But sports like hockey or squash compete regularly on the national level, and the imposition of new admissions policies may hurt their ability to do so. The Ivy ban on athletic scholarships can therefore be “a source of tension.”

In hockey, for example, Harvard competes in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) against scholarship schools like Boston College. Along with the other three Ivies in the ECAC, Harvard struggles to maintain both its academic standards and the competitive balance in the conference.

“It’s not easy because of the extent to which our athletic program is interrelated,” Lewis says. “When you’re the Ivy League school trying, I think appropriately, to hold back, you can see where the source of the tension is, where you’re trying to balance your competitive equity with the best educational interests of the students.”

The question of balance between athletics and academics predates Lewis, and indeed predates the official formation of the Ivy League in 1945.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Harvard administrators expressed concern about the increasing emphasis undergraduates placed on intercollegiate athletics, centering around the fear not only that athletes spent too much time in athletic practices and did not have time to study, but that “exaggerated” physical activity would inhibit intellectual capabilities.

In 1893, the report of the president and treasurer of Harvard College warned that sports “interfere with, instead of clarifying and maintaining, mental activity; they convert the student into a powerful animal, and dull for the time his intellectual parts.” The report suggested limiting practice time to two hours a day and restricting competition to New England.

Today’s concerns about athletic intensity, and its effect on a student’s health and ability to succeed academically, echo those of 1893, and a balance between academics and athletics remains one of the most important issues for consideration in the Ivy League.

“I think the challenges have remained remarkably the same,” says Jeff Orleans, the executive director of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents. “They’re the right way to do admissions, and the right kind of structure for the competitive and athletic experience.”

“Getting up to Speed”

Lying flat on the window sill, waiting to be hung, is a blown-up, framed copy of the cartoon that ran on The Crimson editorial page March 19, 2003. The cartoon depicts President Lawrence H. Summers as a puppeteer, manipulating Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, who is giving Lewis the boot.

Though most speculate that whoever fills Lewis’ position as chair of the Athletics Committee will be equally devoted to the preservation of the student-athlete, the replacement will take some time to familiarize themselves with the position.

“Harry is fully up to speed on all of the issues, so it’ll take some time for everyone else to just get up to speed and understand the complexity and the need for keeping it all in its proper balance and perspective,” Scalise says.

Though the University has not yet announced Lewis’ successor as Harvard’s Ivy Policy representative, many assume that Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71 will assume the responsibility when he enters the newly combined offices of Dean of Harvard College and Dean of Undergraduate Education.

“I would hope that Dean Gross or anyone else involved in this is going to continue to pursue the same kinds of interests and concerns,” says Graham.

Gross wrote in e-mail that he is “coming up to speed” on the issue of athletics and that his role in Ivy policy planning had not yet be determined. He declined further comment.