SPORTS of the CRIMSON

On Friday evening at 8.30 o'clock Hal Ulen will be finding out a lot about the greatest unknown quantity on his Varsity swimming squad--the group of 15 Sophomores who constitute a large part of the squad's reserve element, and who, in some cases, will be holding down first-rate positions in the line-up. The occasion will be the annual Alumni vs. Varsity meet, a contest always fraught with thrills.

The Alumni meets have been of the 'thrilling' type because not only do they afford the season's first test of a usually green Varsity, but because they present the unusual and sometimes pathetic spectacle of some of Harvard's all-time aquatic here, Charlie Hutter, will take time off from his Medical School studies to compete in the sprint events, while his perpetual Alumni-meet rival, George "24-second" Scott, plans to thrash out a mighty 50 yards. Rusty Greenhood, last year's captain and League champion diver, will team with Bun Merriam, another former Crimson star, to features the strongest Alumni springboard pair in many years.

Many Surprises

There will be other graduate performers present as well, but their names can rarely be predicted in advance since business, wives, and other ties make heavy inroads on the veterans' time. Some of them come to the meet as the result of a last minute impulse; in fact, it was only last year that Don McKay '38, redheaded sprint man, was drafted from the pool balcony where he had been content as a spectator and a n escort.

Unexpected occurrences seem to be in order at this particular type of meet. At a recent Alumni vs. Ulen affair the last event on the program was a 200-yard relay, consisting of four men on a team, each swimming 50 yards. The worthy Ulen had been fostering secret hopes of perhaps snatching an American record for the distance, since the event was to be swum only once during the season. Gentlemen such as Messrs. Hutter, Kendall, Barker, and McKay were then Hal's disciples--a potent enough aggregation for any sprint record.

The Coach Is Foiled

But when the time came to toe the mark, the Alumni found, alas, that they did not have in their number four men capable of swimming two tortuous laps, Accordingly, so that no alumnus would return to his wife or graduate school or employer too fatigued for his own good, the Alumni fielded a relay team of eight men, each of whom swam a Tollicking one-lap race. Several divers and a breast stroker seem to have found their way into the line-up. Ulen's boys won the event, nevertheless, and in record time. but of course no record is valid under such bizarre conditions of competition.

While Ulen's oldsters will be cavorting though their assignments, Unless youngsters, the Sophomores, will be straining every nerve to make good is their first Varsity meet