No True Love

You watch on TV and college sports look so fun. The fans throw aside all ambitions, they forget about grades, test scores and relationships. They simply kick back and have a good time.

At Duke they paint their faces, wear basketballs on their heads and have bonfires on the campus green. The zillion straight Final Four trips never seems to temper the spirits of the undergrads. More wins, more reason to party. A very simple philosophy.

In Amherst, they spend a night, maybe two, to wait in line to get tickets to see a game in the Massachusetts Cage. The faces are painted, the shirts are all the same color (white or red for the team colors), and the fanatics are crazy. Not Charles Manson crazy, but 20-year-old, after-exams crazy. They are having fun.

In Ann Arbor, it's beyond belief. The football stadium holds over 90,000. And they still sell standing-room-only for the Ohio State or Notre Dame game.

Half the fans can't even see the game, but they still cheer. They're so high up they need oxygen between quarters, but it doesn't stop them. If Michigan scores, the place goes bananas. They are having fun.

And then there's Harvard. The school with all the history. The school with all the tradition. And the school with none of the fan support.

Watching the Crimson has become a chore. There's Harvard vs. Yale. Big game. So the fans come flocking. Harvard for one day in the year feels like a Big Ten school.

But the crowd often comes out of obligation. There is no true love for the team or the game. Its like an exam. You come to Harvard, you take your classes, and you go to the Harvard-Yale football game.

Take any other game in the season. At the Cornell or Brown game, you can hear Giardi call the signals. You can play catch with your buddy five isles over. There's no one there to bother or interrupt.

Football's not the only sport either. The Fab Five from Michigan have had more fans watch one of their pickup games than Tyler Rullman has ever had at Briggs Cage.

And its not like the place is the Louisiana Superdome. It has a seating capacity of 10 and it still is never full. If a player's lucky, his roommate and parents will show up. Impressive home court advantage.

Even hockey doesn't draw the crowds. It was readily apparent this year at the Garden for the Beanpot. The Boston University fans dwarfed the Harvard faithful. Forty-year-old BU grads were wearing the red and white, waving pom-poms, cursing the refs. Maybe its a little overboard, but they were having fun.

Harvard even won the 'Pot, but few seemed to care. In Minnesota it would have been a state holiday. At Harvard, the players get a day off from practice. Or maybe they get to ride the zamboni once or twice. No parades or celebrations. No one would show up.

The main problem is diversity. At Harvard, people have many other interests. Let's face it, if you live in Norman, Okla., you're going to be a Sooners fan.

But in Cambridge, it's different. From musicians to scholars to actors to couch potatoes, Harvard has them all. So there is a small pool to draw from in search of a die-hard sports fan.

And furthermore, Harvard has a million sports. Again, to meet the needs of the entire student body, the school offers every sport known to mankind. That leaves the difficult question for a potential fan. Should he go to the hockey game, or bobsled match? The baseball game or the tractor pull competition?

Of course, a school should be diverse. It's a credit to the school that it can has such a motley student body and that it strives to please every last student. But it's still hard for the sports fans and especially the athletes. It's not too much fun playing hoops in an empty gym.

John C. Ausiello is a Crimson staff writer.