The government concentrator abandoned histhesis in October. He felt it was detracting fromtraining time.

And, perhaps his biggest sacrifice of all, hepassed on an offer to attend the Olympic timetrials. Trying out for the Olympics would haveconflicted with Easterns and physically exhaustedhim just before the NCAAs.

In the end, as in all success stories insports, the extra hours and multiple sacrificespaid off.

At Easterns, the Chelmsford High Schoolgraduate made the finest showing of his career,breaking record after record to lead Harvard toits first championship since 1986.

Breaking Records

Peterson broke pool, meet and Harvard recordsin both the 400-yard IM (3:48.34) and the 200-yardbackstroke (1:44.73) and set a pool and Harvardrecord in the 500-yard freestyle (4:22.32). Thesetimes eventually qualified him for the NCAAchampionships.

Peterson's dominance at the regional meet wasnothing unusual. The tall and lanky swimmer wonall three events the year before. (He earned theMoriarty Trophy for highest total points both thisyear and last.)

But certainly, what he would go on to do wasunprecedented.

Though he began sluggishly, recording amediocre time in the 500 freestyle, Petersonbursted out to third place in the 400 IM and thenhe says, with the pressure off, coasted to sixthin the 200 backstroke.

Certainly other Ivy athletes have put in morememorable performances at NCCAs--David Berkoff'schampionship breastroke in 1989 is most notable.

Peterson stands out not simply for the purenumbers of his performance, but rather for thesheer mental and physical energy he exhausted toget there.

Even at the NCAAs, few gave him the respect hedeserved. Fe believed that a student from Harvardcould perform so well in national competition.Berkoff, many would say, was simply an anomaly.

He recalls the minor uproar in Indianapolis,Ind. when the NCAA seeded him third in the 400 IM.He remembers swimmers form Texas (one who hadtransferred from Harvard) heckling him that hewould never finish in the top six.

But despite the opposition he encountered, onefar more poignant memory sticks out.

"A guy came up to me with his son. He said 'Yougo to Harvard. And you're swimming here.' Helooked at his son and said, I want you to be justlike him.