To our readers:

It goes without saying that 2020 has been a year unlike any other in recent history. When the Ivy League, and soon thereafter the entire NCAA, announced their decisions to cancel spring and ongoing winter sports seasons in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collegiate sports world changed indelibly. As student-athletes saw their seasons disappear, the question of how to approach a commencement issue loomed for the sports board. How could we possibly determine end-of-year honors and review the year when so many sports were missing? Well, imperfectly.

You will notice that we follow a format relatively similar to past sports commencement editions, with end-of-year honors, senior perspectives, parting shots, and other features. Superlatives such as “team of the year,” “athletes of the year,” and “rookies of the year” still appear in the edition. At the same time, “Year in Sports 2020” is very different due to the absence of spring sports from our end-of-year honors. And this is certainly a disservice to all of the spring student-athletes who deserve recognition. In our senior perspectives, we hope to give voices to a handful of student-athletes who could not finish their careers due to the pandemic, but we know this recognition is just a couple of articles. At the same time, however, we still wanted to do something relatively normal during very abnormal times. And while we did not cover all of the teams and individuals that did complete their seasons in this commencement edition, we feel as though the “Year in Sports 2020” offers a view into some of the seminal moments of the past season of Harvard Athletics. Thus, we continued with the commencement edition as best as we could, recognizing the void that the lack of spring sports leaves in this issue.

Going forward, we hope to continue telling student-athlete stories, and we look forward to a time when we truly do have a “year” in sports to review, and not just two-thirds of one.

Sincerely,

William C. Boggs ‘22 | Sports Chair

Joseph W. Minatel ‘21 | Sports Chair