Co-Captains Marlene Schoofs and Diane Boteler

"Marlene and Diane are really so different. You know one is such a natural athlete and the other just works so hard," John Wentzell, coach of the women's softball team, said of his team captains after his squad had just completed its final double header of the season.

Superficially, however, the two softball team captains do share some common characteristics.

Both Marlene Schoofs and Diane Boteler were House athletic secretaries.

Both had to try new positions in the field this year.

Both tried to come up with jokes of the day to lighten things up at early morning practices.

And both discovered nothing is funny at seven on a February morning.

But some other vital statistics show that Schoofs and Boteler are two opposites who just happen to complete meet each other as team captains.

Each came to Harvard from a different coast: Schoofs from San Francisco and Boteler from Atlanta. And next year the tow will be heading in opposite direction again, as Schoofs spends a year in Germany studying on a Rotary Scholarship and Boteler goes to Denver to prepare for Medical School.

Boteler

Diane Boteler never won an athletic award or even lettered in a varsity sport before the Harvard softball team elected her captain and gave her the squad's coveted "Tenth Player Award" last spring.

Boteler seemed an unlikely candidate for honors, give the fact that she had only accumulated 21 at-bats during the 1981 session. But they like to do things differently on the softball team. Assuming that the squads top performers have already received due recognition, the team votes every year to determine which second-string player made the most contribution both tangible and intangible to the team. Boteler clearly set the bill. Although she hit safely only four times, the reserve outfielder ranked among the team leaders in important categories like bench chatter and carrying equipment after the game.

And apparently the same characteristics that carned Boteler the Tenth Award convinced her teammates to elect her co-captain along with Marlene Schoofs.

"Diana has made a really good captain because she is one of the hardest workers on the team and she has always been so supportive of everyone else," junior Cindy Phillips said. "We always tease her and say that she hasn't outgrown being a freshman because it is traditional that the freshmen carry the equipment at the end of the game, but Diane is still doing it."

Boteler finally secured a spot in the lineup this season, becoming the team's regular designated hitter. But despite her new status. Boteler continued to fill in wherever and whenever she was needed. When the team convened for pre-season practices in February it was evident that graduations and leaves of absences had depleted the pitching staff. Boteler was among the group who bravely volunteered for duty on the mound.

"At first it was really hand to get everything to follow, to do everything right without thinking about the specifies," Boteler recalls. "But I was glad to do it, because DHing could get so frustrating. I mean when you strike out, you can't go out in the field and make up for it."

True to form, Boteler pitched in only one game but made the most of the occasion by heating Dartmouth on the Ivy League Championships and recording a 1.17 ERA.

After four years with the team, Boteler says without hesitation "I've gotten more out of softball than anything else at Harvard" Consequently she is disturbed by the fact that Wentzell is considering cutting the squad next season, thereby making it inaccessible to future Diane Botelers.

Coming from a high school that could barely put nine players on the field. Boteler arrived at Harvard unprepared to participate on the collegiate varsity level.

"If there were cuts my freshman year," says the team co-captain. "I would not have made it."

Unlike her fellow captain, Matne Schools has never had problems making the grade as an athletic, in face, she is one of only a few Harvard competitors to captain two different deans.

Despite this distinction, Schools has managed to keep a low profile within the Harvard community. Some might consider it for misfortune to pilot both the volleyball and softball team--two of the teasing least publicized squads--but Schoofs has always been content to remain away from the limelight.

A very quiet, introspective individual-she intends to me for Rotary to study philosophy-Schoofs prefers to think of herself as just another team member.

She rarely discusses her individual accomplishments, and it is entirely possible that she does not even remember most of them. But Schoofs can give a vivid account of any spectacular play that required a coordinated team effort.

"I'll always remember in the second Brown game this year when [second baseman] Alissa Friedman and I both dove for a line drive at the same time. I managed to knock it down and just above it into her glove. She was lying on the ground, but her foot was just touching her bag. I thought that play was really rest be cause it was as though we made the out foregather." she said.

A first busman during past seasons, Schools easily switched to short this year a position she played on her high school squad, which she says "was about as good as the team we have here."

And so in contrast with Boteler's experience, Schoofs added very little to her survive knowledge of softball while she played for Harvard. But competing with and then captaining two Crimson teams proved an educational experience in itself.

"Being Captain turned out to be a for more mentally demanding than I thought it could be," says Schoofs. "But the volleyball team and the softball team were both just club sports when I get here, and it's been very rewarding to see them develop into good varsity program.