BROWN OUT

It was April 1996. I was somewhere in New Hampshire, in line at a Burger King.

It would be a long wait, because the restaurant was tiny--really an add-on to a gas station--and one cook had to feed more than 20 hungry Harvard women's lacrosse players and their coaching staff. And one reporter.

I finally got to order my burger. While it was being made, Rebekah Zuercher, a freshman on the team, asked me an interesting question.

"What are you doing here?"

It was kind of funny. For although this was my third year of covering women's lacrosse, and my umpteenth trip on the team bus to a road game, I had never been asked that.

Why was I there? Being stuck in New Hampshire for the whole day to cover some women's lacrosse game--was that really my idea of fun?

It was, and it is. But her question deserves a more complete answer, and my day of graduation seems like the perfect time to give one.

* * *

I was a freshman, and I was scared.

The mighty, mighty Penn men's basketball team was coming to Harvard in February 1994, defending its undefeated Ivy streak against one of the league's bottom-dwellers. This team would soon be ranked in the AP's Top 25, and it had two future NBA players, Matt Maloney and Jerome Allen.

When I walked in and sat down at The Crimson's spot on press row, I was overcome with noise, like some tidal wave had hit me. The Penn band led one-third of the audience in a verbal Quaker orgy, while the Harvard band tried to spark its fans into cheer.

Looking down the press table, I saw people from Penn, from Boston papers, Philadelphia papers, the AP and radio stations. I felt...unworthy.

* * *

Writing articles has been a big part of my job here, but it's only half the story.

The rest of it fell under a big, murky category known as "Sports Editor." This job is hard to describe; it contains everything from layout to assigning stories to just simply being there. You eat and breathe Crimson Sports.

I had this title for two years until this past January, after which I became what is known at The Crimson as a "dinosaur," meaning that I'm extinct.

It's a weird job and is best explained in stages.

Stage One is fear. You don't know what you're doing, and if you did, you wouldn't feel capable of doing it. You work tentatively, look at the outgoing editors with a quasi-religious reverence and wonder if everyone would be better off if you quit.

But soon you learn the game, and you enter Stage Two--excitement. You gain confidence in your abilities, and you want to take on more responsibilities and improve the sports page in every way imaginable. You're having a lot of fun.

Later, however, you get tired. Something goes wrong, you get overwhelmed and you sink down into Stage Three--over-exertion. Harvard has 41 varsity sports and you just CAN'T cover all of them, no matter how often the sailing team (bless their hearts!) e-mails in its results. You're not doing a perfect job, and you feel bad because of it.

Then comes Stage Four, which I like to call acceptance. You see a typo in The Globe or something, and you realize that no one's perfect and that we just do the best we can. And we're not going to cover everything, but we're going to give it our best shot.

The problem is, this comes across all too often as resignation or embitterment. For instance, say you get some sailing results, and you're honestly going to try to assign a story, but you know in your heart that none of your writers are going to take it. Someone will ask you why you're so pessimistic, and...you'd like to explain, but you have work to do that night, so you don't. And that someone will walk away, muttering about how jaded you are.

In this way, Stage Four can also be called loneliness. That's why I have the highest respect for everyone who has done the job while I've been here--John Trainer, Sean Wissman, Dave Griffel, Matt Howitt, Ethan Drogin and Becky Blaeser. And that's why we all continued to cover our beats--otherwise, we'd go crazy.

* * *

This game was going to be a laugher, right? Right?

I mean, Penn was Penn, and Harvard was Harvard. So throughout the first half, I was waiting for the Quakers to blow the Crimson away, thinking, "It's going to happen any second now...any second..."

It didn't. Mike Gilmore '96 kept nailing his outside shots, and guards Tarik Campbell '94 and Jared Leake '95 played spectacular defense on Maloney and Allen.

Penn led by a couple points at halftime but never pulled away. As I realized that this was going to be a barnburner, my nervousness turned into a rush of adrenaline.

* * *

Ah, my beats. Field hockey, men's basketball and women's lacrosse.

They represent a part of me. I call myself a San Franciscan, a Harvard student and a reporter for each of my teams. To say I like covering them is the wrong concept; that's like saying that I like to breathe.

I love to go on the road. On the highway, hills and valleys and trees rise out of the earth; once I step out of the car or bus, I breathe air that is different than at Harvard--not good air or bad air, but just different.

And then the game starts. The curiosities of the vacation are over as I am awakened by fervor and excitement; the athletes' fiery determination is proven by the sweat dripping from their brows.

Why do I go on road trips? All the elements are there.

* * *

I was starting to get short of breath.

Fred Scott '95 hit a basket to put Harvard up 56-55, and then power forward Darren Rankin '96 banked in a three-pointer with the shot clock near zero. Penn still couldn't bring Harvard down to earth.

Yes, the Crimson was on fire. Harvard could feel that it was close, could smell Penn's tentativeness, could hear the screaming fans.

I was a mess. There was a whirlwind of emotion around me, and I was in danger of being swept up by it, to be flooded over by the tension. I couldn't take much more.

But suddenly, there were less than 15 seconds left in the game, Harvard was down by one and Campbell was slowly dribbling the basketball upcourt. I could hear myself think, "No! It's not supposed to end this quickly!"

* * *

A well-fed reporter is a happy reporter. And for four years, I've been very, very happy.

It is impossible to describe how much food Bob and Caroll Clark bring to field hockey and women's lacrosse games. They once came in a full pickup truck. The bag lunches that football reporters get in the press box--well, let's say that those writers should envy me.

The Clarks are not the reason I first covered their daughter's teams, nor are they the reason I continued. But they are part of the reason why I am giddy when I bike across the river on Saturday afternoons.

Yes, there is a Cheers-like atmosphere at Cumnock, Lavietes and Ohiri--everybody knows my name. The coaches, the players, the trainers, the parents, the sports information people. It's like another home.

But as a reporter, I sometimes have to be alone and do my job.

One of the toughest weekends of my life was this past October. I went on the field hockey team's bus to Providence, accepted a gift of a "Harvard Field Hockey" hat, saw Harvard play badly and lose 3-1, stopped with the team on the way back at sophomore Judy Collins' house for a lasagna dinner and ripped them in Monday's paper.

The team was angry with the article. Rightfully? I don't know. I've read over that article again and again, but I'm still not sure whether or not it was too harsh. Maybe I crossed the line--maybe I was subconsciously afraid that hanging around the team made me biased, so I pushed myself too far the other way. Or maybe I didn't--maybe the voice inside my head that thought I was too critical comes from a natural gratefulness to a program that's been so good to me for three years. Maybe I have too much of a conscience. Maybe I don't have enough of one.

At times, it's awful being a reporter. But throughout it all, people like the Clarks have understood my dilemmas. That's all I can ask for.

* * *

Campbell dribbled across halfcourt, a thunk-thunk on the hardwood floor.

With each bounce, the crowd got louder and louder, realizing that this was going to be it. Penn played a suffocating man-to-man defense--so tight that no one was open.

I stopped breathing.

So as he had done so often that night, the quick point guard darted inside, looking for a layup, a foul, an open man, anything.

The Quakers were ready for this. Penn's Tim Krug met Campbell near the basket and blocked his shot before it got close to the rim, and I remember watching the ball slowly bounce along the ground out of bounds, thunk.....thunk...thunk..thunkthunkthunk

* * *

After a different field hockey game this fall, I finished my post-game interviews and then spotted two alumnae, Carrie Shumway '96 and Jessica Milhollin '96, on the other end of the field.

Most of the players and fans had already left, so I could clearly hear the ex-players bemoan to each other, "I wish I could have gone in there."

I wonder what we'll be like as alumni.

* * *

The game was over. Harvard lost.

Everything was happening so fast around me. Reporters were running after players. The Penn band started to play the "SportsCenter" theme. I was still trying to figure out what had happened, but all I could feel were the hairs standing up on the back of my neck as my body shivered.

How on earth I was going to write this article? How could I ever put into words how I felt? How could I make people understand?

But something made me forget about all that. Something made me smile.

Today, I am reminded of Ken Burns' baseball documentary. He interviews former Negro-leaguer Buck O'Neil, who remembers how he once heard this special crack of the bat as a youngster. He looked over at the batter, and it was Babe Ruth.

A few years later, he heard that noise again, and it was Josh Gibson, perhaps the greatest Negro-leaguer ever. Then, in the late '80s, he heard it again--Bo Jackson.

O'Neil smiled. Sort of like I did.

I've been lucky enough to have the shivers come back. When a goal by Melanie Allen '96 with four seconds left shocked the No. 7 Northeastern field hockey team. When the Harvard men's soccer team erupted with two overtime goals against Brown to take the 1994 Ivy Title. When Tim Hill '99 sank a last-second basket to send the Harvard-Penn game into overtime, where the Crimson would avenge its 1994 defeat.

And I have felt peace, like in 1996 when I stretched out on the bleachers at Lavietes, off duty, and watched the Harvard women's basketball team give Penn the drubbing of its life. Or the countless times that I have enjoyed a burger after a field hockey game, courtesy of Chez Clark.

Where else can I find such a great range of emotions? Where else does it all come together?