As he strode onto the practice field at Stony Brook University for the first scrimmage of his final collegiate season, Harvard senior wide receiver Kyle Cremarosa knew that the window on his football career was slowly beginning to close. He would only later realize that it was about to be slammed shut.

Cremarosa—then tentatively penciled in as a starter on the depth charts—sustained a broken leg during the intrasquad match-up that required corrective surgery, ending not only his season but, he was told, his playing career as well.

Now, unwilling to accept a season on the sidelines as his final one among the Crimson’s ranks, Cremarosa has begun a petition campaign in the hopes of gaining an additional year of eligibility.

Under normal circumstances, Cremarosa’s break and ensuing surgery would have been a setback, not the end of the road. Ivy League guidelines permit student-athletes to sit out a full season while maintaining their four years of eligibility in cases of injury so long as the “red-shirts,” as the sidelined players are called, compete only within a five-year period in accordance with a similar NCAA guideline that gives students a five-year window in which to compete.

Next year would be Cremarosa’s sixth season.

Although he was not previously a red-shirt candidate, the fifth-year senior missed what originally would have been his junior season in 2001 when asked to take a year away from the college because of academic difficulties.

“I was attempting to be a computer science concentrator but just got hammered in my first semester of C.S.,” he said. “My grades were greatly affected, resulting in an unsatisfactory semester. So that’s what makes my circumstance a little different. I took a year off from school, but it still counted as a season athletically when I returned.”

Despite the blanket restriction, Cremarosa began to explore his options just days after learning his season was certainly over.

“After my surgery, while still in the hospital, I talked to Sheri Norred [Harvard’s Assistant Director of Athletics for Compliance] about coming back for another year,” Cremarosa said, “and she told me that it would not be possible for me to come back since this is my fifth year and the Ivy League [and NCAA] only give you five years to compete.”

Initially, that answer, while disappointing, was enough to convince Cremarosa that all potential avenues had been explored. But as the season unfolded with him on the sidelines, the itch to play again returned with a little prodding from Dick Emerson, the head athletic trainer, and others helping his rehabilitation. With the return of that desire, Cremarosa began exploring possible means to attain that end.

“I tried to convince myself that I was okay with not coming back,” Cremarosa said. “But towards the end of the season I realized that I at least needed to try for the extra season.”

Cremarosa once again sought out Norred and Director of Compliance Nathan Fry’s assistance in pursuing the matter. If the pair were to establish an argument based on NCAA guidelines, the matter would then be passed on to Associate Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman ’67.

But that transfer has been slow in coming.

“Any student who is seeking an exception to the ordinary athletic policies would normally go through my office,” Dingman said. “For the majority of these cases, I am in touch with the Ivy League offices in Princeton, N.J., but I have not been involved in this case.”

That fact is not entirely surprising, according to Caroline Campbell-McGovern, Compliance Assistant with the Ivy League offices.