Whitton Carries Her Class’ Load

The lone junior on the Harvard softball team has had an impact well beyond what would be expected of her solitary status. Tri-captain Tiffany Whitton has been a leader on and off the diamond.

Whitton has starred on the mound and at the plate since arriving in Cambridge from California’s Brea Olinda High School three years ago. As of Thursday, she was leading the 2002 team with a .421 average and a 1.17 ERA.

The Far East

Whitton was a four-sport athlete in high school, playing water polo, soccer, and softball while running cross-country. Her focus was always softball, and she captained her team as a senior to the CIS championship game, the equivalent of the state finals for Southern California.

Though Brea lost with its captain on the mound, Whitton’s standout season led to a first team Louisville Slugger/NFCA High School All-American selection for the West Region.

Such a distinction put her on the national recruiting map, but Whitton’s focus was on the Ivy League.

“I looked at only Ivies because I knew I wanted to come East for a change of pace, to live a different lifestyle for a while,” Whitton said.

She narrowed her choices down to Harvard and Princeton. Harvard won her over at an Orange County meet-and-greet session for perspective students.

“I love it here,” Whitton added. “The people I’ve met have been amazing.”

Softball has been a vehicle for Whitton’s academic career, opening doors and creating rewarding opportunities.

As a government concentrator, she hopes to enter either public policy or law, and will be testing the waters of both as a summer intern for the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. this summer. Whitton’s inclination right now is to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a teacher.

But she hasn’t forgotten about softball amid her new opportunities.

On the contrary, Whitton has excelled, helping the Crimson to two straight Ivy championships.

She has seen Harvard shine on the national stage as well. Harvard has frequently ranked among the top schools in the region and performed well in tournaments against nationally-ranked schools.

Whitton says that fascinating people and increasingly competitive softball have made playing in the East, and especially the Ivy League, more attractive for nationally recruited high school players.

Whitton is convincing evidence of the Ivy’s rising quality of softball. Her .388 average ranked among the top 50 in the nation last year.

“Tiffany is a legitimate division one player,” Allard said. “She hits for power, she throws consistently. She can play with the best of people.”

Her Stronghold

Whitton relies on her family for support and calls her mother and father back in California her “stronghold.”

“They’re the reason I’m here, and I go to them first with everything,” Whitton said.

She credits her teammates with making her captain duties easier, taking her in as a surrogate classmate after tri-captain Grace Bloodwell, catcher Monica Montijo, and utility player Wendy Ciovacco left the squad.

“I miss my classmates a lot, and looking to next year, it’s honestly scary to think I’ll be the only senior,” Whitton said. “But I try to put that behind me, and the other upperclassmen have really helped, making me feel very comfortable.”

Whitton has begun to form the same type of close bonds that she shared with her classmates with sophomores and seniors, but she is aware of the dearth of juniors at times.

Allard has each class year compete as a team during home run derbies before Ivy contests, and Whitton is at a disadvantage to say the least.

But the team and coaches have adapted by giving her extra pitches, and Whitton is able to beat the sophomores and seniors on her own.

“It’s really funny,” Allard said of the outcome. “Tiffany jokes like that. She’s good-natured about it. She doesn’t feel like she’s been abandoned.”

Whitton has meshed better with the other members of the squad after Allard named seniors Sarah Koppel and Lisa Watanabe as new captains. The once-burdensome responsibilities as the sole leader of the team are more manageable as part of a triumvirate.

“People were chipping in to help when I was captaining alone,” Whitton said. “Another great thing about Harvard is that I think there are a lot of natural leaders, and that helped, but it was still tough.”

According to Whitton, being a captain in high school is far less intense than in college, where there is more freedom and thus more responsibility.

Seeing her role as being a “mediator” or “representative” of each side, Whitton has tried to balance the coaching staff’s wishes with her team’s.

“It’s a back and forth process, and it’s not always easy,” Whitton said. “But it’s been great.”

She takes her responsibilities seriously and tries to do “what she would have wanted captains to do when she was a freshman.”

Leading By Example

On the field, Whitton is as talented an all-around player as Harvard has ever had. Her pitching has improved with each year, and her ability at the plate places her among the best in the conference.

As a lefthanded pitcher on one of the deepest rotations in the league, Whitton holds the lowest ERA on the team. She has always been able to keep her opponents at bay but has not always gotten run support. Her misfortune last year resulted in losing a number of one-run games.

“I guess it’s just bad luck,” Whitton said.

For many of her starts, Whitton supplied the bulk of her own offense. In a key weekend series against Brown at the end of last year, Whitton was part of the six-run offensive assault in the first game, benefiting then-senior Chelsea Thoke’s efforts on the rubber.

In the second game, with Whitton shutting down the Bears on the mound, Harvard’s only runs resulted from Whitton’s bat. She hit a two-run home run and had an RBI single to ensure the win.

Whitton batted over .400 for most of last year. This year, her torrid start has set the pace for the Crimson, and Whitton seems to always be on base.

“I don’t look at the numbers,” Whitton said. “It can be so misleading to just go by stats. I don’t even read [Crimson] articles until the year is over. ”

For Whitton, the context of the hit or home run is what it’s all about. But even on that criterion, she is a star.

For example, Whitton’s walk-off home run to beat Maine last weekend is certainly as clutch a hit as a player can have in a game.

Whitton counters such talk by saying that she “probably got lucky.”

Even if luck had something to do with it, Whitton’s calm under pressure and ability to perform at the plate have enabled her to be the on-the-field captain that she wants to be.

“I like to think that I lead by example,” Whitton said.

As long as she stays consistent, something Allard has been working on with her captain, Whitton’s example should be enough to inspire an exciting Crimson season.