The Amazing T.K.

Before every Harvard women's hockey or softball game, Theresa Kennedy is a very busy person. As a Harvard trainer, she collects bandages, ice and other medical items from her office in Dillon Field House and heads off to the game site.

In the middle of game preparations, Kennedy--or T.K., as she is more widely known--takes out a roll of athletic tape and a pen and writes down a final score on it.

And more often than not, her prediction is right.

"She's a piece of work," Harvard Coach John Dooley says with a chuckle.

The saga of T.K. the handicapper began when she was the trainer for women's soccer. "It started when [former soccer player] Kelly Landry would ask me how we were going to do," T.K. says. "Then I'd look at the stats. After the second year, I started making prediction scores. I just went on from there."

If she's not always right on the nose, she is at least very close. She seems to be on top of her game prediciting women's hockey games.

Take the weekend of the Ivy League post-season tournament in February. The final score of the semifinal game was Harvard 2, Dartmouth 0, and T.K. hit the score exactly.

Junior Tri-Captain-elect Jennifer White still has that five-in. strip of tape in her locker. "T.K. is so posittive," White says. "She's so good at relieving the pressure."

The next day, Harvard was leading Princeton, 4-2, going into the final minute of play. When freshman Mollie Marcoux scored for the Tigers in that final minute, everybody on the Harvard bench winced.

But T.K. winced a bit more. Not only had Princeton gotten to within one, but the late Marcoux goal had ruined her prediction of a 4-2 Harvard win.

"They get psyched when I get it right," T.K. says.

"I just know she's going to be right," says Tri-Captain-elect Brita Lind.

There should be a temptation to check the tape in mid-game to see how the team--and the predictor--is doing. After all, the trainer seems to be psychic. But there isn't that temptation, according to outgoing Co-Captain Julie Sasner.

"That piece of tape is sacred," Sasner says. "I wouldn't think of touching it."

But predicting games is not all of what T.K. does. She is also part doctor and part motivator, as well as part Pete Axthelm.

"She's a fantastic trainer," Lind says. "She's just really into the team and that helps. She cares very much about the team she's on."

"She's got magic in those tapes," White says.

T.K. kept on predicting because it has become part of her game-day preparation. But she insists that she has not become as superstitious as some of the players.

"It's been said that athletes are superstitious; that's not true," T.K. says. "They're trying to add stability to an otherwise unstable situation."

So what is her secret? "I've never predicted a Harvard loss and I've been wrong a few times," T.K. says.

Given the fact that the Harvard women's hockey team has racked up a 17-2-1 record in the Ivy League in the past two years, it is not hard to see why she is so accurate. After all, you don't bet against proven winners.