The Unsung Hero of Heptagonals

You only need to remember one name from last weekend's Indoor Heptagonal Games, and you can forget about all the big names.

Forget about Harvard's Cliff Sheehan, who won the 1500 meters in 3:44.62 (a new meet record) and kicked the Crimson to victory in the distance medley relay.

Forget about Todd Presley, the Cornell 400 man who won that event in 48.43 seconds and was the gutsy anchorman of the winning 4x400 relay squad.

Forget about Army's Pamela Pearson, named the meet's Outstanding Female Athlete for her wins in the long jumps and triple jump and third place finish in the 200 meters.

Forget, even, about Navy's Mike Greene, who ran a 46.9 second 400 meters anchoring the Midshipmen's mile relay squad, and came within a half-second of the American record in the 500 meters. He was only named Outstanding Male Athlete.

No, if you're looking for hero of last weekend's Heps, the name to remember is Charles Forlidas.

Forlidas. Sound familiar? It shouldn't.

Forlidas is a freshman at Princeton. He didn't have a great weekend at Heps, finishing in a four-way tie for fourth place in Saturday's high jumps competition.

But if track kept a meet-winning-point stat, Forlidas would have received it for his Heps effort. He quietly gave the Tigers the three-fourths of a point they needed to sneak away with the Heps and Ivy indoor titles.

Saturday night, everyone considered Harvard Co-Captain Doug Boyd the hero of the high jumps, as he had won the competition with his first seven-ft. jump of the indoor season.

But as the meet resumed on Sunday, it became clear that the Crimson wasn't going to finish among the team leaders. So Boyd's jump--while it remained a fantastic individual performance--became irrelevant in determining the eventual team winner.

Cornell was among the leaders, though, so the dynamic Big Red duo of Steve Kuntz and Tim Trible took over the hero-of-the-high-jump spot. Kuntz and Trible had finished two-three in the competition, earning 14 points for Cornell.

"The key in Heps is to have depth in the finals," Harvard women's Co-Captain Yamilee Bermingham said after the meet. Kuntz and Trible had provided Cornell with that depth, and the Redmen seemed to have the key that would let them into the winner's circle.

And people had forgotten about the rest of the high jump field. There was Boyd's winning individual effort, and the Cornell duo's key team effort, and....

Something like four guys tied for fourth. Chris Sullivan and Rob Gustafson of Harvard, Scott Strine of Army and Forlidas of Princeton had all successfully jumped 1.98 meters and missed at 2.05 meters.

In the high jump, such a tie is broken by counting up the competitors' misses. Whoever had the least misses at previous heights wins.

But none of the four had missed any of his earlier jumps. So the tie could not be broken, and the fourth, fifth and sixth place points were combined (for a total of seven points) and divided equally among the four tied for fourth.

Out of the ordinary, but pretty trivial.

Usually, that is.

Because as the meet drew to a close, Cornell and Princeton were close. Real close. And this was no ordinary meet. This was Heps--the indoor track championship meet.

When meet officials huddled and announced the scores at the end of the the competition, the Tigers had edged out Cornell 96.75 to 96.

But no one knew where Princeton's .75 had come from. Until they looked back to the first event of the meet--Saturday's high jump. And until they looked all the way down to fourth place.

There they found four jumpers, all tied and each given 1.75 points. And one was from Princeton.

Charles Forlidas.

The Harvard men's squad began competing in the New England Championships at MIT yesterday. Many who qualified for the meet aren't running, saving themselves for next weekend's IC4A championships at Princeton.

Those who've decided to make the trip down Mass Ave. are James Rusell (weights), James Umlas (800 meters), Doug Boyd and Chris Sullivan (both high jump). The Crimson is also sending distance medley-and two-mile relay teams.