"I expect that athletes, like any cohesive group of students, discuss their academic options, including concentration choices, with each other, which might explain the concentration of football players within a small set of concentrations," Harriman says.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Dean Lewis says it is common to find closely knit groups of students making similar concentrations choices.

"I know there have been years when a disproportionately high percentage of the ballroom dance team were computer scientists, for example," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message.

"I'll bet there are disproportions of one concentration or another in almost every extracurricular group you can name, from the Advocate to Zalacain," Lewis added.

And Murphy says whatever their concentrations, Harvard football players usually do far better in school than their opponents at other schools.

"This is the strongest academic football team in the world," Murphy says. "That's guaranteed through an Ivy League index system meaning our team academically reflects the overall student body."

Murphy says some players even find time to take on Harvard's ultimate academic exercise--the senior thesis.