The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-07-02

of oars between the Blue and Grim
son, which will be fought out tomor-
row on the Thames. A great crowd
is expected tonight and tomorrow
morning, but it is not likely that the
attendance records will be broken,
as it is generally admitted that neither
crew is to up the standard of past years.
The aquatic stars of both universities
engaged in final practice today and
are now resting on their oars in eager
anticipation of the "do or die" struggle
of the morrow.
Crimson rooters here today are man
ifesting greater confidence than for sew
eral seasons past, although they recog
nize full well that it was over-con-
idence, more than anything else, that
cost Harvard defeat at Lake Cayuga
on May 81 Yale is generally regarded
by Harvard men as having better
varsity eight than Coach Kennedy was
able to put into the water last year,
but they feel nevertheless, that if Har-
ward varsity rows the race it is cap
able of, the Crimson will again score
a win in the varsity event.
1t is set down for certainty this
year that the race will not be rec
ordb breaker. The fact that it is to be
rowed up stream makes this impos-
sible for no four miles rowed against
the current of the River Thames can
cut down the 20 minutes, 10 seconds
made by Stevenson's Yale crew in
1888, which has stood just 81 years as
,.he official figures in competition for
the distance
That the race is to be rowed up
stream is taken as favorable for the
husky Yale eight, which ought to be
capable of pushing the shell four miles
against the current to the best advan-
tage of any Yale crew in years.
Logically, or rather chronologically
this is Yale's year. In 1891 a long
series of Yale victories was broken
when Harvard won easily In 1899
Harvard won again and four years
ago Harvard was victor, when Noyes,
No. 6 of the Yale shell, collapsed in
the last mile. Last year Harvard's
victory left it for Yale to pick up the
shreds of tradition and win this sea.
son. No time made in practice, how
ever, yet warrants the prediction that
Yale will perform the feat.
The Harvard freshmen have shown
nothing to indicate that the crew will
have any walkover when it meets the
Yale youngsters. The crew is heavy
enough, but the men are not all of
enough there. are but two Boston boys
in the board VINO had previously had
the benefit of schoolboy rowing on
the Charles river Some of the fresh
men promise to make valuable war
sity timber later, but at present their
development is not complete.
Harvard's varsity four-oared is a
good crew. 1t is relatively better
boat than either the varsity eight or
the freshmen, and it requires no over
abundance of college enthusiasm to
pick the Harvard four as a pretty
certain winner over Yale. especially
| if one considers the difficulties Coach
Kennedy at New Haven has encoun-
| tered with his four.
In both of the eight cared races
Harvard will be boated in English.
made shells. The varsity will row
in a boat that was built by Sims on a
hurry order, this spring, especially
with view to carrying great weight
and is the gift of the wife of ex-Sec-
rotary Robert Bacon. whose son is a
member of the varsity crew. The
freshmen will row i'm boat that Sims
built last summer upon lines of Coach
Wray. who placed the order while he
was travelling abroad.