Small Bears squad should be no match for Quakers

Two years ago, UCLA swimming coach Ron Ballatore was suddenly out of a job. In order to coply with Title IX, the 1972 regulation stipulating that all educational institutions receiving federal funding must provide equal athletic opportunities to men and women, UCLA cut the men's swimming program. Instead of finding a job with another national powerhouse, Ballatore took his expertise to Brown, where he was expected to mold a team that would compete with perennial Ivy League powers Harvard and Princeton. But Ballatore's intense coaching style clashed with his new group of swimmers and, as a result, the Bears' roster is no deeper than the shallow end of their pool. Tomorrow, Brown will bring all of eleven athletes to Sheerr Pool to face the Quakers -- a squad double its size. When Ballatore coached at UCLA, he had the luxury of scholarships to lure the top talent to his teams, swimmers who hoped to continue to compete after college at the national and international levels. Brown was an entirely different program. Since the Ivy League does not offer athletic scholarships and Brown is not one of the better league teams in the conference, its squad was comprised mainly of good, not extraordinary, swimmers. "Kids came to Brown to swim and compete, but not with the level of intensity of Ron Ballatore," Penn junior Ken Fletcher said. "A lot of them quit, and now they don't have enough swimmers to win meets." The Bears have managed to hang on to a few quality swimmers, including senior standout David Galluzzi, who held his own against Princeton. Galluzzi, who excels in both sprints and distance races, swims the same events as Penn's undefeated captain Jeff Brown -- the 200-yard freestyle, the 500 free and the 200 fly. Brown has been respectable in defeat. The Bears lost to Dartmouth by only 20 points, and Brown swimmers have been turning in good times. They just don't have enough people. With little chance to take a dual meet, Brown may be focusing mainly on the competition at the end-of-the-year Eastern Championships, much the same way a depleted Quakers' women's squad did two years ago. Last year, the meager Bears squad topped both Penn and Dartmouth at Easterns. "It's a small team, but a good one," Penn senior Geoff Munger said. "Because of coach Ballatore's reputation, they've been able to attract talented, intense people who went to Brown to swim for that coach." Mathmatically, Brown could win tomorrow, but that is not likely. If the Bears place first in every single event, they could earn their first victory of the season. The winner of each race wins nine points for his team, while second place gets four and third place, three. "This meet will actually be to our benefit," Fletcher said. "We'll be able to see who's ready and who's not for Easterns."