Harvard's Obscure Sports Gain An Admirer

With more varsity teams competing for Harvard than any other NCAA Division 1 college in the country, it’s not surprising that there may be some sports with which you’re not familiar.

It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I was introduced to the beautiful game that is squash when a new friend asked me to watch her play in her first varsity game.

After watching a couple of matches, I decided I was ready to give playing a shot. Once I got over the initial claustrophobia that comes naturally with being trapped inside a box with a potentially crazy person, I attempted to serve the ball. Lesson No. 1: squash balls don’t bounce very well, especially if you haven’t hit them against the wall for a while.

I learned a lot more about the game in later lessons and have continued to do so in my time as a beat writer. But for someone like me who grew up watching football and basketball, watching a squash match sometimes feels like being transported to a completely different world. Squash players referee their teammates’ matches, adding a very interesting dynamic to each contest. Immediately following a tough matchup, players often have to work together with their opponents to call the next game.

When a team match is being played, the whole area is abuzz with squeaky shoes cutting across the wooden flooring and the smack of the ball hitting each and any of the walls. The hush—marred only by the sounds of other matches and a few gasps and brief comments—that usually engulfs viewers during points adds a different kind of intensity than what you see in most other sports. Only when the ball finally bounces twice or hits tin is the semi-silence broken with the louder claps and cheers usually associated with sporting events. As I’ve come to learn, there’s something really special about this hidden gem of a sport.

And it’s not just squash. This winter break, I had the pleasure of watching a cross-country ski race for the first time. And by “watching,” I mean that my ski buddies and I were almost trampled by a stampede of 15-20 high school girls breaking into last-second sprints in the direction of a looming finish line.

I’ve never been much of a skier, and it was my very first time on a cross-country trail. So when the racers’ path abruptly merged with ours, it was pretty terrifying. Concerned parents called out to the four unsuspecting skiers dawdling along the trail, and we quickly scrambled to the side and were able to observe the race to the finish.

My awkward stumbling across black-diamond trails earlier in the day (apparently those exist in cross-country skiing, too) gave me a newfound appreciation for the girls cruising with ease up the same slopes on which I spent nearly half an hour face-down in the snow. In retrospect, the encounter was a fortunate accident, especially because I was able to jump into a snow bank before any collisions could occur.

Students should make an effort to get to know Harvard’s lesser known athletic teams.

As a fall-sport athlete, I spend a lot of time in the winter and spring cross training, because, per Ivy League regulations, offseason interactions between players and coaches are severely limited. And the offseason has been the perfect time to experiment with new sports—at least once in a while—and gain a new appreciation for the different games people play on campus.

The world of sports is much more extensive than we often realize, and I would encourage you to go see some of the lesser-known sports teams play. Want to start now? Here’s a shameless plug for the sport I cover: Tonight, both the Harvard men’s and women’s squash teams host Trinity. The Crimson women and the Bantams men are both defending national champions and they hold the country’s current No. 1 rankings, so it’s sure to be a night of great squash all around.

Check out the matches if you have a chance, and maybe get into a game yourself (though you might want to wait until at least tomorrow for the latter). On a campus with 41 varsity teams, there’s no reason we shouldn’t learn a little something about all of them.

—Staff writer Catherine E. Coppinger can be reached at ccoppinger@college.harvard.edu.