Sports are different. With every virtuoso performance in athletics there is at least once loser—and often it is an athlete from Harvard. And for the caustic sports fans who have missed out and aren’t friends with the athletes—those who thus look at Harvard athletics in the same detached manner as they would pro sports—there’s always the tendency to let them know that they didn’t do so well.

But the ability of athletes to fail and take it isn’t some lesson in suffering. It makes the successes so much sweeter. I’ll never forget the joy that rushed through me after the men’s hockey team beat Cornell in the 2002 ECAC Championship. It was an amazing accomplishment on its own, but it would not have felt nearly so good had the team not played so terribly just a month before.

It was quite possibly the best feeling I’ve had in 14 years of addiction to sports. I felt honored to cover it. For one night, there was cheering in the press box.

And I owe that experience to that rare group of Harvard students not afraid to fail publicly and take the criticism with some toughness where others might take offense. For this reason, even if I’ve never known any of these athletes personally, they’ve more than earned my highest respect.

Oh, I still think they still suck sometimes, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

—Staff writer Elijah M. Alper can be reached at alper@post.harvard.edu.