19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

OLYMPICS: VANCOUVER CINDERELLAS
Sirs:
For your readers' information, we would like to give you a rundown on the financial and other handicaps that our Canadian Olympic crew was subject to.

Thirteen University of British Columbia students sacrificed, among other things, a year's education; paid money out of their own pockets for the privilege of rowing; lived like monks for six months; got up at 6:30 a.m. to row on the infamous and log-littered Coal Harbour of Vancouver; worked all day and rowed again at night, only to get up at 6:30 a.m. and start the procedure all over again.

These boys were helped by a U.B.C. grant of $1,450 which made it possible for them to own their own equipment.

The coach, Mr. Frank Read, gave up time and no one knows how much money to coach these boys toward their tremendous goal. Without the generous assistance of local citizens who gave food and other necessities, all this would have been quite impossible.

Please note our "Cinderella" crew of four romped to an easy victory for Canada's first Olympic gold medal in rowing.

Our Canadian eight made a valiant showing in both semifinals and finals, only to be beaten by a mere half-length by the United States Yale crew.
CAROL KNOWLTON
EVELYN KERR
Vancouver, B.C.

OLYMPICS: WHERE TO PLAY
Sirs:
I am intrigued by your Nov. 19 PAT ON THE BACK for the U.S. Olympic field hockey squad. How were they chosen, where and by whom? Is there a U.S. field hockey association for men's play? Are there any field hockey clubs or teams in the East or in the Princeton area?

I played the game in 1954-55 on an English Speaking Union Scholarship in England and would like to play some more but had no idea any such animals existed in the United States.
HAMILTON W. MESERVE
Princeton, N.J.

?The U.S. team was selected last September by the U.S. Olympic field hockey committee. There are only about a dozen men's teams in the U.S., five of them in Greenwich, Conn., the rest in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Mr. Meserve might want to write to the Olympic field hockey committee chairman, Henry Kirk Greer, Rye, N.Y.—ED.

FOOTBALL: SMALL THANKS
Sirs:
Your small-college-football coverage all season long has been great and the article on Johns Hopkins (SI, Dec. 3) was no exception.