The Crimson Sports Staff Doles Out End-of-Year Accolades

In such a banner year for Harvard sports, giving out The Crimson's annual year-end awards was a fine mix of joy and pain--joy at celebrating so many amazing athletic performances and pain at slighting teams and players by assigning their peers to arbitrary categories.

The football team had its best season in 78 years, the women's soccer team was a couple of goals away from pulling off one of the biggest upsets in soccer history and the women's basketball team actually pulled it off, with three points to spare.

The task before us was tough, just as it was for our Team of the Year and Athlete of the Year choices, but after much deliberation, here are our picks:

Tim Murphy COACH OF THE YEAR

Harvard football Coach Tim Murphy is not the first coach to claim to have a magical "four-year" plan, but rarely has such prognostication worked out so perfectly. Murphy inherited a football program that was going in the wrong direction, and rather than offer a quick fix, he took three years of abuse from fans and reporters alike in order to right the ship.

The accomplishments of this team, the first stocked entirely by his recruits, speak for themselves. "Murphy's boys" won nine games for the first time since the national championship year of 1919, had the first 7-0 Ivy campaign in the history of the program and made the rest of the Ancient Eight look like they were playing high school football.

Records fell, dreams were fulfilled and gods were created...almost. We'll see how he does next year.

James Blake MALE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Okay, so we copped out. This year's Crimson Rookie of the Year award became two. But rather than a testament to the spinelessness of our selectors, it is a tribute to the dominance of this year's rookie class.

Freshman James Blake, the NCAA Region 1 and EITA Rookie of the Year, posted a 36-5 singles record, a 33-3 doubles mark and, at one point this year, was ranked as high as No. 3 in the country. Although he bowed out of the NCAA singles tournament in the second round, his brilliance in the NCAA Regional almost single-handedly vaulted his team into the national tournament.

This summer, Blake will be a rookie again, this time on the pro tour--don't be surprised if a Crimson award is not the last one he receives.

Dora Gyorffy FEMALE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Track and field stars like freshman high jumper Dora Gyorffy only grace Harvard Yard once in a lifetime.

The multi-year Hungarian national champion had her fill of Eastern Europe and is now tearing up American soil. During her first meet in a Harvard uniform in December, Gyorffy shattered school records in both the high jump--her specialty--and the triple jump, which she says she only did "because I like it."

She went on to win the high jump at both indoor and outdoor Heptagonals and ECACs, as well as the prestigious Penn Relays in April. Gyorffy placed third in the event at NCAAs in March, but outdoor Nationals began yesterday and last through June 6.

The results are too late for press time, but in case you're wondering, we are holding our breath.

W. Soccer SURPRISE TEAM OF THE YEAR

First-Team All Americans tend to be hard to replace.

Doing just that was the challenge facing the Harvard women's soccer team when it learned it would play the 1997 season without star midfielder and Ivy Player of the Year Emily Stauffer, who took the fall semester off.

They did alright for themselves, to say the least.

After a slow start, Harvard won its third straight Ivy League title and reached the final eight of the NCAA Tournament before a 1-0 loss to eventual and perennial champion North Carolina.

"Emily is an outstanding player, but fortunately, our team wasn't based around her," said captain Rebe Glass before the season.

So maybe the team wasn't surprised, but we sure were.

David Forst MOST IMPROVED PLAYER

Harvard baseball captain David Forst had 26 career RBI entering this season. He was your typical "good-field, no-hit" short-stop, a nine-hole hitter you could count on to eat up a routine grounder. But God forbid he step into the batter's box with a couple of ducks on the pond.

All that changed this season. Forst worked on his strength and conditioning all summer and improved his swing by practicing with a wooden bat, and it paid off in a record way. By the end of the year, Forst was in the five spot in the order, led the team in batting (.406) and RBI (39), held the Harvard record for hits in a season (67) and was playing on a 36-12 team that had won two games in the NCAA Regional.

"I wanted to make my last year my best one," he said. "All of the hard work in the offseason paid off."