Leverett Athletes Run the Gamut

One perk about living in overflow housing is that when you step out the door, hungry and fatigued, you have a variety of dining halls to choose from—assuming that they do not have community restrictions that day.

The downside is that thanks to the aforementioned fatigue, and sometimes sheer laziness, you usually just call the closest dining hall your new adopted home. So that’s me every morning, trekking to the House that’s only a 50-second dawdle away.

I woke up early yesterday morning to avoid flunking my Chinese exam, and I needed to go to the nearest place to get some cereal and study in peace: Leverett House.

As I slowly entered that sketch alley facing the river that leads to the Leverett dining hall, a girl clad in green brushed quickly past me with her headphones on, ready to speed down the Charles and back like a leprechaun on fire. This happens almost every morning.

Some mornings, people come running out (sometimes already sweaty), and other mornings, hoards of varsity athletes in their sweatsuits head to the dining hall, either from a hellish practice or a long run.

Funny thing is, most of them live there.

A quick perusal of GoCrimson (for the record, I do not stalk these athletes) made me realize a lot familiar names live in Lev, like men’s basketball captain Jeremy Lin, who was featured on ESPN’s Top Videos for that awesome game-winning shot he made on Sunday afternoon.

Another notable mention is senior Cheng Ho of football, a true warrior that managed to break through the toughest defensive lines in the Ivy League before a devastating injury cut his senior season short. Junior Emma Markley, leading scorer and rebounder for the Crimson women’s basketball team last year, also calls Leverett home.

Many mornings, I have seen Lin with some of his very tall friends munching on breakfast food to help them jumpstart their day. Last weekend, I found myself among a hoard of women’s hockey players as I was trying to make a sandwich by the salad bar. And last night I was seated next to a round table populated by the men’s hockey team.

Sometimes I wonder if the house system is still somewhat flawed for placing so much athletic prowess in one house.

It’s obvious that other houses have their very notable athletes. Currier has Andre Akpan, co-captain of the men’s soccer team which opens the NCAA playoffs on Sunday after clinching its 13th Ivy League title.

But Leverett is different. Not only is it the place of residence for a multitude of DHA sweatshirts, it is also home to an intense intramural program and YouTube broadcasting service.

Lev goes crazy over its intramurals, and always has a strong showing at its competitions. The intramural program is so popular that Lev films most of the IM action during the week and produces it in volumes that are published on everyone’s favorite video-sharing website.

The result? LevSPN is the go-to place to catch up on intramural action. I went on it last night to check it out, and the first video included many familiar faces getting schooled by Lev athletes in volleyball and flag football.

The number of views for the LevSPN channel is pretty impressive—each video has a couple hundred hits, probably the result of the fancy banner over the head of the very nice, card-swiping lady.

The banner efficiently advertises the website, and includes the champions for the past campaign in flag football and volleyball. It also mentions that Lev took third place in last year’s Straus Cup competition—a surprising result for the amount of attention the house devotes to its intramural program. Of course, the banner follows it up with a determined “Yes!” in response to the question of Lev being the ultimate champion this year.

Granted, I live in a prime location for runners—and I’ve been meaning to shed off some extra weight gained thanks to a midterm season that ends at the start of reading period—but the last thing I want on my mind is to think about exercising when I have to memorize a bunch of characters in the morning.

But that’s impossible when you step into Leverett, a place where laziness is looked down upon—unless you want to become one of those kids getting pummeled by a volleyball on LevSPN.

—Staff writer Brian A. Campos can be reached at bcampos@fas.harvard.edu.