Maureen Finn

When asked about her numerous achievements and honors, Kirkland House resident Maureen Finn pauses, laughs and explains, "My father always told us that if we weren't going to do our best at something, then we shouldn't bother doing it at all."

Mr. Finn--himself the mayor of the Finn hometown of Malvern, Pennsylvania--has every reason to be proud of his youngest daughter, who has won All-Ivy and All-New England laurels for her skilled field hockey and lacrosse play in her two years as a starter at Harvard, and who was selected by her hockey teammates this season to serve as co-captain of the squad as a junior.

"Maureen is a good, steady influence, as well as a girl with great charisma," third-year hockey coach Edie MacAusland says. "Although she is a young captain, Maureen can attend to the individual needs of every player and make them feel better when they've had a bad day. Everyone on the team has nothing but respect for Maureen."

Not only does Finn bring her ebullient personality to the team, but she adds what MacAusland terms "one of the surest sticks on the field. At center back, Maureen constitutes the bulwark of our defense--a position generally reserved for the strongest player on the team."

Defense, however, is a slot that Finn is just getting used to. For eight years she has played mostly offense as a wing or a link, and her shift this year was both a tribute to her versatility as a player and a necessary adjustment for the lack of defensive depth on the hockey team.

One of the youngest in a very athletic family, Finn says she picked up a lot of her playing ability and technique from watching her older sisters and brother.

"My sisters always played catch-and-throw, so I picked up lacrosse in fifth grade," Finn says. "My brother was also a real stud--he played everything--so I played basketball and games like that with him and his friends."

Finn was a standout in what she calls her "very sports-oriented high school," where she captained the field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse teams, as well as serving as valedictorian of her class of 370 students.

Recruited in her junior year by lacrosse coach Carol Kleinfelder. Finn was impressed by the way Kleinfelder presented Harvard as a school that combined academic excellence and a strong commitment to women's sports.

"One of the most refreshing things I've discovered here is that people on teams have other interests outside of sports," Finn elaborates, adding, "In high school if you were in the band you didn't play a sport, and vice versa."

Before committing herself to Harvard, though, the Biology-turned-Economics concentrator toyed briefly with the idea of going to art school. A gifted painter, Finn has sold a number of her water-color-and-oil landscapes and houses to friends and admirers.

When Finn's duties as field hockey captain end in a few months, she plans to play on the successful Kirkland House basketball team and to begin training for lacrosse--a sport she feels she is most gifted in.

"I like lacrosse the most because it involves so much skill; field hockey is basically a hacking game," says Finn, who doubles up with junior scoring superstar Francesca Den Hartog in the last line of attack on the lacrosse field.

For the moment, though, lacrosse is far from Finn's mind, as she occupies herself with the hockey team, which has notched a mediocre 0-1-1 record so far this season. I don't like to make excuses, but we do have a very young team, and we have started out our season with some powerhouse teams," says Finn. "I think that everyone will have a lot more confidence when we win our first game."

The team may post its first win tomorrow, when the Crimson takes on UPenn at 11 A.M. at Soldiers Field, in what Finn says will be an "intense" matchup. But win or lose, Finn will maintain the sunny optimism and chereful nature that have made her so successful in all of her athletic and extracurricular endeavors.