Track Team Cancels Southern Trip

The Harvard track team, which in past years has gone South for warm weather training during Spring break, will not be making the trip this year due to interrelated injury and money considerations.

"We have conducted a Spring trip pretty regularly for 10 or 12 years now," head coach Bill McCurdy said yesterday. "But this year is not a standard run-of-the-mill year.

"There is still a pretty good argument for it, because it is more difficult to train here as opposed to being in warm weather on an outdoor track," he said, "but we thought it was the reasonable thing to do considering our injuries and the money involved." The Friends of Harvard Track have donated the funds for past trips.

An opportunity to train in Cambridge will be afforded those team members who have the time. McCurdy said, but a glance at the medical status of the squad leaves even this open to doubt.

Bob Clayton, a third-place finisher in the IC4A half-mile, stepped in a hole and sprained his ankle. The sprain was so severe that Clayton's leg was placed in a cast which was not removed until last Friday. He is still on crutches, and when he will be able to run again is anybody's guess.

The Crimson's top miller, John Quirk, has contracted a serious case of mononucleosis, and his status, according to McCurdy, is "questionable" at best. Mark Connolly, the number-two miler, broke his foot at the IC4A's.

Leone Sharp, the number-one long jump and triple jumper, is "out indefinitely" and on crutches after wrenching his knee during a pick-up basketball game, while quarter-miler Nick Leone, whom McCurdy termed a "blue-chip" runner, has not been available all year.

"I'm sick and tired of injuries, but I'm not dragging out the crying towel," McCurdy said after running down the long list of disabled and maimed. "Our problems this Spring are related to how many people we have healthy, rather than the lack of a Spring trip," he said. "It all depends on how soon we can use the sick and the injured."