Accused Duke Star May Transfer

Almost a year after allegations of sexual assault against three former Blue Devil lacrosse players rocked the Duke campus and forced the school to cancel the team’s 2006 season, Harvard men’s lacrosse coach Scott Anderson has confirmed that one of the accused former players has expressed interest in coming to Harvard.

Reade Seligmann, who along with former teammates Collin Finnerty and David Evans saw the rape charges stemming from an incident at a Durham strip club dropped in late December, has plans to apply to Harvard as a transfer student.

“The nature of transfer students is they show interest in the school, and he has shown interest in the school,” Anderson said. “It’s a very complex and competitive process beyond any interest we would have in him.”

The three former players each still face charges for sexual offense and kidnapping, and though all three have denied such involvement from the case’s outset, both Seligmann and Finnerty were suspended by Duke last spring. Evans graduated in May.

Anderson said that the potential of Seligmann actually enrolling at Harvard was contingent on the outcome of his pending legal charges, among other factors.

“Him being supported as an athlete is based on things being resolved,” Anderson said. “It’s all very speculative at this point.”

Seligmann, who couldn’t be reached for comment, was originally scheduled to graduate from Duke in the spring of 2008. He had the opportunity to return to the university beginning this semester, and it was also reported by the Brown Daily Herald last week that the Bears were recruiting the former Blue Devil standout. Before matriculating at Duke in the fall of 2004, he was recruited by both Harvard and Princeton before deciding to play in Durham.

The process now, however, is distinctly different from the high school recruiting process. Because Seligmann would be applying as a transfer student, the lacrosse program cannot actively seek him out. Additionally, there’s the fact that the transfer admissions rate sits much lower than Harvard’s already stingy general admissions rate.

“It would take some unbelievably careful scrutiny by the admissions office,” Anderson said. “The whole competition of the transfer process, that’s an issue as well. But him having interest in our school, that’s totally appropriate.”

At Harvard, most have welcomed the idea of Seligmann wearing Crimson.

“I’ve met him a couple of times because he’s from New Jersey too,” senior co-captain John Henry Flood said. “He’s a great person and he’s definitely a great lacrosse player. If the case turns out to be dropped, he’d be a great addition to the Harvard lacrosse team as a person and a player.”

Flood stressed the importance of reserving judgment regarding both Seligmann and Harvard, reiterating the fact that the case has yielded no convictions and that Seligmann is still a long way from joining the Crimson.

“I hope people would have faith in our legal system, that if he’s proven innocent, they should treat him like he’s 100 percent innocent,” Flood said. “I’d hope that the Harvard population—students, teachers—would support someone who’d been through a trauma like that.”

Anderson also warned people against reaching premature conclusions regarding the possibility of such a high-profile acquisition.

“I think I’m basing my own position on my own knowledge, and I don’t think people are as close to the sport or know as much about Reade,” Anderson said. “I’m not going to be discouraged from my own opinion because of the potential of [backlash]. I know what people think, but I know most of it’s uninformed.”

If Seligmann did come to Harvard, he would be going from a program that currently ranks third in the nation to one that ended the 2006 season with a sub-.500 record.

But according to Anderson, there’s more to the decision than records and rankings.

“He looked here before he was applying to college,” Anderson said. “He’s a great student and I think he’s an excellent young man.”

The Crimson’s most pressing issue comes this Saturday, when the team will travel to Long Island to play Stony Brook following Sunday’s 13-4 season-opening setback at Ohio State.

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.