Crimson meets Yale at Myopia in a special benefit game sponsored by the local Harvard and Yale Clubs. And on May 11, Harvard travels to Hanover to play Dartmouth on Green Key weekend. The Crimson also plans to play California, which is coming East this spring. The date and time of the meeting have not been determined.

Working out in Briggs Cage three times per week the past month, the fifteen has missed the services of Buzz Miller, Dave McGugan, and Fred Winthrop, all of whom left school this term.

But if the team blossoms into a winner, as is expected, and gains the "B" League title, it should earn back its placement in the "A" League and once again compete regularly with Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, New York, and Brown. Harvard was moved into the "B" League last year by the E.R.U. scheduling committee.