Seniors Lead Cabot to Glory in Straus Cup Competition

Most students believe house spirit has diminished over the last four years.

When the Class of 1997 arrived on campus, the seniors--the last class to have ordered choice in the housing lottery--reminisced about the good old days when Adams was really weird and Eliot was really snooty. Now this year's seniors whine that full randomization is erasing any last vestige of house character.

Then there's Cabot--where things are a little bit different. Three years ago, it didn't have much of a house identity. But now Cabot is the Intramural house. Cabot has a dynasty.

Cabot House has won the Straus Cup, awarded to the most successful intramural program, three years in a row, and the last two weren't even close.

But winning isn't the only thing that makes Cabot's teams different. Cabot House has an A-league football theme song, and its intramural devotees fondly recall a night of triumph dubbed "The Night of the Apocalypse".

What happened to this part of the Quad?

Three years ago, a man interested in sports named Billy Weitzel came to Cabot as a tutor. At the same time, the incoming sophomore class was particularly interested in recreational athletics.

Something clicked.

Beginning in the fall of 1994, the Class of 1997 went to and won a lot of games, and Cabot eked out Leverett to wrest the Straus Cup from Mather. Weitzel started to get excited. The House Masters got excited, even building a trophy case for the cup.

Then all hell broke loose.

The next year, Cabot came within 100 points of being the first house to earn 2,000 Straus Cup points, demolishing Leverett by 567 points. Weitzel began to put together house-wide IM pep rallies twice a year, featuring pizza, free t-shirts and Homeric epic epithets for outstanding performances.

This season? Suffice it to say that Cabot printed t-shirts that said "Straus Cup Champions: 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97." The prophesy came true.

"It just caught sophomore year," says senior Tracey Cho, Cabot's intramural representative for the past two years. "I think we won more on participation. We were the only house that it could be an hour before the game and you could call people up and they'd drop whatever they were doing and come out to play."

The brunt of the support came from the Class of '97, from people like Cho, Chris Sue-Ling, Chris Nicholson, Brian Algra, Ioannis Dosios, Sunny Wang, Hahrie Han, Sheldon Reid and Herman Sanchez. Nicholson and Cho were the IM reps this year, but all these people came to many a game.

"I would say that [the seniors] have been fueling the drive," Weitzel says. "They are a really special class because there's such a large group of people that come out."

But sheer dedication alone does not win championships. They are also good athletes. For instance, Weitzel made Sue-Ling famous by bestowing the nickname "Death" on him. The idea is that when he shows up, it's Death for the other team.

It's not much of an exaggeration. Sue-Ling's muscular build belies his lightning quickness, which becomes evident as he flags down ball after ball in centerfield during softball games.

Sue-Ling is not alone. Weitzel coined names for other IM stars as well. Algra is "The Money Store" because he's so clutch; Cho is "The Sparkplug;" Sanchez is Herman "The House" Sanchez; Dosios is "The Greek Wonderchild;" Nicholson is "The General;" and Reid is "The Interior Muscle," for his rebounding skill.

All of this has created the sense of an IM culture at Cabot. Weitzel makes posters every week to put in front of the dining hall, and all the stars have gained fame in Cabot.

As a result, more and more people came out to events. Soon, it spiraled out of control.

"The point of IMs isn't just to win, but to get people to play," says Susie Phillips, who was Cabot's sole IM tutor this year and will join Weitzel in that duty next year.

And Cabot sure does play. In A-league football this year, for instance, Cabot's teams went 6-0, 5-1 and 5-1 during the regular season, with the 6-0 team winning five of its games by forfeit. Some houses are lucky to field one team.

"The fact that any house has three teams [in a sport] is great," Phillips adds. "The fact that Kirkland House had six [crew boats] was great. It's the combination of those two things, of winning and getting people out."

This spirit is summed up best for many by the Night of the Apocalypse. One evening, two winters ago, Cabot House won championships in squash, women's basketball, B-league basketball and A-league basketball. In truth, it was an apocalypse for the other teams.

"During the B-league game we made a human pyramid of the A-league players," Cho recalls. "The A-league won by two points against Mather, and B-league won in double-overtime against Leverett. The pyramid had Billy at the top."

That wasn't the only strange thing intramural have made Cabot residents do. After winning A-league football this year, the team drove back to Cabot in Cho's jeep playing the theme song from "Top Gun" (the power guitar song). Cho then proceeded to take a few victory laps around the Quad.

(This is the same team that Weitzel sells chances to play against at house auctions. If the Cabot team loses, then Weitzel has promised to pay $200 of his own money to the challengers. He hasn't had to pay up yet.)

All this contributes to the idea that Cabot intramurals is a little...crazy. Well, it's sort of true.

Two Sundays ago in Cho and Sue-Ling's common room, Nicholson was remembering what sports Cabot had won sophomore year, coming up with A-league and coed basketball, hockey and softball.

Then, out of the blue, Cho slapped his armchair and yelled, "Damn! Basketball!"

Evidently, not winning his division's championship still hurts.

Cabot basketball did come back--after an off-season of work. For instance, Cho told Weitzel that he'd be better if he could dribble more with his left hand, so Weitzel borrowed Cho's ball to practice in the Cabot hallways. However, the floors weren't made for dribbling, and after an hour of this Cho's basketball went kaput.

The ball died, but the spirit was intact. The next year was the Night of the Apocalypse.

Nevertheless, these folks are the same as any other Harvard students--regular people that are involved in some extracurricular activity to an irrational level.

One of the Cabot IM jokes, as told by resident Sally Wolf '97, is the one about if you're put into Cabot and not intramurally-capable, you're asked to transfer. Wolf isn't as much of an intramural psycho as some of her housemates; still, she's Cabot.

It remains to be seen whether Cabot will continue its IM dominance next year. It depends whether Weitzel and Phillips can jump start the current sophomores and juniors to take over the Class of '97's void.

But nothing can change the fact that for three years, Cabot was the intramural house.

"In my speeches [at the banquets]," says Weitzel, "I've made note that they are the greatest IM class of all time. We've had more fun as a house than I've ever witnessed at Harvard."