THE GIFT OF GAB': Recruiting Drama Has Place in Ivy League

Sometimes, Harvard varsity sports just seem like one big contradiction to me.

Harvard boasts the most NCAA Division I teams of any college, and yet, because of Ivy League standards, it offers zero athletic scholarships. It has won a number of NCAA championships—just take a look at the historic run the fencing team made this year—but seems to be mired in the middle of the national pack in many of the major sports.

And finally, the school recruits some of the nation’s top athletes, but until they make an impact on the field, court, track, or ice, they seldom come up during breakfast-table discussions. Our feature today notwithstanding, they too rarely show up in the pages of our very own breakfast-table daily.

Outside of the everyday world on this side of the river, coaches, players, and the athletic department as a whole are working constantly to entice next year’s crop of athletes to join our Ivy community here in Cambridge.

As sports writers, sometimes we at the Crimson only get glimpses of this intricate and rules-laden world.

Last fall, while covering the Crimson men’s soccer team, I waited patiently and observed (but did not eavesdrop) for five minutes after a game while Harvard coach John Kerr made a final pitch and said goodbye to a recruit who had been in attendance. Even as one season was winding down, Kerr—like every varsity coach employed by the University—was already planning ahead and trying to secure the next crop of Crimson stars.

At colleges across the country, it is this mysteriousness that makes the recruitment process as big a deal as it has become.

Heck, for football, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the entire gamut of sports publications will devote countless words and hours of coverage to see where the top-ranked prep quarterback will sign (Tim Tebow, ranked by many as the best of the class of 2006, chose Florida over Alabama live on ESPNews). For fans, both students and alumni, the waiting and watching can inspire new hope and excitement for the following year during the long off-season.

Despite the regulations and the lack of scholarships that make the recruitment process more delicate and difficult for Harvard coaches, there is still a niche audience for the recruiting hot stove here at Harvard.

Next year’s women’s hockey team offers the perfect example, and one that I personally know the most about. A quick look at the “Division I Recruits 2006-07” thread on the USCHO.com fan forum reveals that there have been over 200 posts about who will be heading to what school next season.

For those who care, apparently the big skates left empty after the departure of senior netminder Ali Boe—who set a number of records during her three-year career in goal for the Crimson—may be filled by Toronto Jr. Aeros star Christina Kessler.

The name might mean little or nothing to the average Harvard sports fan right now, but in less than a year, she could be in the middle of a mid-ice pile as the Crimson skaters celebrate a national championship. Who knows? The sky is most definitely the limit for these unknown, but obviously talented, recruits.

How about football, a sport in which recruiting is as highly publicized nationally as any other? Some 250-pound 17-year-old who has just recently received his acceptance letter could become the cornerstone of a dominant Ivy championship squad in 2009. Why, just three years ago, junior Clifton Dawson was a redshirt freshman at Northwestern University; now, he is the most prolific running back ever to have worn Crimson.

In the not-too-distant past, the stars of the swimming, lacrosse, basketball, fencing, hockey teams were relative unknowns to their Harvard classmates.

Now, the likes of David Cromwell, Evan Calvert, Matt Stehle, Emily Cross, and Peter Hafner have brought medals, banners, and even a national championship to the college’s crowded trophy case. All of these stars went from recruits who coaches worked hard to bring to Harvard to minor campus celebrities.

They are, at least, for the loyal readers of Harvard’s breakfast-table daily.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.