Unhappy Captain Left at Harvard While Track Team Tours England

While the Harvard-Yale track team competed against the Oxford-Cambridge squad yesterday in London, Harvard captain Walt Johnson was trying to track down his Soc Rel 120 section-man here in Cambridge.

Johnson has been the top hurdler for the Crimson this year, doing 14.4 in the 120-highs twice, but in last month's Yale meet he finished third, and generally only the top two finishers make the trip to England. Usually, the coaches of both teams get together before the Harvard-Yale meet to pick certain obvious choices, but this was not possible this Spring.

Johnson is particularly unhappy with the selections since the Yale track was under water the day of the meet. "I really didn't think my going to England would hinge on finishing first or second," Johnson said yesterday.

But the following Monday the list of those going to England appeared on the track bulletin board, and Johnson wasn't among the names. After the Heptagonals, he told Harvard coach Bill McCurdy that he thought the selection unfair, but McCurdy said that nothing could be done.

Sophomore Dewey Hickman went in Johnson's place since he was second behind Yale's Rich, Mac Donald in the high hurdles that day. Hickman had pulled a leg muscle on the Southern trip, so the Yale meet was the only one he competed in all season, finishing in 15.0 on the slow track.

Johnson said he had been looking forward to the England trip since his freshman year, when he was a long jumper. "This year I was really certain that I'd get to go," he said yesterday. "The day they left I was a lot more upset about not going than I thought I'd be."

Johnson said that high jumper Ed Baskauskas had also been slighted. He had beaten teammate Fred Lang five of six times this Spring, but lost to Lang at Yale and thus lost the chance to go to England.

Johnson plans to advise athletic director Robert Watson that in the future the squad be determined by a vote of the men on both teams. B. H. B.