3S's Swimming Sleeping Sacrifice,

Senior Laura Alonzo never got to kiss Matt Biondi. Biondi, the 1988 Olympic swimming hero, was presenting the trophy for high point awards in Alonzo's Bay Area summer recreational swimming league. Alonzo had worked hard and won her 13-year-old age group--and the right to accept a trophy from Biondi.

"He shook everyone's hand who won their divisions except for the girl in the 15-18 year old division," Alonzo said. "He kissed her, but he never kissed me. I was disappointed."

Had Biondi seen some of Alonzo's races this year, he might have granted her wish.

In a season where the women's swimming team did not live up to its expectations, Alonzo enjoyed the best season of her life and broke all of her personal records. She also made great strides out of the water. The biochemistry concentrator will be attending University of Pennsylvania medical school next year after spending the summer in Brazil.

Though Alonzo's swimming and academic careers have virtually dominated her life at Harvard, she says that the moments she will always cherish the most are the times she spent with her family and her seven roommates.

"My roommates are the biggest and most important part of my life," Alonzo says "We've all grown so much together, even over the course of this last year. Six of us wrote theses, and we all were trying to figure out what to do with [our] lives."

Alonzo did spend some memorable times with the swim team, though--like the time she was late to her first practice as a freshman because her alarm didn't go off. Or the time her eight-months-pregnant coach started having contractions in the middle of the final meet of Alonzo's career.

"At Easterns [this year], Coach [Maura Costin] Scalise started having contractions on the swimming deck," Alonzo says. "During the meet, they had to fly her back to Boston."

Scalise, who was due to give birth a month later, was in fact experiencing premature contractions and had to be flown back to Boston because doctors were worried about the possibility of a premature birth. Team members were not notified of the reason for Scalise's departure, however, until the second day of the meet. Despite the loss of their coach, Alonzo and her teammates managed to put Scalise's loss behind them, and they swam very well.

"The amazing thing is that our team really rallied together," Alonzo says. "It was one of the most amazing moments of my life, to see the team come together."

Alonzo's knack for swimming her best when one would least expect it did not come easy. She has been waking up for practice at 5:30 a.m. for as long as she can remember, and has spent many of her vacations in intensive training.

"[Swimming] is a big sacrifice. You have to go to bed all year. There's a correlation between how much you sleep and how well you swim," Alonzo says.

Looking back, all those sacrifices seem to have been worth it to Alonzo. Though she took junior year off to concentrate on her lab work and to run the Boston Marathon (which she completed in less than four hours), her three years at Blodgett Pool will always hold a special place in her heart.

"I will always love the team," Alonzo says, "They will always be a part of me."