Varsity baseball’s pitching ace Ben Crockett ’02 says athletes who choose Harvard accept the school’s academic demands and make a “rational choice” to sacrifice more extracurriculars or social activities than if they had gone to another school.

“There are many other universities that offer more focused and prominent athletic programs than Harvard, so the desire to be an athlete here is based on the desire for academic excellence first,” Crockett says.

William S. Lee ’02, another member of the tennis team, says the recruits he knows choose Harvard “because they wanted a very academically intense experience.”

Some athletes say sports do not limit their collegiate career to the playing fields.

Brendan J. Reed ’03, a pitcher on the varsity baseball team, is an editor of The Crimson, the Advocate and the Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization which used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine.

Reed says baseball teaches skills that he can then apply to other extracurriculars.

“I’ve always made time to do the things I wanted outside of baseball, without sacrificing my commitment to the team and my teammates,” he says. “Often times it means late nights, early mornings, but we all deal with that.”

In addition to the intensification of practice and game schedules, Lewis also says that the recruiting process often places too much pressure on athletes to follow the dictates of the coach.

As recruiting has increased in intensity nationally, Harvard has been forced to go along. For many years, Harvard prohibited coaches from traveling to visit potential recruits even though the rest of the Ivy League allowed it. But a 1987 NCAA ruling that forbade alumni from contacting recruits left Harvard without a way to sell the school to standout athletes.

Harvard was forced to change its policy and now coaches travel across the country and the world seeking additions to their team in what Lewis describes as an “arms race.”

In this race, unethical practices sometimes prevail, Lewis says.

“It’s very hard to document when it happens, but it does happen,” he says, but makes clear he is not referring to Harvard coaches.

The ambitious recruiting coaches now undertake, according to Lewis, is not necessarily detrimental to the College—it is an important stimulus for diversity.

As coaches crisscross the country, they are able to reach constituencies the admissions office may not be able to find.

“It draws people from places and backgrounds and parts of the country where excellence and achievement is much more identified with athletic prowess than with academic prowess,” Lewis says.