End of an Era: Dante Balestracci

Dante Balestracci came into September looking to repeat a three-year pattern of inducing gasps of awe from the crowd and whimpers of pain from his opponents.

The Harvard football captain did all that in his final season. And a lot more.

You can look at mind-boggling numbers such as 96 tackles, 11 sacks and 21 tackles for loss—Balestracci was the team leader in all three categories and the Ivy leader in the last two.

You can glance at his seemingly endless list of accolades acquired this season, starting with a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection, the first player in Ivy history to be named to the team four straight years.

Added to the trophy case was an All-New England pick for the fourth year in a row; the Gridiron Club of Boston’s Bulgar Lowe Award, given to the top defensive player in New England; a second team D I-AA All-America nod; and a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award, given to the top defensive player in D I-AA football.

But even that tally of honors doesn’t begin to account for the sum total of Balestracci’s impact on the New England D I-AA football scene, not to mention his influence on his team.

Balestracci made it no secret that his purpose on that field is to intimidate, overpower and dominate.

“You’re going to hit that guy across from you as hard as you can every time,” Balestracci said. “You’re going to let him know that you’re there and you’re not going anywhere, that you’re going to be there the whole game.”

Finally, beyond what you can measure in statistics and final scores, Balestracci was a model to his teammates in behavior and determination.

“Dante is an example on and off the field as to how a college football player should conduct himself,” senior cornerback Benny Butler said.

Thanks to those high standards, that leadership capability, that off-field example and that on-field dominance, the legendary, larger-than-life Dante capped his Harvard career with a season to which a simple summary of accomplishments cannot even begin to do justice.

—Staff writer Lisa J. Kennelly can be reached at kennell@fas.harvard.edu.