Pioneer, Gamer and now a Hall-of-Famer

BOSTON—Harvard alum Allison Jaime (A.J.) Mleczko ’97-’99 is no stranger to honors—with two Olympic medals, a national championship, a wedding ring and a USA Hockey bobblehead doll already to her name. Yet her induction into the New England Women’s Sports Hall of Fame Tuesday night was a unique achievement in its own right.

The allure of the event held at the Sheraton Boston, besides its fundraising goals for women in sports through the New England Women’s Fund, was its bringing together of influential female athletes ranging from 1940s professional baseball players to the Olympic medalists of today. Mleczko said she was amazed to be in presence of such pioneers, yet no one from the Harvard ice hockey camp would be shy to classify her as a trail blazer herself.

When Mleczko entered Harvard almost a decade ago—her family name already a legacy in field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse—there was no Olympic women’s ice hockey, no NCAA women’s ice hockey and no Level I funding from the Harvard athletic department. Mleczko’s amazement at the rapid growth in her sport was the theme of her induction speech.

Her lengthiest anecdote described her speaking arrangements at elementary schools and how her reception changed between the 1998 and 2002 Olympics. After her Olympic debut, little boys would question she would choose to play ice hockey as a young girl. Four years later, the commonly asked question became, “Why’d you have to play on a boys team?” shortly followed by, “Why were there no girls’ teams?”

“I thought that was the most amazing moment, to look at what the New England Women’s Fund, and organization’s like this, have done for little kids,” Mleczko said.

While Mleczko praised the financial growth of women’s ice hockey, her induction itself was honoring another crucial aspect of the sport’s growth—the emergence of role models in women’s ice hockey.

Because of the high visibility of the sport’s debut in the 1998 Olympics, her membership on the U.S. gold medal team that year naturally leads off her resume. Her return to Harvard to win a national championship the following year, though not as widely publicized as Olympics, was just as special in Mleczko’s mind.

Mleczko decided to take two years off from Harvard in 1997 and 1998 to try out for the Olympics. Harvard coach Katey Stone, who earned position prior to Mleczko’s second season, was encouraging to her top player. Stone promised that regardless of whether she made the team, stronger Harvard recruits would be awaiting her return.

Stone did not disappoint, bringing in strong classes highlighted by future Canadian Olympian Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01 in 1996 and Angie Francisco ’01 in 1997, each of whom cracked Mleczko’s single-season Harvard scoring records in their freshman seasons. The 1999 recruiting class included two Olympians: current Canadian senior Jennifer Botterill and American junior Angela Ruggiero, who followed in Mleczko’s footsteps by interrupting their college years for the Olympics.

Those players set the stage for what would go down as one of the greatest college hockey seasons ever—33-1-0 topped off by a national championship. The 33 wins more has exactly as many as Harvard had in the previous three years combined.

Mleczko’s numbers that season—a collegiate record 77 assists and 114 points—only begin to tell of her influence on that team’s results.

“The fact that she’d gone away and had to opportunity to develop more as a player and a leader made a significant difference when she came back,” Stone said. “Her presence on the ice spoke for itself, but it was her locker room demeanor, just how she carried herself. How important playing hockey at Harvard was for her made a significant difference for everyone else.”

Mleczko’s co-captain Claudia Asano ’99, a recent hire as a Harvard assistant coach this year, praised her for her leadership and friendship on and off the ice.

“She always led by example,” Asano said. “If we had to get things done she was the first one to do it on and off the ice. In the classroom, going to bed early, all that kind of stuff. She was always doing everything the right way.”

“She was an extremely coordinated person on the ice but off the ice she was goofy and fun and likes to hang out with people that enjoy life,” Asano added.

During the 1999 season, Mleczko had the opportunity to rejoin the U.S. national team for the World Championships but chose instead to stay at Harvard, a decision that Stone is still thankful for today.

“She made sacrifices, she stayed at Harvard,” Stone said. “She was captain of the Harvard team. That was her team then after the Olympics she was totally committed to it, and she showed how much it meant to her. And as a result she gained tremendous respect from all of her teammates.”

Mleczko’s sacrifice for her sport did not end when she left Harvard. She married Jason Griswold in September 2000, and just days after her honeymoon she was whisked away to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, where the U.S. team trained together for two seasons leading up to the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics and an eventual silver medal.

Since Mleczko’s U.S. national team obligations ended in March, she has devoted much of her time to giving back to the Nantucket community, where her parents reside. There she ran a two-week hockey camp in addition to starting an annual celebrity Charity on Ice benefit in Nantucket’s new ice rink, which donated its funds to youth hockey on the island.

Many speculated that the Olympics would be Mleczko’s last international event, but Asano knew better.

“I think she’ll play until she can’t,” Asano said. “That’s my own instinct when I see her play.”

Sure enough, Mleczko confirmed that she would be playing for the U.S. in the next two major international events, the 2002 Four Nations Cup hosted by Kitchener, Ont., in November and the 2003 World Championships hosted by Beijing next April. The 2006 Olympics, however, are still too far for her to decide.

“I haven’t committed for four more years. I love hockey. I love to keep playing. I’m 27, so I’m young enough,” Mleczko said. “A lot of it is the geography of it. It’s a commitment of going to live in Lake Placid, for me being married and having to give up a lot of time from my personal life. It’s a fact of life a lot of Olympic athletes have to go through.”

With her hockey career still going strong for now, Mleczko has held off on any further inquiries into her future. The prospect of having no experience outside of sports upon entering the work force is still worrisome for some Olympic athletes, though Mleczko says her work as a spokesperson for the job search website Monster.com has helped assuaged some of those fears.

Mleczko served as volunteer assistant coach for the 1999-2000 Harvard team, but she isn’t inclined at the moment to follow in Asano’s footsteps for the hired position.

“Right now I’m so close to playing. I know myself and I’m really competitive, so jumping right behind the bench would be tough for me,” Mleczko said.

But regardless of what Mleczko does once her playing days are over, there is full confidence that she will continue to promote the growth of women’s sports.

“She will continue to be an ambassador for Harvard athletics and women’s ice hockey,” Stone said. “It’ll be interesting to see if she continues to play but if she doesn’t, I’m sure she’ll she find a way to continue to be involved.”