Intramural (IM) sports at Harvard bring out the best and the worst from their participants. Bruises, black eyes as well as the proverbial blood, sweat and tears: all serve as testimonies to the raw passion that fuels many IM participants, those desperately grappling for that 100 points that will edge out an opposing dorm and clench the Yard Bucket or Straus Cup. This fearless dedication to the game is a major motivating force for Laurence Tai ’06. However, his sport of choice is not played on a court or a field. Rather, Tai’s is consumed with his position of “head IM rep” for Wigglesworth.
Tai approaches IM representation the way he approaches academics. “I’m very grade-driven. I’m the kind of person that goes for the perfect score on the problem set, even though it may not be necessary. I apply this same principle to being an IM rep,” he says.
After Wigglesworth had a slow start in the fall intramural season, Tai assumed the duties of head IM representative, aiming to streamline communication and overcome the “architectural challenges” of Wigg’s isolated entryways. He’s succeeded in pulling Wigglesworth from intramural doldrums to second spot, “a position we’ve held for months now,” Tai proudly declares. The cornerstone of his job lies in the meticulously detailed intramural updates that Tai regularly e-mails to all Wigglesworth residents. “It’s a challenge to balance [being an IM rep] with other commitments. You have to be ready to write an e-mail at any time,” Tai says.
For the Yard-wide pool tournament, Tai e-mailed Wigg residents a statistical analysis of the number of entrants per dorm, his calculated multiplication bonus per entrant for each dorm and the resulting “effective number” of entrants. “You need to have some sense of the numbers—the implications of some dorms’ [size] advantages over others. It’s important to realize the importance of multiplication bonuses,” he says. He is quick to emphasize, however, that “quality, not quantity” is the key to intramural success.
Wigg IM participants are grateful to Tai for building a sense of intramural cohesion. James M. Rhodes ’06, former captain of Wigg’s “Slytherin” basketball team, says, “He’s definitely one of the biggest reasons we have done so well. He’s always at the games supporting us.”
Despite his dedication to IMs, Tai notes that he has very little interest in actually playing IM sports. “I think as far as athletic prowess, I would be one of the last people you would expect to be an IM rep. [The job] gives me more of a reason than I would have otherwise to go see the games,” Tai says.
For Tai, the sense of community fostered by intramurals is the reason for the venture. “The Yard Bucket is the goal, but the process of playing the games and people coming together is far more important...some people get to feel like they’re stars, especially when they get to playoffs,” Tai says. “You may never get to play in front of an audience of 30,000, but to win the IM championship in a sport, that means something.”
