Still, it's not something that one sees every day. Not many take the time to do such things, so the fact that Morgan felt the deed was self-explanatory speaks volumes about the relationship these four have.

"I think that one of the great things is that we've got along better this year than in any other year," Chelius says. "The qualities in Megan, Sarah and Beth are things I'd like to emulate."

Likewise, making the sign was what was important for Morgan at the time. Who besides she knows what it was like for Winters, Colligan and Chelius to do what they were doing?

"When I saw the sign, I had mixed feelings," Duffy says. "All of a sudden it hit me that they were leaving. It was really sad...I realized that this was their last game. We wanted to kill UMass for them---they deserve so much recognition."

Now, the only people that see it are the foursome and anyone that might venture to the top floor of Eliot I-entry. It hangs as a testament to athletic careers that are over and to friendships that will never end.

The suite's final sport is lacrosse.

Save squash and perhaps men's hockey, Harvard women's lacrosse is the school's most successful sport. Besides the NCAA Title, the Crimson had gone to seven consecutive six-team NCAA Tournaments going into the 1995 campaign.

The 1995 Harvard squad had to make up for six departing starters from the Class of 1994. This was not an easy task, and much of the burden was given to co-captains Colligan and Chelius, with Winters providing support.

"It was a particularly difficult year, since so there were so many players on the team without playing experience," coach Carole Kleinfelder says. "They did as much as they could do to bring the younger players along."

Things started off well enough, with a 12-2 win over B.C. and a 19-4 destruction of Penn. But then the Crimson lost to Princeton--for the third year in a row--and the tone of the season was set, with a couple wins always being sandwiched by losses.

It is difficult to say what the hardest loss was. The Yale defeat, a 10-9 score that featured a disallowed Colligan goal with a minute left, ranks up there, Or a 14-4 downing at Maryland, or the Dartmouth loss, or the end-of-the season Brown loss. The three seniors took control of the team, with Winters, Colligan and Chelius respectively going 1-2-3 on the team in scoring, but it was not enough.

Harvard was 8-5 and didn't make the tournament, which doesn't seem all that bad. But one must keep in mind that, historically speaking, some of these losses were exceedingly rare. Dartmouth hadn't won against Harvard since 1986, and the Bears had only beaten the Crimson twice in its history before this year.

"There's lots of expectations," Chelius says. "Almost every team we play has a tradition of losing to Harvard-they feel that beating Harvard would make their season."

The three seniors tried to use this tradition to its advantage, reminding the younger classes of Harvard's storied lacrosse history.

"They're winners, and they know what it means to win," Duffy says. "Before the Dartmouth game, they said, 'We are Harvard, they are Dartmouth, Harvard always beats Dartmouth, we will win."