Ivy League to Big Leagues

For some athletes, it is been a lifelong dream. For others, it is an opportunity to explore the world. But for all student-athletes who try to go pro, breaking into the professional ranks is a chance to prove themselves on the next level and receive financial compensation for doing so.

Professional sports is not a field most people associate with a Harvard education, but for a select few Crimson student-athletes, four years of intercollegiate competition is not enough. From shooting hoops in Europe to calling plays in the NFL, several Harvard graduates are making waves on professional playing fields around the world.

“People just don’t expect Harvard students to be quality athletes,” said Rachel Brown ’12, who won a national softball championship in Sweden this past year after leading the Crimson to two Ivy League titles. “Anytime somebody [coming from Harvard] is successful with an athletic career, it’s kind of a big deal.”

UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY

While graduating athletes with professional aspirations have the same immediate goal of signing a contract, a sports career is a means to a variety of ends.

Former basketball co-captain Miriam Rutzen will play in Europe over the summer and hopes to continue doing so in the fall.  For the senior, an overseas job is just another phase of her life, not a permanent career.

“[I want to] use basketball to move on and explore the world where I’m learning about a new culture, a different people, a different language,” Rutzen said. “A Harvard education often times pushes you to kick away your beliefs and kick away what you think and how you are [as a person].... My goal isn’t to play professionally. It’s to use that to take me to the next step [in my life].”

Brown,  the winningest pitcher in Harvard history and now the assistant softball coach at Stony Brook, believes the disparity in attention garnered by men’s and women’s professional teams means a career in sports is not necessarily the endgame for the bulk of female student-athletes.

“It was more just a temporary life experience to go play softball in Sweden,” Brown said. “For women, it’s not as possible for athletics to be a professional career as it is for men, especially with softball and baseball.”

FOLLOWING THEIR FOOTSTEPS

The difference in opportunities—and with them, challenges—yields different goals for male student-athletes from Harvard looking to enter the highest level of competition.

This April, the Baltimore Ravens selected senior Kyle Juszczyk in the fourth round of the NFL draft. Juszczyk, who utilized his versatility as an H-back in the Crimson’s offense, was Harvard’s first NFL draft pick since quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05.

Fitzpatrick’s nine-year career exemplifies the possibility of post-Crimson success. After a college career that included an Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year award in 2004, nearly 7,000 total offensive yards, and an almost-perfect Wonderlic test, the quarterback was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2005.

“It was a dream, something I had always wanted to do since I had been growing up, but I didn’t think it was ever going to be any sort of reality,” Fitzpatrick said. “I talked to [Harvard] coach [Tim] Murphy...and apparently I had shown up on the radar of some NFL teams. It wasn’t until after my junior year and heading into my senior year that I had any idea that it was a possibility for me.”

Fitzpatrick—who chose Harvard after unsuccessfully pursuing a Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship—says his time in Cambridge colored his worldview and informed him of the variety of people and cultures lying ahead in his life.

“At Harvard, I grew up a lot in terms of being able to deal with different types of people because where I grew up in Arizona, it’s predominately white and predominantly Mormon families, so there’s not a whole lot of diversity,” Fitzpatrick said. “Coming to Harvard was an eye-opening experience because there’s so much diversity on campus.”

The quarterback would go on to be traded to the Cincinnati Bengals and eventually sign a six-year, $59 million contract, with $24 million guaranteed, with the Buffalo Bills in 2011 before moving to the Tennessee Titans this offseason.

COMBATING STEREOTYPES

Fitzpatrick’s career is exceptional considering the relative dearth of successful Ivy League players replicating that success in the NFL. Recent standouts, such as Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Josue Ortiz ’11-’12 and quarterback Collier Winters ’12, failed to secure contracts and senior running back Treavor Scales has experienced similar struggles.

For players like Ortiz and Scales, who both received invitations to franchise minicamps, the Crimson shield presents an initial challenge because of the perceptions that people carry with the brand.

“Guys don’t expect Harvard football players to be ballplayers,” Scales said. “They expect this cerebral guy, this guy that will get a 50 on the Wonderlic, the guy that’ll impress you in the film room. But when he gets out there, does he have the fight that this guy from Alabama [or] LSU has? Does he have the grit that a guy at UGA has? And proving that I am a tough son-of-a-gun with a chip on my shoulder, that’s where I find the most trouble in going to minicamps.”

But Scales also notes that after receiving the initial invitation to camps, the stigma of the H disappears and landing a roster spot is purely based on the talent level of a given player.

“I’ve learned that a lot of it has to do with the logo on the helmet, but I’ve talked to scouts that will tell you straight up that the best players will play in their organization—it’s not a matter of where you came from,” Scales said. “It might get your foot in the door, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to stay there.”

TAKING THEIR SHOT

In addition to the connotations of the Harvard brand, college scheduling presents an obstacle for student-athletes attempting to impress scouts.  Alex Killorn ’12 was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning after high school but notes that his choice to play in college rather than enter the NHL system immediately discouraged some teams from taking a closer look.

The disadvantage for college-bound hockey players with professional hopes stems from the increasing number of high schoolers who forgo college entirely and instead play in the junior leagues, which have a pro-style schedule, before entering the NHL.

“Going through the process, a lot of teams told me, ‘If you go to Harvard, we probably won’t draft you,’ just because they didn’t feel like that was the best thing for my development,” Killorn said. “For a guy like me to come through and transition well through the pro ranks might have helped Tampa be like ‘This is a great program and kids can develop here into good players.’”

BUILT-IN BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Despite the success and reputation of Harvard hockey, the Ivy League’s restrictive scheduling gives other college players a competitive edge.

“You play a shorter season than everyone else...just because you play in the Ivy League, so you don’t get as much development in that sense. You don’t play as many games,” Killorn said.

Scheduling presents a similar challenge off the ice. Although the recent success of the Harvard basketball program has aided the Crimson’s ability to draw high profile non-conference opponents, the professional realm has still been a challenge for hoopsters to conquer.

“Professionally, I think coming from Harvard does put you back,” said former co-captain Keith Wright ’12. “I think [Houston Rockets guard] Jeremy Lin [’10] opened the door a little bit.... I was talking to different teams, and one of the main things they brought up was that you’re not playing the top competition coming from the Ivy League.”

Wright, the 2010-11 Ivy League Player of the Year, went undrafted in the 2012 NBA Draft and took his low-post game to Sweden, where he shot nearly 60 percent from the field for Uppsala Basket this past year.

While Wright has enjoyed success with the prominent club team, he is ready to pursue his childhood dream. Now back in the U.S., Wright plans to make another run at the big leagues, just as many undrafted athletes have done before.

“Me not making it in was based solely on them wanting to see professional success and professional experience,” Wright says. “I had to go out and prove myself.”

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samanthalin@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @linsamnity.

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @CrimsonCordelia.