Cruelest Month-November

"Look around...leaves are brown..and the sky is a hazy shade of winter." --Simon and Garfunkel

If dismalness were a saleable commodity, November would have cornered the market. Season of chill winds, bleak landscapes, barren fields and patches of muc spattered snow, it's time for the sporting world to move indoors.

Soon Soldiers Field will stand abandoned as the last of the outdoor athletes migrate to warmer spheres. Some of the lucky will fly to Florida or Puerto Rico for spring training. For the rest of us, we must confine our sweat and adrenaline to the raftered halls of the I.A.B., the I.T.T., or Blodgett Pool, names that conjure up images of corporate investment firms instead of lush green Elysian fields.

The women harriers will undergo a similar transfer. With last cross country race behind them (last week's bid for the national title in Seattle), the fleet footed field runners take up their new residence in the indoor track building.

The new surface, new events, and a whole group of new faces should combine for some surprises this season. Like last year, the harriers look very strong and very deep in the middle-distance and distance events. Despite several losses to graduation, Harvard will still have a veritable surplus of good distance women.

Four of the Seattle seven (Darlene Beckford, Kristen Linsley, Martha Clabby, and Becky Rogers) will reunite as last year's national record-setting 2-mile relay team. The versatile Beckford may be running anything from the 440 to the two-mile event, if not all of them. The sophomore set the national indoor college mile record last year. Junior Mary Hurlihy, who ran sub-five minute miles in high school, looks equally strong this year. A Beckford Hurlihy combination could produce a tough one-two punch in the mile.

Familar harriers Wiley McCarthy and Anita Diaz should have no trouble adjusting to their two-mile events, while Linsley and Ellen Gallagher have actually just been warming up all cross-country season for their real event, the 1500 meters. Linsley, last year's New England collegiate 1500 meter champion, should do even better this year after a fine cross country season.

To these regulars add a whole herd of unknowns--the freshmen: Eva Anderson, Grace deFries, Lindy Yeager, Ann Holtzworth, Liz Heneghan, and Kristy Cooper, just to name a few.

The only foreseeable problem this season will be, once again, the sprints and field events. Here, the harriers lack depth badly, and unfortunately this year's crop of freshmen are also distance-women.

With the loss of Harvard's top sprinter, Sue Harper, the burden now rests on the shoulders of three seniors: Karen Blount, Leslie Simms, and Cecile Scoon. In the hurdles, Karen Gray will have to constitute a one-woman effort for the harriers, a lonely and impossible task for the returning sophomore.

The field events look a little brighter. Freshman Beth Cooley could fill a void in the shot put if her dislocated shoulder recovers in time. The duo of Lenny Yajima and Karen Ueda should be potent in the long jump, and junior Liane Rozzell returns to her aerial escapades in the high jump.

Of course, it's all speculation at this point. The real situation will begin to unfold as the harriers take on the University of New Hampshire December 6 in the I.T.T.