The RaHooligan: Y'all Betta Recognize

Here at the Crimson, we put out hundreds of sports stories every year, and sometimes as Harvard’s 41 varsity intercollegiate sports pile on top of each other, we lose the simple abilities of perception and hindsight.

But I was at the Beren Tennis Center this past weekend, watching the Harvard men’s tennis team roll over its first-round opponent in the NCAA tournament, when something struck me: this is the team’s best showing in my three years here. So I went home, clicked on the Internet archives of this paper and found something even more bedeviling—there have been a lot of times in this past school year when we’ve written that a Harvard sports team had its best season in “x” number of years.

In fact, 2001-2002 will go down as one of the most successful and memorable Harvard sports years ever, and it’s not even over yet, thanks to baseball, tennis, track and others. But as this is my last column of the year, let’s take a trip down memory lane (a.k.a JFK St.) to the athletic accomplishments of the year past.

Like almost everything else in America, our trip must begin on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as thousands of Harvard undergrads made their way to house JCRs to register for the upcoming year. The terrorist attacks were on a Tuesday, and all Harvard sporting events for the next week were either canceled or postponed, including football’s season opener against Holy Cross. The decision to take these steps were made by a fresh Harvard face, new Director of Athletics Robert Scalise. The renaissance of Harvard sports had begun.

Over the next two months our athletes competed in outdoor sports with reckless abandon and amazing success. In October, the women’s tennis team captured the fall ECAC championship, while the football team scored a pair of heart attack-inducing wins over Princeton and Dartmouth over at the Stadium. By November, Harvard was winning trophies left and right. Men’s water polo had its highest finish ever (third) at the Eastern Championships, field hockey close out its season with four straight wins and both soccers were headed for the NCAA tournament.

Men’s soccer, led by a youth movement with veteran leadership (always a strong combination), made its first NCAA appearance in five years on the strength of eight shutouts during the regular season. Considering the team had finished last in the Ivy League the year before, the 1-0 loss to Rutgers in the first round was nothing to be ashamed of. The women booters got a little farther, thanks to a quadruple-overtime goal by junior Beth Totman to beat Hartford in the first round, before losing to perennial national power UConn in the next.

And of course, there was football. Injuries to the starting quarterback and running backs were no problem; it just bucked up on defense and line protection. Junior wide receiver Carl Morris, the Ivy Player of the Year, caught everything that was thrown at him, and even threw a few passes himself. Pure heart pushed the Crimson over the edge against defending champ Penn, and then Harvard’s decisive 35-23 victory at the Yale Bowl gave the Crimson its first perfect season since 1913. Essentially, the best season of the modern era.

The weather turned nasty in the winter, but Harvard just pushed its winning ways indoors. Men’s basketball hung in the most competitive Ivy race in recent memory for much longer than anyone had expected, only a year after losing its top scorer. And none of the Lavietes Pavilion fans will soon forget the two-point loss to Princeton, the overtime upset of Penn or the nationally televised demolition of Brown.

Their counterparts on the hardwood, the women’s team, was simply unbeatable. The combined power of forwards Hana Peljto and freshman Reka Cserny was too much for any Ivy team to take, and the Crimson took a 13-1 conference record to the NCAA tournament, where it was making its first appearance since 1998 (when it had upset Stanford).

Individual performances also stood out in those cold months. Sophomore swimmer John Cole continued to prove that he was a recruiting coup with a great appearance at the NCAA tournament. Wrestler Jesse Jantzen went to Albany, N.Y. and brought home the bronze in his weight class at the national championships—the highest finish for a Harvard wrestler since 1953. And 149 lbs was probably a heavyweight back in those days.

The winter culminated for Harvard on the first day of spring, March 23, when the school’s “prestige” sport, men’s hockey, lost to Maine in overtime in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That hockey had gone that far in the first place was a miracle of sorts. Picked by preseason polls to finish in the top ten teams nationally, the Crimson had sputtered towards the end of its ECAC season. But then came Dom Moore’s loop-de-loop goal in double-OT versus Brown; next was Tom Cavanagh’s overtime winner against Clarkson in the ECAC semis; and finally the amazing run was capped by Harvard’s double-OT upset of Cornell, capped by Tyler Kolarik’s game-winner. The Crimson entered the NCAAs for only the first time since 1994, albeit on very, very worn skates.

Which brings me back to the Beren Tennis Center on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Harvard’s still going strong on the athletic side of the Charles River, no matter what ridiculous things are happening with Cornel West, ROTC or the PSLM. Freshman Jonathan Chu and junior Oli Choo will represent Harvard next week in the tennis NCAA tournament, along with women’s player Courtney Bergmann. Track and field studs Chris Lambert and Nicky Grant continue to set records well into reading period. The baseball team’s seniors will compete in the NCAA tournament for the University, even after receiving their diplomas.

So fair Harvard, don’t forget the past as we move quickly to summer and then the next school year. Football will eventually lose and not every athlete will get a championship ring, but in 2001-2002, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought differently.