Gymnasts Hold 1st Meet Ever

In 350 years of doing almost everything else, Harvard men and women had somehow neglected to hold a gymnastics meet.

That situation was remedied Saturday in the sweaty confines of Northeastern's Cabot Gymnasium, when the Crimson men's gymnastics club swung past the Huskies, 68.45 to 51.1.

Led by club president Todd Morrison, who captured the all-around competition, Ken Mendez, Sigurd Wilbanks and Peter Schweinforth, the gymnasts swept every event.

The women's squad, unable to compete when Northeastern could find no women willing to face the Crimson, nonetheless "performed admirably," Morrison said, in their first public exhibition. Anne Harrington, Marcia Hyslop, Virginia Santos-Newman, Lynn Toler and Shelley Taylor "were in front of real judges, with real scores, and they did really well," Morrison said.

The gymnasts return today to a 20 by 50 foot room in Hemenway Gym to start practicing again, an eye cocked toward a tri-meet of Boston area teams and the Ivy championship competition later this spring.

Continuity

But they are also looking farther to the future. "There's always been a lack of continuity in the past. That's what stopped every other effort to set up a team. With no seniors, two juniors and the rest freshmen and sophomores, we hope we can get it going," Morrison said.

Morrison, for one, is obviously serious about Harvard gymnastics. "With any luck I can go to graduate school here and stick around to coach," he said.