Saved by the Bell: Cheer-ful Crimson Is Anything But Soft

Sophomore catcher Monica Montijo might be the most entertaining figure in the Harvard University sports universe.

That's no small statement.

As these pages, the athletic department and our crew-rowing blockmates constantly remind us, Harvard has the most diverse athletic program in the country. We've got 1,500 athletes spread out over 41 varsity sports. It's hard to make a superlative claim about any one athlete.

Montijo is an exception. Someday, she could be an All-Ivy catcher. But if an Ivy League All-Decibel team existed right now, she would be a unanimous selection. She'd make the team all four years. Her booming voice stands out on an already boisterous team, one that cheers just as energetically down 5-1 as it would up by the same score.

Montijo is also tough as nails. In a game against California-Berkeley earlier this year, she suffered a horrific injury at the plate when an opposing player cleated her while sliding into home. The result was an immense gash on her thigh that required 300 stitches. To most people, 300 stitches isn't a three-week absence-it's a sweater. But she was back in under a month.

Monica Montijo is an appropriate symbol of the Crimson team that left its heart on Soldiers Field this weekend but still fell just short making the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. They probably had more fun than any other team representing Harvard this year. But you'd be foolish to think that they weren't serious about what they were doing.

Like every other aspect of the spring semester here, the softball season goes by far too quickly. With only six home games on the schedule, not enough people get to go out to the park behind the park behind the stadium and see the Crimson in action. It's not just a matter of seeing a very good team play-although if you never got to see senior hurler Chelsea Thoke pitch, you lost out.

But the best part of softball games is the cheers. I can't say why the softball culture has always been more conducive to vocal, coordinated cheering for teammates out of the dugout than baseball. All I know is that we're very good at it.

A typical Thoke at-bat this year, for example, elicits screams of "Hey, Two-Eighter / No one's greater / Hey, Two-Eighter / Get a hit!"

When junior right fielder Sarah Koppel strolls to the plate, the team chants "Koppel! Koppel! / Eat 'em up! Eat 'em up! / Koppel! Koppel!" Matching choreography follows.

And, best of all, Montijo's cheer parodies the chorus of Nelly's immortal song E.I.: "Andele, Andele, mama, e-i, e-i, Ti-jooooooo! / Who's whackin' it now?"

Throughout each game, unbridled enthusiasm emanated from the clubhouse. It's the sort of thing that would make the stereotypical balding, chaw-using, reticent baseball men we see in the movies spin in their graves. In baseball, after all, sitting quietly in the dugout in deep contemplation of the diamond and its secrets while chewing gum can be an appropriate reaction to a three-run homer. You stop actively cheering once you take off your little league jersey for the last time. Exuberance and professionalism aren't compatible.

Collegiate softball players defy this convention, and this year's Crimson was a textbook example.

The Crimson didn't collapse after losing the bottom end of a doubleheader to Cornell a few weeks back that put its hopes of repeating in jeopardy. The team simply dug deep and won the rest of its games.

The great thing was that the Harvard dugout during the Cornell loss looked and sounded exactly the same as it did when the team clinched at Dartmouth. No one ever stopped cheering.

A lot of it had to do with the importance of support-it really wasn't over, and every play was critical.

But it also seemed like the softball team genuinely appreciates playing the game, and isn't afraid to express it. You see it between innings, when virtually the entire team comes out to throw around in the outfield. Watching the combination of Thoke's fierceness on the mound and the constant party that is the Crimson clubhouse, one can't help but think that other sports could stand to learn something.

The credit for that kind of positive atmosphere should go to its leaders. Departing tri-captains Mairead McKendry and Jen Vogt-Lowell made lasting contributions to the program, and will be sorely missed. And, of course, no one was greater than Two-Eighter.

The squad they led may have lost a shot at national glory, but they did repeat as Ivy League champions.

And when they finally did lose, true to form, they went down swinging. And singing.