Above and Beyond: the Tallest Harvard Athletes

After scoring a game-winning point or winning a national championship, many Harvard athletes seem larger than life. A few actually are.

“People took a picture of me with their child the other day,” said the literally-larger-than-life, 6’9” sophomore Brady Weissbourd.

Weissbourd, who captures fans’ attentions on the volleyball court as well as in the Yard, is closely followed in height by 6’8” heavyweight crew senior Andrew Boston and 6’8” junior basketball center turned baseball pitcher Brad Unger. Throw in the 6’2” junior water polo co-captain Lauren Snyder and 6’1 lacrosse freshman Kate Beers, and the result is five of the tallest athletes Harvard has to offer.

While these individuals may be stared at by students and tourists alike, their size has greatly helped them achieve their goal of participating in collegiate-level athletics.

“It’s helpful to be big,” Beers said. “You can see more of the field than other people.”

Size has its advantages in other sports as well. In crew and water polo, longer arms mean a longer stroke and an increased ability to block shots, respectively. For baseball, pitchers can release the ball closer to home plate than their shorter counterparts. And for other sports, the advantages are more obvious, such as a closeness to the hoop in basketball and an heightened ability to spike in volleyball

The overall intimidation factor does not hurt either.

This “gift” does not come without slight drawbacks, however. Many athletes attribute knee and back problems to their size. Also, what is gained in strength is lost in speed.

“[Height is] a disadvantage when you have to do things that require more quickness,” Snyder said. “It takes longer to start swimming quickly or to jump up in the air.”

Though these five athletes may blend in with others on their respective turfs, walking around in a world that is not as height-friendly can be a completely different story.

“Most of the doors you have to duck to get through, but it’s something you learn to do pretty quickly,” Unger said.

Weissbourd and Boston also suffer from this architectural dilemma, with Boston noting that on his head he has “a nice little callus to prove that fact.”

For the female population, the standard door height might not be as much of a problem, however impositions are still provided by a different industry—that of fashion.

“As a girl, buying pants are terrible,” Beers said.

Another challenge associated with height is that it is an extreme attention-grabber, as is evident from Weissbourd’s interaction with the aforementioned tourist. However, the annoyance of this excess publicity is debatable.

“It is a very good opening line,” Boston said of the many individuals who ask him about his height to start a conversation. “It’s kind of awkward, but it’s kind of endearing.”

Through these recurring experiences, Boston has also been able to patent the response of “six-foot-sexy” to this question.

Added Beers, “I kind of like the attention.”

Seemingly, the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side motto does not come into play with these five athletes, as none of them said that they would prefer to be shorter. For Snyder, who was asked to consider what life would be like for her at 5’2”, the thought was anything but pleasant.

“I do not want to imagine life being 5’2,” Snyder said.

Beers was also opposed to the thought of a life both literally and figuratively below the radar.

“I can’t imagine myself being shorter,” Beers said. “It seems so much a part of me that if I was any shorter, I don’t know if I’d be the same person.”

The mindset was held by more than just Beers, as Weissbourd attributed his ability to play such height-friendly sports, and the subsequent friends he has gained through these activities, to his size.

Whether contributing to the prestige of one of the Crimson’s many sports teams, or offering to reach that absurdly-placed book off the top shelf in Lamont, Harvard’s finest—and tallest—do it all. They balance athletics, academics and the ever-pressing question of, “Wait, how tall are you again,” with time left over to lend some advice to their unfortunately short-to-average-sized constituents.

“I would recommend [being tall] to everyone,” Boston said.

Too bad that’s easier said than done.