Rough but Ready, Lights Open Today

In the last scene of the movie Animal House, a slightly crazed, yet imposing John Belushi leads his frat brothers on a rampage, yelling, "No prisoners!" There would be no sympathy, only total annihilation.

With this memorable scene in cinematic history etched in their minds, the Harvard varsity lights this week christened their new Schoenbrod boat and new season, which opens today on Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, with Belushi's battle cry.

For sure, the phrase conveys the destruction that the Harvard lights have destruction that the Harvard lights have wreaked on Eastern rowing by winning three straight sprint titles, although somehow Belushi is not the right symbol for a sleek, delicate racing shell knifing through the water.

Mark Smith, the lights' number six man, prefers the scene from Lawrence of Arabia when the Arabs defy the voice of reason and descend upon the Turks with Lawrence screaming, "No prisoners" as the precedent for the boat's name. The message, according to Smith, is that, "rationality will not get in the way of winning crew races."

Smith's philosophy seems to be as good as any for this year's crew, which faces Penn and Cornell this morning with only one returning member from last year's sprint titlist, junior Pasha Lakhdir in the seventh seat.

Reason would dictate caution in appraising the lights' chances, yet the fact that only one man has been to the sprints with the varsity has left first-year coach Peter Raymond with a determined group, especially the three senior oarsmen, stroke Jeff Brown, Smith and bowman Randy Vagelos, who had a superb week of seat racing.

"We have a lot of people who have worked a long time to get on the varsity," Smith said before leaving for Penn. "It's been a long time coming and we want to have a great boat."

"This is a very eager, hungry and hard working group," Raymond said last night. "They are very demanding of themselves and eager to see what they can do."

Animal Boathouse

The strength of this group is their size--several of the rowers could be heavyweights. As the image of Delta House and the Arabs indicate, their strength is not finesse, but they will not let their rough bladework get in their way either.

Raymond, who has worked all year on improving his oarsmen's technique, said, "It's rough and I suspect it always will be rough. But it's a strong crew and a very aggressive crew."

With that in mind and since Penn and Cornell are unknown quantities at this point in the season, the Crimson's strategy will be basically to row hard all the way. If Penn and Cornell follow suit by playing to Harvard's strength, the light should be able to wear down the other boats.

Smith said the crew was "anticipating that the race may come down to the final sprint," and that it was ready.

"No flourishes," is how Raymond summed up his strategy. There seems to be a little John Belushi in this crew after all.