STRONG SQUASH SQUAD LACKS STARS AT OPENING OF SEASON

With athletics forced indoors for the winter season, squash, the sport in which Harvard holds the highest intercollegiate and national rankings of any college, is at the threshold of an active season.

Although there is no individual star to follow in the steps of the thirteen national championship winners which ex-coach Harry Cowles produced at Harvard during the 18 years since 1922, "a solid team with a lot of fighting spirit" is the classification in which Coach Jack Barnaby places the 1941 aggregation.

With only four lettermen returning from last year's team, the responsibility for the success of the coming campaign lies mainly with a large number of unseasoned players. Among those lost through graduation is Kim Canavarro, last season's captain and present national intercollegiate champion.

Four Returning Lettermen

The four "H" men returning to the lineup are Captain Don Marvin, number five against Yale last year, Dave De Kruif, who ranked sixth against Yale, "Sonny" Lyell, captain of the tennis team who played in the number eight slot against the Elis last winter, and Orme Wilson, ranking number nine a year ago.

In addition to these more-experienced players, Coach Barnaby has a squad of about thirty including a dozen untried members with noteworthy possibilities. Among the Seniors are are Gene Nickerson, the squad's only southpaw, who specializies in drop shots and lobs and who made a rapid advance from the "C" to the "A" team last year, and John Glidden, who held the number nine spot against Yale two years ago but was beaten out last season.

Promising Juniors include Harry Baker, captain of his Freshman team, Doug Cochrane, and Bill Farthingham. From the 1943 Yardling powerhouse which captured the state's "C" league crown and swamped Yale 4 to 1, comes Captain Sandy Parker, Decker Orr, Gaelen Felt, George Clay, and Dudley Palmer.

Gruelling Schedule

As usual, Jack Barnaby's charges undergo a varied and gruelling schodule with local clubs, other colleges, and tournaments. The clubs are divided in to three leagues, into each of which Harvard enters a team. Membership on those five men teams may be varied each week. In the first two matches of the season Harvard's "A" squad was downed by the Harvard Club of Boston, 3 to 2, and by the Tennyson Racquet Club, 4 to 1.

The intercollegiate matches open with a trip to Dartmouth on December 14 and will include meets with Penn, Princeton, M.I.T., and Yale. Plans are also being made to add Williams and Amherst to the schedule.

Last year the star-studded Crimson squad defeated both Princeton and Dartmouth. Yale's 6 to 3 triumph balanced Harvard's victory of the year before by the same score.

Since 1932 Harvard has won the National intercollegiate Championship six out of nine times. Princeton has captured the title twice and Penn once. Yale has as yet failed to scale the heights, while Dartmouth is rapidly gaining prominence under a new coach "Red" Hoehn.

Harvard's opponents this season appear prepared to make the going tough for the Crimson with Princeton presenting an especially dangerous outfit. Coach Barnaby summed up Harvard's situation stating, This is the most potential squad we have ever had, but we have no ready-made star."

In the Freshman department it is still too early to make any predictions. Coach Dick Dorson, captain of Harvard's 1937 aggregation, has had a large turnout of inexperienced players.