Swimming's David Berkoff

It has been a big week for David Berkoff.

Friday, at the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, held at the University of Texas at Austin, the junior placed first in the 100-yd. backstroke, setting a host of personal bests in the process.

Berkoff is the first NCAA swimming champion from Harvard since 1961, when Bob Kaufmann, Alan Engleberg, Bill Zentgraf and Bruce Hunter combined to take the 400 freestyle relay. The last individual champion was Hunter, who finished on top in the 50 freestyle in 1960.

In all, Crimson swimmers have now claimed nine NCAA titles.

His winning time of 48.20 seconds is the second-fastest 100-yd. backstroke swim of all time. Had the Germantown, Penn., native swam the race one day earlier, it would have been an American record, but Stanford's Jay Mortensen set the new mark of 47.91 in his leg of the 400 medley relay.

In the actual backstroke race, however, Mortensen finished almost one half-second behind Berkoff, who eclipsed his previous school record by more than two-tenths of a second.

The race gave Berkoff sweet revenge in another way as well. Princeton's Richard Hughes, who defeated Berkoff in the race at the Eastern Championships last month by a mere. 04 seconds, managed only a third-place showing behind the Harvard and Stanford swimmers.

Berkoff had a hand in all of Harvard's points in the three-day meet. In addition to his victory, the Eliot House resident took eighth place in the 200 backstroke and was on the Crimson's 400 freestyle relay team that snagged 16th overall.

Berkoff will take a leave of absence from Harvard sometime next year, as he attempts to earn a spot on the United States Olympic Team journeying to Seoul, South Korea, in September of 1988.

If the quest is successful, he will be the first Harvard swimmer to compete in the Olympics since Bobby Hackett, who in the 1976 Montreal Games won a silver medal in the 1500-meter freestyle.

For becoming Harvard's first NCAA swimming champion in 26 years, David Berkoff earns this week's spotlight.

Spotlight appears every Tuesday in The Crimson.