Attitudes

In short, just about any freshman who is willing to work at a specific sport, and has a certain amount of desire and ability, can find his niche in the Harvard sports scene. President Bok is the person most responsible for this since he has seen to it that freshman athletics survive at Harvard even when other schools are cutting them back o save money.

Trying to define an attitude towards athletics among the Harvard student body isn't all that simple. Harvard attracts a wide number of diverse people, so trying to pin a stereotype on the Harvard athletic scene is near impossible.

On the one hand Harvard certainly doesn't fit the image of the Big Ten school--there are no pep rallies before big games or flash card sections in the stands. But on the other hand, Harvard is far from the image that most people attribute to it--that Harvard students are basically unconcerned with their teams and take a very blase attitude toward sports. The answer lies somewhere in between.

For one thing, there is no peer pressure to play sports at Harvard. People don't feel that you let fair Harvard down if you don't compete for it, even if you have the ability. There is a great deal more respect for athletes who turn away from organized sports because they wish to concentrate on becoming a doctor or doing something else.

'Cliffies certainly don't have a reputation for idolising jocks. Many athletes, especially football players even feel there is definite hostility towards them from women at Harvard because of their jockishness. Even though many of the women themselves play sports.

There are several types of people whom one can classify. There are a large number of people at Harvard who couldn't care less about any sports-related activity. They're the ones that are interviewed in libraries on a Saturday in late November about why they aren't watching the Harvard-Yale football game instead.

Then there is another group of people who almost live or die by what their Harvard heroes do. These are the sportswriters and other assorted hacks like certain obsessed alumni.

Then you finally have the great majority of Harvard students who go to the hockey and football games more as a social event than anything else. It's somewhere to bring a date from Wellesley, an excuse to get drunk, or just to watch a roommate.

Getting into any Harvard intercollegiate contest as a spectator is pretty easy. Harvard is about the only college in the country that charges no admission to undergraduate sports events--with the exception of the Dartmouth and Yale football games, when undergrads must pay half price.

Admission to athletic events is gained via a ticket book that is passed out around registration time, and which contains direct admission stubs for football games, and stubs which can be traded in for tickets at the ticket office for hockey and basketball.