Football's Seniors Suit Up One More Time

The Last Lap takes place on Thursday night.

At the end of practice, with the rest of Harvard football still sweating beneath the stadium lights, the class of seniors will jog one loop around the field. Down the sideline, past the end zone, and back again.

Then they will line up and shake hands with everyone—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and coaches. Whispered words. Sweaty hugs. Different people will use different phrases, but everyone will mean the same thing.

Congratulations. We made it. Thank you. Goodbye.

Twenty-three seniors. Some start every game and fill up the box score with yards and tackles. Others have never started, and never will.

Four from Texas, three from New Jersey, and three from Connecticut. The rest from around the country. Oregon and Wisconsin. Georgia and Pennsylvania.

No one weighs less than 180 pounds or stands below 5’11”. No one has survived four years without bruises, scrapes, pain, and often worse.

At least two—offensive lineman Max Rich and halfback Anthony Firkser—have a serious shot at making an NFL roster. In earlier seasons, both players competed alongside teammates who later went pro, and those mentors had a significant impact.

“[Ben] Braunecker I probably got the most close with,” said Firkser, naming the Chicago Bears’ tight end. “He was the main guy I looked to in style of play and his attitude out there.”

“There were three, and they all graduated last year—Anthony Fabiano, Cole Toner, and Adam Redmond,” Rich said; each of those players made NFL teams in some capacity.

For the rest of Harvard seniors, though, odds are that football will end when The Game does. On Saturday they will don pads, jerseys, and helmets. And later they will take all that off for the last time.

No senior class has accomplished what this one aims to do, namely win four straight Ivy League championships.

Already the cohort has won 35 games, yielding the third-highest winning percentage in school history. As freshmen, the players entered a dominant program, and they will leave one behind.

“A lot of guys in this current senior class are guys that maybe didn’t have the biggest role as freshmen,” safety Kolbi Brown said. “This being our time to shine, we’ve definitely stepped up to the plate and made a name for our class.”

However, the losses stand out more than the wins. There have not been many. One in 2013, when Princeton fought and fought for a 51-48 victory in triple overtime.

None in 2014. One in 2015, when Penn came into Harvard Stadium and ruined a perfect season with a 35-25 win. And then two in 2016, against Holy Cross and the Quakers.

Struggles have come in more mundane forms, too. Take the offseason routine of early-morning practices.

“It’s always tough in the winter,” Rich said. “It’s always tough when you’re working out at 5:30 in the morning. But that’s not really a low point; that’s when you’re grounding with your guys.”

Such strict discipline leads to attrition, as some players decide that other commitments matter more than football.

But for those who stick around, offseason exertion paves the way for in-season success.

And what success there has been. Heading into Saturday, the seniors have never lost to Yale. They have beaten every Ivy team home and away and completed an undefeated season in 2014 with ESPN’s College GameDay in the background.

“Going 10-0 was one of the greatest feelings,” Rich said. “Beating Yale here—nothing was better.”

Besides the between-the-lines success, the seniors have forged that insular bond that results from competition. To an outsider, the depth of that bond is, and perhaps should be, unknowable.

Looking back on his career, Firkser identified his favorite moments as occurring not in games but in film sessions—those unscripted meetings when coaches cede the floor.

“Players are teaching each other,” Firkser said. “It’s the guys coming together as a stronger unit.”

That teaching finds a final expression after the last practice, when the Crimson gathers for a team dinner. Per a tradition that Harvard coach Tim Murphy started, each senior has an opportunity to stand up and address his teammates about what the last four years have meant.

Save for the team itself, no one hears what seniors say during the speeches. But recognizing the emphasis that Murphy places on “character,” chances are that the players talk about more than wins and losses.

From the opening day of practice, Murphy promises that Harvard football imparts values that extend beyond the football field. If so, then the last team dinner is both the first and final test of that promise.

“Just being a tough, mentally strong individual—that’s something that’s going to transfer into the real world,” Brown said. “There are ups and downs in life, and how you respond to those things defines who you are.”

—Staff writer Sam Danello can be reached atsam.danello@thecrimson.com.