* * *

Fooled ’em again.

That is how John Veneziano accepts compliments. During four years of working under him in Harvard’s sports information office, I relayed others’ kind words about him maybe half a dozen times. Even complimented him a few times myself. “Fooled ’em again” was always the response.

Call it whatever you want, John treats the least important people like they matter the most. Maybe he’s only fooling them; I just think he’s a nice guy. In a line of work that consistently tries one’s patience and one’s good mood, Veneziano retains both on a regular basis. He quietly continues to be the best at what he does, even if he’ll never garner a fraction of the attention Harvard’s athletes receive from him.

When a color story on Carl Morris or Jen Botterill appears in the Boston Globe, no one thinks about the work Johnny V and his understaffed, overworked office did to make it happen. No one considers the work involved in trying to sell the countless, untold feel-good stories—the ones usually deemed uninteresting—and in fending off the media hordes that swarm when something goes wrong.

I had a part in one of those kinds of stories this winter when I wrote about academic problems ending a men’s basketball player’s season early. John could not have been more professional and understanding when I told him I was going ahead with the story, even though it meant him spending the next several days minimizing the fallout from a story he’d rather have seen buried.

It wasn’t the first time Johnny V had gone to the mat to protect Harvard’s athletes. It won’t be the last time, either. But it was then that I realized that JV had fooled me more than anyone because there are few people I admire more.

* * *

Joe Walsh is not a Harvard person and that is one of the best things about him.

More than once during interviews the past four years, Marty Bell or somebody would throw out an intelligent-sounding word, the kind of word that wins you instant credibility in Gov section, and Walsh would wince. One time “tangential” made an appearance in one of Marty’s questions, and I knew exactly what was coming next.

“Whoa, whoa,” Walsh teased. “I’m not a Harvard guy.”

Which was ironic considering that postgame interviews with Walsh were the closest I ever came to student-faculty interaction in college. As a sophomore, when I mentioned how lefty Kenon Ronz had a contract to play on the Cape later that summer, Walsh gave me a verbal pat-on-the-head: “You’ve done your homework.” (Too bad it came at the expense of actual homework.)

There is a joy and sincerity about Walsh that is refreshing. This is a guy who told Bill Cleary “You just made my life” when he was hired and who, ever since, has been brave enough to dream of being more than just competitive, of being the “last team standing.”

“You don’t always get it, but that’s the expectation level,” Walsh once said. “I think it would be one of the greatest accomplishments in college baseball—in a sport that is so dominated by scholarships—that we could get there someday. … I think it would be a great story, seeing a school like Harvard, a Northeast school, all the things stacked against you …”

I covered Walsh’s team for four years because I believed someday, against all odds, Walsh’s faith would be rewarded and I didn’t want to miss it. I drove all over New England to watch his throwback brand of hardball because I wanted to be a part of something that special, if only from the press box.