Crimson Squads Out of the Running in NCAA's

It was one of those weekends which are becoming increasingly infrequent in the sports world. Everyone that was supposed to win did. Delta State took its third straight women's basketball championship, Johnny Petraglia won his tenth pro bowling title. Seattle Slew won his fifth consecutive stakes race and the University of Southern California won the NCAA swimming crown.

The Southern California Trojans, led by Olympic star John Naber and teammate Joe Bottom, racked up an impressive total of 385 points, far out-distancing runner-up Alabama. Harvard placed 26th with seven points, six points above the only other Ivy representative, Princeton.

The Harvard point total came from one source: Tom Wolf. The Crimson backstroker finished seventh in the 200-yard competition with a time of 1:49.75. Wolf grabbed seventh place by winning the consolation heat after Naber and five other swimmers determined the first half-dozen places.

USC completely dominated the championships, winning eight of the 16 titles on its way to capturing its fourth straight NCAA crown.

In the 16 events, 12 American, four United States open and 17 NCAA records were broken.

Individually, Naber set two NCAA marks when he won the 100-yard backstroke for the fourth consecutive year and when he took his tenth individual title in NCAA competition.

As for the Crimson, merely competing among the 654 participants was a thrill. The meet at Cleveland State capped a brilliant season, one in which Harvard beat much-hated Yale in the regular-season dual meet and in the Eastern seaboard championships.

Coaches Peter Orscheidt and John Walker and the members of the Harvard swimming team all have a right to feel very proud of themselves.

And who knows what will happen in the future? One school can't win forever, a fact Walker learned when he swam at Indiana, which dominated college swimming in the Mark Spitz era just as USC has done in recent years.