Thinclads Look for Revenge: Face Yale, Princeton Today

And the man fell asleep. And he had a dream. He dreamt that he had grown very successful. His neighbors, even as they loved him, feared him. He always won.

But one day, a curse fell upon his house, and every member of his family, save one or two, fell ill. His family gradually got better, but as one member would recover, another got sick again. This sickness weakened him, as did the departure of some of his sons who as they grew older began to leave home.

His neighbors still loved him, but they were no longer afraid of him.

The Harvard track team hopes to bring an end to its two game losing streak--and its bad dreams--today as it faces Princeton and Yale in the Big Three Championships at 1 p.m. under the Bubble.

The Crimson is favored to win, but Coach Bill McCurdy rates the meet a toss-up between Harvard and Princeton.

The thinclads go into the meet after having lost twice in a row to Northeastern--the first time in McCurdy's memory that a Boston-area opponent had beaten a Crimson squad twice in the same season.

"If we don't win this meet, it will be a pretty dismal season for us," McCurdy said. "The meet is hard to figure because there are so many events up for grabs. In this sense, it sort of reminds me of the Northeastern meet."

The Tigers bring a 2-4 record to the meet. Last Saturday, Pennsylvania overwhelmed Princeton and Columbia, 105-40-3. In that meet, however, Tiger Chris Elliott ran his best mile ever in 4:09.3. McCurdy looks for a close race in the mile today between Elliott and Harvard's John Quirk.

Yale, with a 2-3-1 mark for the season, lost last Saturday to Cornell, 78-40. The Eli's strongman is Rich MacDonald, who is expected to give Harvard's Dewey Hickman a tough fight in the hurdles.

McCurdy feels the key Harvard competitor is Bob Clayton, who will be running in the 600 and 1000 yard runs, and the two-mile relay. Like many of his teammates. Clayton was plagued with bad luck and illness early in the season. In the 600, he will have to go it virtually alone as Nick Leone continues to suffer at the sidelines with an ankle injury.

The Big Three Championship is 20 years old this year, and is being staged at Harvard this year for the first time in its history. Harvard has won the championship 12 times compared to seven wins for Yale. The Tigers, who have yet to win in a Big Three meet, placed second to Harvard in the last two running