TRAN-SPOTTING: Valuing the Harvard Athlete

One afternoon in late April, I was working out at the MAC when I overheard two students discussing the admissions office’s policy of granting special preference to recruited athletes. An editorial notebook by Crimson editor Nicholas F. Josefowitz ’05 in that day’s Crimson proclaimed that recruited athletes who do not meet exceedingly high academic standards should not be admitted, for their presence has brought down Harvard’s level of scholarly excellence.

The two students were in total agreement with the editorialist’s stance. “I have all these idiotic athletes in my gov classes,” one declared loudly enough for the entire room to hear. “They come in to section straight from practice and haven’t done any of the reading, and I have to listen to their ridiculous comments.”

“Yeah, I totally understand,” the other replied. “But we should be glad that we have them in classes because they make the rest of us look like geniuses.”

They both started laughing—cackling, actually. And at that point, I wanted to retch.

The “athletic culture” that James Bowen and William Shulman deride in the recently published book The Game of Life is a priceless asset that makes Harvard the nation’s best university. They argue that because college athletics have become commercialized, student-athletes nowadays spoil their education by focusing on athletic success, to the detriment of their education and that of their peers.

But with all due respect to Bowen, Shulman and Josefowitz, the relationships I have enjoyed in college with student-athletes have proven to me that they are not the ones responsible for degrading the “Harvard experience.” Rather, it is those selfish individuals among us who have never played sports, who do not understand the meaning of putting the team before the self, who barge through life prioritizing their individual agendas over everyone else’s, who make it difficult for the rest of us to play nice with others when we step into the real world.

I come from a completely non-athletic family. In high school, my athletic activities were limited to playing innocuous, undemanding games of badminton or kickball. My parents pushed us to read and calculate, not to throw and run. My older brother erected a basketball hoop in our driveway that went unused after a year of initial excitement, and my brilliant, studious sister preferred the newspaper or a Jane Austen novel to a game of basketball or tennis. Both siblings ultimately turned out swell—I, in fact, became the black sheep of the family after they both graduated from med school. But while academics were our “thing,” sports were clearly not.

Over time, however, I began to envy high school friends who played sports and had a solid corps of friends and peers who encouraged them to succeed for the sake of the team. They would return from road trips with inside jokes and stories of the weekend’s achievements and team pranks, and I—trying desperately to fit in—would listen and laugh without understanding what they were talking about.

Prevented by my slight stature and my academically driven parents from excelling in athletics, I began to follow professional baseball, basketball and football religiously. Jordan, Maddux, my precious Blue Devils—those larger-than-life athletes all fulfilled my athletic aspirations, and I was content to cheer from the other side of the television.

In spite of my nonathletic childhood, my “family” at school—my blocking group—ironically contains some of the most talented athletes on campus (no personal bias, of course). One blockmate is the captain of the wrestling team and an Olympic hopeful; another was a rowing standout. My two roommates are a star on the women’s lacrosse team and a varsity basketball player. Cumulatively I have spent many, many hours trying to scamper across that precarious crosswalk at the intersection of JFK Street and Memorial Drive in order to watch them excel at their respective sports.

My roommates and I could not lead more different lives from one another. I enjoy the lazy life of most humanities concentrators; I usually wake up at 10:15 a.m. in time for my 11 o’clock class, meet with friends for a two-hour lunch and spend the rest of my afternoon waiting for dinner. I fill my time with “meaningful” extracurricular activities, but none require more than 10 hours of my time a week, leaving me with plenty of time to check e-mail incessantly and download music each day.

My roommates Melissa and Lindsay, on the other hand, arrange their lives according to their sports’ demands. While waiting for the lacrosse season to begin, Melissa, a pre-med, would wake up at 5:45 a.m. to leave the Quad in time for her morning workout and would still make it to her 9 a.m. class. Even during the off-season, Lindsay’s basketball practices consumed at least five afternoons a week. My roommates came home with every injury imaginable—broken noses, aching backs, separated shoulders—and they continued to play without complaint. They couldn’t miss practices, sit on the bench or claim fatigue because they couldn’t let their teammates down.

So as I listen to peers debate the merit of accepting athletes at Harvard, I am shocked by the number of seemingly intelligent individuals who don’t value the worth of student-athletes. Not only do my blockmates make commendable grades (and even get higher thesis readings than I), but they have also taught selfish wallflowers such as myself the importance of dedication and perseverance.

They possess tenacity and street-smarts that the nonathletic among us could never attain. Playing on a team—understanding the role of communication and selflessness in order to succeed—is a concept that is difficult for me to grasp, given that my achievements have been mostly individually motivated. In representing a team and a community just by choosing to show up for a game—regardless of whether they see any playing time—athletes display an unselfishness and sense of loyalty that non-athletes just don’t get.

Of course, I am not claiming that all non-athletes are selfish, aggressive go-getters who don’t value compromise and understanding. I do believe, however, that athletes at Harvard have taught us lessons far more important than what we crammed into our heads before Thursday sections and have made my experience at this school much more vibrant and rich than it would have been if my two close-minded friends at the MAC had had their way.

Without an abundance of athletes at Harvard, we would have no one to cheer for, I would have nothing to write about and there would be little to break us from our stale routine of books, ambitions and self-interested chatter. As a reporter, a fan and now an alum, I will always be grateful for the wonderful friends and unforgettable experiences that Harvard athletics has brought me. Thanks for a great run.