But What's that Over the Hill?

Some of the swimmers think not, Tim Chetin points to this year's freshman swimmers, the type of swimmers Harvard will be getting in the future, as an example. He feels that Brumwell and Neville may well not be swimming by their junior year and adds that sophomore star and nationally-ranked freestyler Fred Mitchell came very close to quitting this year and has decided not to swim in the NCAA championships at West Point. "By the time they come to Harvard, most swimmers, like myself, have been swimming competitively for 10 years. You can get tired of anything in 10 years. When you come to Harvard another world begins to happen: academics, women, drugs, and you just can't let those other worlds go by without trying them."

I asked Tim Neville about it and he said he just wasn't sure about the future and swimming, but that he had not swum last summer, just to get the feel of it after continuos competitive swimming since before he was eight. "I know I didn't come to Harvard primarily to swim and I know swimming has to end soon--one can't swim for a career." Associate Director of Athletics Baron Pittenger concurs. "No one is going to get a Harvard team doing the 12,0000 yards a day necessary to win the national championship."

EVERYONE AGREES that by next year Harvard should be the best team in the East and some people feel that Gambril and Harvard will be among the top five in the nation in five years. They base the prediction on the type of program and tradition that Yale had and Stanford has. Such a program would be characterized by:

a) A big-name coach. Don Gambril.

b) The top swimmers swimming towards the Olympics as a goal to keep them going. Rich Baughman would be far out to win a gold medal in 1976, and for practice he's working towards the Olympic trials this summer.

d) A tradition of campus prestige and pride. Some point to the hockey team.

e) A feeling of solidarity and oneness on the team, swimming becoming something worth sacrificing for. The example given over and over again is Harry Parker and his world class crews. "I expect my swimmers to make social, but never academic sacrifices."--Don Gambril.

f) A 50-meter swimming pool and natatorium. The architectural and planning studies have already been done and alumni are willing to give for athletic facilities.

g) National publicity. Witness the Sports Illustrated feature, which Gambril felt was a great boost to his program.

h) A top-flight schedule. This year Gambril was noticeably chagrined at having to swim such teams as Brown and Springfield: in my interview with him he referred to the two schools as "practice opponents." The problem with an upgrading of the schedule is not lack of willing opponents but lack of money. All Harvard sports budgets are being squeezed in an attempt to maintain all the programs. Traveling budgets have been slashed and teams have been required to make long same-day bus trips. But some money has already been flowing in and Gambril hopes to get a strong "Friends of Harvard Swimming" started in order to finance at least one major home-away intersectional meet a year. North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and national champion Indiana have all already offered to swim Harvard.

i) Increased alumni and student interest and support. Everyone loves a winner.

EVEN THOUGH THE sings may point to really big-time swimming at Harvard, no one can be really sure. Just as a national championship is conceivable in the next five years, so is Don Gambril becoming disgusted with the progress he is making and quitting for greener pastures. A number of the swimmers feel that ultimately Don Gambril's success or failure here will have nothing to do with his recruiting magic or his technical coaching skills but rather with his ability to listen and look with open mind and eyes at his swimmers and the environment they live in: to relate to them as people rather than as times on a chart, gold medals, and national rankings.

Drug use is one area where the gap is large. Gambril stated to me that he wouldn't allow a known and regular drug user to stay on the team: that it's illegal and a detriment to the team and Harvard. Yet the majority of the team, including some of his stars, at least occasionally smoke dope and a number are into or have been into considerably heavier trips. The upperclassmen report that Benn Merritt and Harold Miroff were beginning to grasp something of the context of drug use here and finding it less horrifying than they had feared. Don Gambril and Skip Kenney have a longer way to go. Kenney was talking to Rich Baughman after practice one day. Baughman having complained about being sore. Kenney began "If you have trouble with your joints..." at which point David Strauss chimed in "Roll them tighter." David's not sure they ever did get it.

The questions that the Harvard swimming program and its future raise are larger than itself, and ultimately they come down to the question of why intercollegiate athletics? Answers to that question from all sorts of sources are not hard to come by, but the swimmers themselves often aren't quite sure why they are competing. Tim Neville managed to express the feeling I was getting from a number of swimmers best. "I came to Harvard to experience as many things as I could, but of course one has got to compromise and rule some shit out. Swimming gives me a sense of being--a constant concrete thing in the buzz around here--and a person needs that."

The direction college swimming in general and Harvard in particular has chosen is definitely not designed to benefit the swimmers who just happened to be here and felt it might be a good time to swim competitively. The program is being pushed by ideas and people that have contributed much to the position our country is in today and Harvard's unique position in that country. Ideas and people expressed by such sentiments as "Beating Yale." "Building a 50-meter pool." "Going to the Olympics." "Having an undefeated season." "Breaking all our records every year." "Getting the best talent in the world." "Winning a national championship." "Obtaining the best available coach." "The challenge is to win."

At the end of my interview with former assistant coach, almost head coach, and now J.V. coach Benn Merritt he suddenly turned to me and said. "I'd like you to know this and I don't care whether or not you print it. My swimmers (the J.V. team) and I went skiing together last weekend. I've never known a finer group of guys and we had a great time together. I guess I've always believed that swimming ought to be fun."