Some Athletes Denied Traditional Garb

Every varsity athlete’s dream of receiving a free DHA sweat suit may become another victim of the stagnant economy and the Harvard Department of Athletics’ budget cuts.

It was customary for varsity athletes to receive the complementary sweat suit every year as a testament to their athletic prowess, but this year there will be no handouts.

Following recent trends, Harvard’s Department of Athletics has made considerable reductions to its budget, which in turn has affected how much each team can spend on equipment. The department asked all varsity coaches to budget only what was necessary to their program. Whether the DHA sweaters were budgeted depended on each team’s allowance as well as the coach’s opinion on the matter.

“The DHA sweat suits were always available as part of the training gear for different sports,” said Senior Associate Director of Athletics Patricia Henry. “When we made certain decisions in reducing our budgets, we gave budget targets to the coaches and it was to their discretion to decide what they needed to outfit their teams.”

Since the sweat suits were not budgeted, varsity athletes will not be able to obtain them from the department free of cost–or at all for some athletes.

“The sweat suits are not for sale,” Henry said. “There has been some misleading information going around but it is not true. We may look into selling sweat suits if there is high demand for them in the future, but for now we are not selling them.”

Some varsity athletes were not pleased that certain individuals will receive the gear and others won’t despite an understanding of the grim economic situation.

“Athletes who don’t get the sweaters should be able to pay for them at a reasonable price,” said women’s water polo co-captain Kelly Peeler. “I don’t see the harm in selling them to us at the normal prices they would get it for. In terms of the culture, DHA sweaters are important, but it’s understandable if cuts have to be made.”

Another recent athletic concern pertained to the department’s policies regarding undergraduate students and their gym memberships.

The misconception involved the idea that undergraduates needed to reactivate their gym memberships online to continue having free access to the university’s gyms and classes.

“There are no fees for using the university’s gym facilities,” said Associate Director of Athletics Jeremy Gibson. “We haven’t gone through any changes regarding that and the gyms are still available to students free of charge.”

When asked about the website allowing students to renew their memberships, Gibson elucidated that the purpose of the website was for “catching information for classes and making sure that they aren’t overbooked.”

The reduced budget, however, has affected the open hours of many facilities in as part of the cutback on operation costs.

“We’re closing some of our facilities for more hours than in the past but no additional charges,” Henry said. “We had to make significant reduction in our department and we took it very seriously. We did what we had to do.”

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