Volleyball Captain Carpenter Quintessential Team Leader

Volleyball.

The quintessential beach sport, in ieviatably conjures up images f summer days, pounding staff and burning sand.

There's a certain element of play-fulness and fun to it, no matter how gruelling or vicious the game. You aren't likely to see the players beating each other up in this sport. Nor is shee audience likely to be particularly bloodthirsty Superstar players don't abound, either.

The focus of the gamee, really, is on the team rather than the individual. Volleyball is about the coordination of team members. And if you're captain, responsible for ensuring the team gels, it's possible you're people-person.Maybee kind of like senior men's volleyball captain Johnthan J. Carpenter.

Carpenter meets me outside the doors of Eliot Dining Hall for lunch. He spots the tape recorder in my hand and identifiess me first> He is tall and lea; casually dressed in a gray sweater and chinos.

We stand in line-it's Junior Parent's Weekend, after all-and the talk is about music. He says he has diverse tastes, but British music (Blur is mentioned) truly stops traffic. Carpenter himself, a native of North Caloifornia, is half-British.

We sit at a table by the window, it's a sunny winter day, so bright the snow outside seems to glitter. I begin by asking Carpenter about the team, and he gives me a quick history of its evolution.

"The volleyball program used to be kind of a minor program; it wasn't taken too seriously by the Athletic Department," Carpenter says. "until last year, when seven seniors just turned the team around.

"We called them "The Magnificent Seven," he says. "For the first time in nine years, Harvard won the Ivy League Championships. I remember lying on the floor of the court after that game, exhilarated."

I ask Carppenter if he feels a greater responsibility now, as captain, to perpetyate the legacy of the "Magnificent Seven." He agrees emphatically, and says he tires very hard to ensure that the team members live up to the high standards set by their predecessors.

We talk about the Crimson's prospects of winning the Ivy League Championship this yea-the tournament kicks off in early April.

"I think we have a good crack at it," Carpenter says. "The individuals on the team have come a long way, there's been a lot of individual improvements, and we've put it together in spurts.

"It's mostly a consistency issue," he adds. "So far, we've beaten all the teams we expected to, like Yale, MIT and Dartmouth, The next step is to beat teams we're evently matched with or who are more experienced.We have a month until the championships how and only one goal, so we're going to be really focused."

We head next to Carpenter's suite, which he shares with nine other roommates. Carpenter's room has a warm and cosy ambience.Maybe it's the large farmed photos of smiling people Carpenter met on his summer of '92 trip to Kenya. Or perhapss it's the African cotton wrap in rich primary colors-featuring dancing yellow pineapples and a thought-provoking Swahili proverb that hangs across one wall. Carpenter tell me Kenya is a special place for him, because of its people.

"It's the beauty of the people there that I love," Carpenter says. "Never in my life have I ever met more frienfly folk..these complete strangeers, who are so interesting, and who are legitimately interested in you, just come up and talk to you."

In fact, Carpenter, a Social Studies concentrator, is writing his thesis on Kenya-specially, the development of the self-help movement in Kenya from the grassroots level. Carpenter rapidly flips through photographs of his trip to Kenya, tellig me the names of people he met, chuckling at intervals in front memory. The more we talk, it becomes pretty clear that Carpenter has a natural affinity for people; he is definitely a people-person.

"He's jusst really personable," says teammate Carlos A. Gonzalez '94. "He's outgoing very one-toone..even during the game, he'll talk to you, you know, pull you aside if you haven't been playing well and say 'Hey, let's get it together'. He loves people."

This natural liking for people may have led Carpenter to choose a team sport over an individual sport.

"I think individual sports, like golf, are great, but I knew what I wanted," Carpenter says. "There's lots of other things I could do individually. It's team endeavor that I really wanted."

Teamwork, Carpenter tells me, ultimately makes theb difference in volleyball.

"You could be the best player, but you can do nothing without your teammates. Teamwork is the key. When players are able to serve, pass, set and hit continuously ,they build up a rhythm, and then they're virtually untouchable."

I ask Carpenter what else he's done that has meant a great deal to him, aside from volleyball. He tells me he's been teaching sunday school to about 15 children at Memorial Church for four years.

"I take them to Harvard hockey games sometimes," Carpenter says. "It's been great, it's the most rewarding thing I've done.I worked with these kids who were seven or eight when I first began, and now they're beginning high school."

"It's been pretty remarkable seeing them grow, very satisfying," he adds. "One kid who moved to Iowa halfway through the program I still keep in contact with. We exchange Christmas cards."

My impression of Carpenter as an intense, principle person, is incomplete; Carpenter has a lighter side too, an amusing side, as his senior roommate Eric S. O'Brien reveals.

"Jon threw a [huge] party over Christmas break last year at a restaurant in Pao Alto," O'Brien says. "He invited his senior class from high school, people he'd worked with over the summer, Harvard friends living in Caloifornia.he hired two bands. It was a great party, and it cluminated with Jon running around in his boxers, drunk, singing live songs..like 'You're Lost That Lovin' Feelin..to all his former girlfriends in high school."

On this still, peaceful Saturday afternoon, however, there is no trace of Carpenter's clownish side. He is serious, composed, at ease discussing Gore Vidal and his philosophy of life ("I have had no plan for me").Carpenter and I chat a little more about his future hopes-he plans to work for an investment banking firm in New York-and his fears.

"There're icreasing disparties in thee world in general. It's scary," Carpenter says. "Even an Harvard. We [use] lables to distinguish ourselves from others, rather than celebrating what links us all together. There's a general trend towards this..we have to fight against it."

It's a Carpenter statement. I've spent just three hours with him sso far, and it's clear he's an intense person.

Volleyball coach Ihsan Gurdal agrees: "He is very intense..he has the strongest personality [on court].He knows what needs to do done and he zeroes in on it, and that show up in his playing ability."

On the court of goofing around at a party, Carpenter is earnest, adrenalinized. Maybe it's his Nikeesque "Just Do It" attitude to life.

"It's true, 'cuz life is short," Carpenter says. "We should just do a lot of things intensely-class, sports, whatever."