It made returning to campus pretty easy in the fall. I no longer lived other people's battles. Which meant that when the baseball team went 10-26 this past season, I could simply shrug and wish them better luck next time.

Which I do.

I've followed Harvard sports more closely--along with fellow soldiers Tarek, Jay, Ted, Sean, Amanda, Peter, Darren and Dave than anyone not drawing a salary since I've been here. I've discovered their beauty when compared to the outside world, thanks to Pete who let me discover them on my own rather than try and hammer them into my head.

To come back to Harvard is to return to a simpler athletic time. The genius of Harvard athletics is in its purity and innocence; in the pretense that playing hard on the field is the most important thing and that winning is not the bread and butter but the carrot and stick.

This we all know.

Yet by far, my most memorable Harvard sports moment involved one of the few times Harvard squirms into the limelight each year. Flash back to the finals of the 1993 Beanpot, Harvard against hated Boston University, when then-freshman Tripp Tracy put on a goaltending show worthy of the pros in the most exciting hockey game I've ever seen. Harvard won--I forget the score, but I'll look it up someday.

After the game, the city newspapers all made fun of Tripp's name. How preppy. How Grosse Point (or Scarsdale or Winnetka). How snooty. How Harvard.

The response is pretty simple: Yep. Because when you think about it, that's all they can really make fun of.