The Rise of Harvard Swimming

February 1970: The Harvard swim team, 3-8 for the season, coasts to a sixth place finish in the Eastern Championships, its best showing since 1966.

February 1980: The Easterns are a coronation, not a contest. The Crimson scores 506 points, 45 more than any squad has ever ammassed before and 106 ahead of second place Princeton.

In ten years Harvard has moved from the obscurity of Ivy League mediocrity to the prime-time of national swimming. Once flickers on a television screen swimming in some unreachable other league, teams like Florida, UCLA and Tennessee come to Cambridge this weekend to face a team that is not just host, but competition, too.

It has been no steady climb, no gradual evolution. The Crimson has moved in spurts, seeing five coaches in a decade, with only the last one achieving what the others sought. There was the brilliant 1973 season, with a 16th place finish in the NCAA s; there was the 1974 NCAA fiasco, when Harvard was disqualified for an entry card foul-up.

And then there was--and is--Joe Bernal. The New Yorker came north in April 1977 to take over as coach and stayed to build a winner. As he said before the start of this year's campaign, "We are witnessing the creation of the Harvard swimming dynasty of the 1980s."

The primary instigator of that "creation" took the same route as Bernal. Following his coach from Fordham Prep in the Bronx, Bobby Hackett came to Harvard in 1977 toting a little more than the usual college freshman paraphenalia--a silver medal from the Montreal Olympics.

While the Harvard swimming story needs much more than Bobby Hackett for an accurate rendition, his arrival began public recognition of the Crimson as a bona-fide national contender. True, Bernal had plenty on which to build. Coach Pete Orscheidt's last batch of recruits-- this year's juniors--people like Mike Coglin and Geoff Seelen--have performed consistantly for three years, and each season Bernal has brought more. Lots more. The new era in Harvard swimming began officially when cushy Blodgett Pool opened Feb. 4, 1978, replacing something called the "Indoor Atheletic Building," an architectual dinosaur still standing on Holyoke St. Harvard made an auspicious debut, sliding by arch-rival Princeton, 58-55. Year One of the Bernal reign, 1978, saw the Crimson take 15th in the nationals. Last year it was 13th.

Unlike many Ivy League coaches Bernal had no doubts about his goals; there is a lot of talk in Ivies, especially at Harvard, about only wanting to be "competitive," and achieving "parity." None of that for Bernal. He says repeatedly that a first-rate academic program and a first-rate athletic program need not be mutually exclusive. "When there's a sport where we can compete with a team like Indiana, we should swim them," Bernal says, "We're not sacrificing anything to be competitive with them."

Funny he should mention Indiana. One week after the Crimson's consecutive dual meet streak was snapped at 28 by a shaved Princeton squad, Doc Counsilman's vaunted charges, ranked fifth in the nation rode into town. The Hoosiers departed chastened 67-46 losers, and Exhibit A in Harvard's case of national prominence.

What Bernal means is that he insists swimmers stay in touch with their studies as well as their strokes. "Before they come to Harvard, they have the basic intelligence and basic skills. All our swimmers have had this kind of training discipline and have still accomplished the academic discipline that allowed them to get into Harvard," he says.

All that neat philosophy would be rendered mute without recruiting, and Bernal hasrecruitedwith enormous success. Having established the Harvard name in swimming, the task should be easier in years to come. The group that arrived in 1978, sophomores this year, featured Ron Raikula, who, with last year's experience in the nationals behind him, figures to make himself heard in the 400-yd. individual medley and the 200-yd. back stroke.

The freshmen have surpassed all expectations. Among the highlights are Larry Countryman, the long-distance freestyler in this weekend's 1650-yd. race (who Bernal sees as "stepping into Bobby Hackett's shoes when Bobby leaves"), Ted Chappell, in the 400-yd. I. M., Jim Carbone going in the 200-yd. breaststroke, and Tom Verdin, whose stunning performance in the Easterns gave his a spot in the 200-yd. individual medley.

And there is David Lundberg, a Provo, Utah, native and a recruit of Hackett-like proportions. Lundberg will swim in three individual events, the 200-yd. breaststroke, the 200- and 400-yd. individual medleys, and Bernal says he "has the potential to score in all three."

Most of all Harvard needs points from its relays for success this weekend. Bernal says simply, "The key is our relays." The medley team has been posting times good for between fifth and eighth in the nation, and figures to score at least that high. The 400-yd. freestyle quartet barely lost to Princeton in the Easterns, as did the 800-yd. free team.

Add three reliable Hackett performances (500-, 200-, and 1650-yd. freestyles) to the freshmen and the relays, an improvement on last year's 13th place seems possible if not likely. Asked about top-ten possibilities, Bernal chuckles and blurts, "I'm an optimistic guy but that's a very enthusiastic goal," But he knows the potential of home-team crowds, national television and adrenaline surging through Harvard swimmers like an electric shock through Blodgett's current. Bernal allows: "I don't think it's impossible." And you can almost feel him smile. Harvard Qualifiers Name  Event Bobby Hackett  200, 500, 1650 Free David Lundberg  200 Breast, 200, 400 I. M. Larry Countryman  1650 Free Ted Chappell  400 I. M. Tom Verdin  200 I. M. Jim Carbone  200 Breast Geoff Seelen  100 Back Ron Raikula  200 Back, 400 I. M. Steve Schramm  1- and 3-meter Diving Seelen, Lundberg, Jack Gauthier, Hackett  400 Medley Relay Hackett and three others  800 Free Relay Coglin, Gauthier, Hackett, Lundberg  400 Free Relay