Diver Bill Murphy Battles Himself

Eternal pressure and constant practice. That's what it means to be the best. Bill Murphy is the best.

Last year, as a sophomore, Murphy won the Eastern Seaboard three-meter diving championship. During the regular season he lost only three of ten meets. So far this year he is undefeated.

Divers dream of beating Bill Murphy, yet there are few in the league who have a chance. It makes for an odd situation to win so young and so well. You are expected to win all the time. When you lose it's an upset; when you win it's routine.

Murphy knows this. He knows how hard it is to get up for the easy meets. He knows the negative pressure of trying to maintain a record, trying to avoid defeat.

Yet this year Murphy has turned the negative pressure around. He seems to have the ability to set goals for himself. Against Springfield, perhaps the weakest team Harvard has faced this season, he piled up an amazing 331 points.

His near-perfect dives of 2.7 and 2.8 difficulty far out-distanced the opposition, but Murphy wasn't worried about the opposition. He was competing with himself.

There will be some tough meets for Murphy this year. Cornell and Princeton always provide stiff competition. Yet up there on the three-meter board, even against Princeton and Cornell. Bill Murphy will be competing against himself. That's why he will win. That's what it's like to be the champion.

Between Murphy and Bill Shrout, a senior freestyler, Harvard is sure of four firsts in almost every meet except Yale, where Don Schollander overshadows everybody. So far this year the combination has been good enough to help the team to a 4-1 record. In the only loss so far, to Army, the duo provided its usual four wins; but the Cadet reserves piled up the seconds and thirds and pulled out the meet.

The team has yet to face the roughest part of its schedule. Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth all finished above the Crimson last year and are more powerful than ever. Next Saturday Harvard hosts Penn in a 3 p.m. meet in the IAB.

And that's the way it is when you're the champion. Lew Alcindor knows it; so does Vince Lombardi. And so, in his own league, does Bill Murphy.