MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR: Quarterback Leads Repeat Title Charge

Graduating fifth-year senior Chris Pizzotti is living the high life right now. Having completed one of the greatest Harvard football careers in history, Pizzotti is now vying for a backup quarterback role behind Mark Sanchez with the New York Jets. For a guy who’s been part of three Ivy League Championship teams, this is an appropriate punctuation to an already-stellar career.

“Chris Pizzotti is the best football player...to ever play at Harvard,” outgoing captain Matt Curtis said. “He’s the most winning quarterback in Harvard history. We had a lot of really good players who had a lot of personal recognition, but Chris Pizzotti was the best player on the team. If we don’t have him, we don’t win two Ivy League championships. More important than just being a good player on the field, he’s the best teammate I’ve ever had. I can’t say enough about him—words can’t express what he means to Harvard football.”

Though Pizzotti’s collegiate trajectory was unconventional—getting the start sophomore year, only to be replaced by classmate Liam O’Hagan midway through the year, and then reclaiming the No. 1 spot midway through his junior year—the Reading, Mass. native iced his role as Harvard’s leading man this season.

“I wasn’t always having success in terms of getting out on the field,” Pizzotti said of his early days with the team. “But the last two years, winning the Ivy title back-to-back is a dream come true.”

In his final performance at the helm of the Crimson offense against Yale in The Game, Pizzotti looked like an NFL-caliber quarterback. Up against the nation’s top defense in terms of points allowed, in addition to driving 30 mile-per-hour winds and single-digit temperatures, Pizzotti led Harvard in a convincing 10-0 victory over the Bulldogs.

But as decisively as the season ended, the beginning was not so clean.

In the Crimson’s annual night game against Holy Cross to kick off the 2008 campaign, Pizzotti committed four turnovers. But heading into the fourth quarter down, 17-6, Pizzotti buckled down to notch three final-frame touchdowns—one by air, two by land—to edge out the Crusaders, 25-24. He finished the day with 370 passing yards in the spectacular comeback.

In the next contest against Brown, Pizzotti kept a drive alive as the clock wore down, setting Harvard up for a touchdown to bring the team within two. But a failed two-point conversion resulted in a 24-22 loss to the Bears.

As the season progressed, that loss to Brown began to fester, nagging at Harvard’s Ivy title hopes. But Pizzotti kept the team in the hunt, averaging roughly 250 yards per game and rolling past both league and non-league foes.

In the third-to-last week of the season, Pizzotti notched a record game when it counted most. Against Columbia, Pizzotti passed 25-of-40 for a career-best 376 yards and four touchdowns. He also spread the wealth among his receivers, connecting with both sophomore Levi Richards and junior Matt Luft for more than 100 yards.

“We knew that Columbia’s defense was high risk, high reward,” Pizzotti said. “We caught them in some blitzes sometimes...It showed the depth of our receiving corps that [Luft and Richards] got 100 yards.”

In the same week, Yale topped the Bears to open up a chance for the Crimson to take a share of the Ivy League Championship, barring losses to either Penn or the Bulldogs—two of the better programs in the Ancient Eight.

“We knew all we needed was a slight opening of the door,” Pizzotti said. “We went down to the locker room and watched film every night. We weren’t going to let anything get in the way of us being Ivy champions again.”

And Pizzotti answered the call. In Harvard’s 24-21 victory over Penn, the Crimson held the ball for just 20:19, but Pizzotti worked efficiently, passing 16-of-23 for 156 yards and two touchdowns.

With the shutout of Yale in The Game, Harvard and Pizzotti earned their second consecutive Ivy title, the first back-to-back championships for the Crimson since 1982-83.

And Pizzotti’s hard work and persistence paid off, as he’s now fighting to make it out of Jets camp and extend his football career.

“It is a little interesting,” Pizzotti said of playing with the Jets. “Growing up, I was always a die-hard Patriots fan. I’ve been taking a lot of heat from my friends and family.”

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.