At Poughkeepsie

Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where Vassar girls nibble oatmeal crackers in the restaurant in which the Smith Brothers boiled their first coughdrops, has one great day of sport each year. Eight of the best college crews in the U. S. were at Poughkeepsie last week preparing for it. M. I. T. and Pennsylvania were considered "dark horses," that is, feeble, until Rusty Callow's Penn boat rowed a fast time trial two days before the race. Preparing to defend their championship under a new coach named Buck Walsh, Navy's oarsmen spent an afternoon at Kingston, 15 miles away, watching Max Schmeling train for his heavyweight championship fight against Jack Sharkey. In the Columbia boathouse last week there was no electric light, no telephone. The crewmen went to bed early, rose with the sun, let their beards grow long, wore as few clothes as possible.

The four boats picked to fight out the championship last week were California, Washington, Cornell, Syracuse. California had beaten Washington by 18 lengths once this year, but that was in rough water and early in the season. Cornell had lost two races, one to Yale and one to Syracuse whose stroke oar, Tom Lombardi, had never rowed in a losing shell. He stroked his freshman crew in 1930 and a winning junior varsity last year. He is captain-elect of next year's Syracuse football team. Before the Syracuse shell paddled up the Hudson to the starting line last week, after the Syracuse Freshmen and Junior Varsity had won their races. Stroke Lombardi carefully pasted on its prow a four leaf clover.

For the first mile of the varsity race, the eight crews stayed bunched within two lengths, with M. I. T. in front at the start, Cornell at the quarter, Columbia and Washington at the half and California at the mile. Sitting straight in their slides, the California men pulled with a quick leg-and-arm stroke that looked tiring; but it had not tired them at the end of the second mile and they were still rowing smoothly in first place at the railroad bridge a mile farther down. The fourth mile of the race, from the bridge to the finish, was really a race between three crews for second place. The California shell crossed the line first in 19 minutes and 55 seconds. The men in it, leaning on their oars in the calm twilight, saw Cornell stroked by Bob Wilson whose boat won in 1930, sweep across the line second by 2 1/2 lengths. Washington was third with Navy fourth. Syracuse fifth and the others-- Columbia, Penn, and M. I. T.--strung out far behind along the river.

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