Harvard Athletics Director Asks General Counsel to Review Men’s Cross Country Team

Harvard’s Athletics Director has asked the Office of the General Counsel to review the men’s cross country team after The Crimson reported former men’s runners produced “sexually explicit” spreadsheets about members of the women’s team.

When The Crimson reported last month that the men’s soccer team had produced vulgar “scouting reports” about freshmen members of the women’s team, cross country captain Brandon E. Price ’17 informed Coach Jason S. Saretsky about the existence of the cross country’s team’s spreadsheets, according to correspondence obtained by The Crimson.

Dillon Field House By Ryosuke Takashima

Ahead of an annual dance every year with the women’s cross country team, members of the men’s team guessed which women would invite them and made comments about the women’s physical appearances in an online spreadsheet. While Price said Saturday he was “ashamed of” spreadsheets from past years, he said this year’s spreadsheet did not contain lewd comments.

Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise wrote in an email to Harvard student athletes Tuesday that Price had brought the existence of the spreadsheets to his attention “in recent days.”

“Harvard Athletics will not tolerate this sort of demeaning and derogatory behavior,” Scalise wrote. “I have requested that Harvard University’s Office of the General Counsel look into the matter that the current men’s cross country team captain brought to our attention in recent days.

OGC also reviewed the men’s soccer team at the request of University president Drew G. Faust, and the University cancelled the rest of the team’s season last week. Scalise said current members of the men’s soccer team were not “immediately forthcoming about their involvement” in the “scouting reports.”

“We don’t want the school to find this, without us first bringing it to them,” Price wrote to members of the men’s cross country team in an email Saturday. “The problem with the Men’s Soccer team was they tried to hide their stuff.”

Scalise also wrote in his email to student athletes that he had recently met with all coaches to “to reinforce that any behavior that runs counter to the values of the Harvard community is unacceptable.” The Athletics Department will “continue to educate” athletes about “appropriate social conduct,” according to Scalise.

“There is no place for disrespecting and objectifying one’s peers in our program. To whatever extent it has happened, it must stop immediately,” Saretsky wrote in an emailed statement Monday.

—check thecrimson.com for more updates.