Guyton says that Radcliffe is not getting a fair deal from Harvard as far as athletics, but, she adds optimistically, things are getting better.

"As far as facilities, they're doing the best they can," she says. "The big problems now are in coaching--and in attitudes. The coaches find it hard to take us seriously as athletes. They're sort of scared to push us as far as we can go, because they're scared that girls will quit. The attitude towards women athletes here is that academics are more important to us anyway, so why are we doing it?"

Guyton says that another big problem is the lack of opportunities for women athletes here. "It's easier for men--they have varsity teams, junior varisty, freshman teams, and they also have House teams," she says. "But women just have varisty. If a woman is good enough to play on a House team, then she's probably good enough to play on the varisty team."

It is through the teams she has played on that Guyton has made her closest women friends. "We eat together, on weekends we go to movies together," she says. "A lot of the girls who come out for the teams do so just for that comradeship."

But the majority of her friends are men. The male athletes that she knows in Kirkland House, where she lives, respect the effort that women athletes put into sports. "Sure, sometimes we come into the dining hall in our warm-ups, and I guess we don't look too pretty," she laughs. "But the guys recognize our dedication and respect us for it."

Guyton says she loves the four-to-one ratio in Kirkland, perhaps because she's used to a male environment. She has eight brothers and one sister. "The ratio in my family is four to one," she says.

Her four oldest brothers have gone through Harvard Medical School, and her older sister, whom Guyton describes as "sort of a rebel," is doing graduate work in chemistry. Guyton herself will enter Duke Medical School next fall.

Has she ever considered being a professional athlete? "Oh, I've entertained dreams of it," she sighs. Later, she adds, "I think if I were a guy I would definitely have considered it. But there just aren't the same opportunities available for women as there are for men.