Basketball Team's Cheerleaders Too Busy to Perform This Year

The basketball team is finally ready to make a run for the Ivy League title this year, but the cheerleaders have disappeared.

Dale Dover, captain of the team and one of those who helped organize the cheerleaders last winter, said yesterday that the girls were busier this year and apparently didn't have the time to practice and perform. "It just never got going," he said.

"The only way it would get started," he went on, "is if we had some initiative from Radcliffe. I've heard that there are girls at the 'Cliffe who really groove on cheering."

Dover suggested two years ago that cheerleaders might be a good idea, and last winter captain Ernest Hardy decided to try to start a group. Six team members went up to Radcliffe to recruit and had little trouble finding ten girls who were willing. "They sort of thought we were kidding around at first, but then they said, 'Okay, fine,'" Dover said.

Extra Fans

He claimed that the cheerleaders helped the team a great deal, despite the Crimson's 7-19 record, and attracted extra fans to the IAB, which seats only 1400.

In fact, the only Ivy League game Harvard won last year came over Brown when the cheerleaders traveled to Providence. They did not go to any other schools. If a group were to form this year. Dover is sure it would make the Yale-Brown bus trip.

Barbara Nabrit, who led the group last winter, could not be reached for comment.