"Here, there is usually a senior or two who is working on a thesis or someone who has a lab that he has to be at every Tuesday during practice," Getman said. "It doesn't get in the way. It means that they come out the other days and have perhaps a little bit more intensity."
Sometimes, players miss more than practice. Squash player Jon Bernheimer '90 had to miss a match against Trinity earlier this year because he had tutorial. In Bernheimer's tutorial, only two absenses are permitted. He had already missed one class. "That's the tutorial system, you can't use athletics to abuse the tutorial system," Bernheimer says.
Coaches have to operate within certain limitations. The Athletic Department gives coaches strict guidelines about how many practices may be held a week and how long those practices can be, according to women's basketball Coach Kathy Delaney Smith. Also, coaches cannot hold mandatory practices during exam periods.
Even with these restrictions, teams at Harvard are able to compete successfully with teams free of rigid academic requirements. Harvard's women's teams in particular are able to give teams outside the Ivy League a solid test, according to Delaney Smith.
"Women's sports are definitely different than men's sports, as far as the difference between the top 20 teams nationally and teams in the Ivy League," Delaney Smith says. "In a given game, I would say it is more likely for a women's team to upset a team from the top 20."
Exceptions to Delaney Smith's observation do, of course, exist. The men's hockey team is currently the top-ranked team in the nation. Harvard's crew teams have always been among the best in the country.
Harvard's success in these programs is due to locale (hockey and crew are traditionally New England sports) and the reputations of their coaches (hockey Coach Bill Cleary '56 and crew Coach Harry Parker are legends).
Athletes find coaches' efforts to accomodate them helpful.
"The coaches are concerned with the best interests of the team," swimmer Ken Johnson '90 says. "They realize some guys do want to compete on the national level, some guys just want to improve themselves and others just want to do something besides academics and be part of the team."
Finally, athletes provide their own support groups. According to Gielen, upperclassmen on the basketball team regularly offer advice and encouragment to the younger players. And Beth Chandler '89, co-captain of the women's hoop squad, says several of the science concentrators on the team get together twice a week to study.
For most Harvard athletes, sports is an education in its own right. Sports "can teach you as many things as you can learn in the classroom," says basketball player Fred Schernecker'88-'89.
While sports provides a discipline applicable in other areas of life, some Harvard athletes have visions of playing professional sports. Frilot says he hopes to play in the National Football League next year.
Most Harvard athletes, however, are resigned to a life outside of athletics after graduation.
"Sports ain't--and I stress ain't--going to get you into law school," rugby player Annor Ackah '89 says. "There's only so far you can go unless you're going to go pro. And this is not the place to go if that's what you want."
Reported and written by Mark Brazaitis, Casey J. Lartigue Jr., Michael J. Lartigue, Jennifer M. Frey, Julio Varela, Michael D. Stankiewicz, Christine Dimino and Mia Kang.