Many of these trips are tame, straightforward introductions to Harvard. Other visits include rowdy trips to local bars, final clubs and parties. On each trip, recruits have to negotiate the challenges of a weekend away on a campus full of eccentrics.

Take Restic, for example. For their safety, football recruits had to be warned in advance about the "Restic handshake."

"You'd walk in and see this little old guy sitting in this chair," says Thomas F. Hass '97, an offensive line recruit. "Then, out of nowhere, this hand would shoot out at you and if you didn't catch it half-way it would just knock you back. Then he rolled your knuckles around for a while."

Restic explains the tradition: "I guess I wanted to see how tough they were."

The recruiting style of Restic's successor. Tim Murphy, is less idiosyncratic. He methodically overhauled the recruiting schedule, added scheduled meetings with coaches and admissions officers, and offered more complete campus tours.

"There are a lot of ways to skin a cat," Murphy says. "We've tried to add a little more structure so the student-athlete can make the most of their 36 hours--give them a great tour not only of the facilities but of the whole campus."

Restic, in contrast, left the campus tours entirely to the athlete's student-host. Players recruited under the old regime say they miss the freedom of the Restic days. But they acknowledge that the more regimented visits are good for the program.

"I do think everyone gets more out of the trip now," says Frantz, who admits he spent much of his own recruiting trip partying. "My parents felt the trip I took left a little to be desired.

"I didn't meet with a physics professor when I came here, but I've had recruits who wanted to talk to professors. They did that for me at Princeton and Colgate," he adds. "I think they've gotten better with that now."

Murphy has also added an organized dinner in the Kennedy School penthouse for prospects during particularly heavy recruiting weekends. Parents, coaches, athletic department administrators and even deans are invited to attend.

"That's the best thing about hosting a recruit," Frantz says. "When I was here [as a recruit] I went to dinner with Coach Corbin and a lot of other Western Pennsylvania kids, but it was nothing organized."

Murphy's get-togethers are one example of more focused recruiting at Harvard. But its Ivy League competitors usually go further.

Hass says coaches at Princeton took his parents out for private dinners. Princeton's track coach, in particular, is notorious for his hard-nosed sales tactics.

"The team all has stories about other coaches in the League, particularly the Princeton coach," says Margaret B. Angell '98, who runs track. "Everyone that he recruited who decided not to go to Princeton says they hung up the telephone in tears at least once after speaking to him when he found out they weren't going to Princeton."

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