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When I arrived on campus in 2018, I didn’t know a lot of things. I had an inkling about my concentration, but nothing set in stone, and I didn't know many other incoming freshmen. Extracurriculars also presented a question mark. At the club fair, I beelined to several different booths, signing up for more mailing lists than I could realistically check. Despite all the unknowns, however, there was one thing I did know: I loved sports. I started playing hockey when I was five, so I knew I wanted to play on the men’s club hockey team.

Beyond playing sports, though, I loved following and talking about sports. Every day before school, from about age seven until high school, I would park myself in front of the TV to watch SportsCenter as I ate breakfast. Each Monday morning after a long NFL slate, I would get into spirited debates with my classmates and teachers about the previous day’s games or the woes of the Washington Commanders. I consumed everything from ESPN’s afternoon studio programming to newspaper articles to podcasts.

Interestingly, I also found myself to be a decent writer, and I enjoyed it too. In high school, I wrote for my student newspaper, and by my senior year, I became one of the editors-in-chief. So when I got to Harvard, I knew that a student publication might be a good fit. After testing out different writing outlets including half of the comp process for a political publication, Crimson Sports was the only one that stuck and stood the test of time. It combined two of my deepest interests in a way that other extracurriculars on campus did not. While the dual interest is the reason I joined Crimson Sports, it’s not the reason I stayed. To this day, some of my best friends at Harvard come from Crimson Sports — and one of my proudest achievements is leading the organization as co-chair.

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Events and outings are a big part of what makes the sports board great. I still remember losing in the board beer pong tournament back in September 2018 in heartbreaking fashion — we blew a lead worse than the Falcons’ 28-3 Super Bowl collapse. The BYOB Dok Bua outing in May 2019 was definitely a festive occasion, and it was a pleasure to run it back in May 2022. Joey Minatel and I took a legendary picture at Hong Kong in November 2019 to celebrate the beginning of our tenure as co-chairs, which later became the board’s GroupMe avatar. In September 2021, A.J. Dilts and I teamed up in Spikeball as “Team Chairs” at the Sports-Multimedia mixer, and then we teamed up again to take on “Team Comp Directors” in the comper scavenger hunt in December 2021.

Events are really only half the story, though. The daily interactions and sustained friendships are what make Crimson Sports such a special place. Running into Zing Gee or Lucy Connor in the Adams D-Hall to scheme up the next sports social. Reading a closeout email penned by the comedic minds of Noah Jun and Alex Wilson. Seeing live text updates from Griffin Wong on how long his football gamer is going to be (hint: long). Hearing Katharine Forst break down the ideal defensive scheme for the Harvard men’s lacrosse team. Bantering with Amir Mamdani in the GroupMe. And of course, I’ve got to shout out Jasper Goodman for road tripping to Dartmouth, collaborating on men’s hockey articles over Zoom during the dark days of Covid, and providing endless assists on page duty in the newsroom during the wee hours of the morning.

I love talking about sports, covering teams, and getting into debates as much as anyone else, and sure, that’s why I originally got into Crimson Sports. But as cliché as it sounds, the people are what kept me here. It’s crazy how something as small as a funny text in the sports GroupMe can brighten a tough day. During my time at Harvard, I’ve had the privilege to take a lot of cool classes, meet interesting people, and take part in fun extracurriculars. Nonetheless, my greatest achievement at Harvard isn’t necessarily the grades I’ve gotten or the accolades I’ve won — it’s being the chair of Crimson Sports and leading it through the Covid-19 pandemic. I became chair right before the pandemic, and during the virtual semesters, engagement was tough — after all, there were no games to cover. Community faltered and article production waned. To see how the board has rebounded to where it is today — with vibrant community, seamless production, and better diversity than the board has had in recent memory — I am truly proud. I hope that I played a role in this renewal, and I know the board is in incredible hands under the leadership of Alex Wilson, Griffin Wong, Zing Gee, and Noah Jun.