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{shortcode-21cc3534b02e5a90dd1b6e61be0fe28423896a7e} First Team All-American — the team’s first recipient since 1962 — a First Team All-Ivy selection, the second-highest point scorer in Harvard history, a two-time Tewaaraton Award nominee, and the first-ever Tewaaraton Award finalist from Harvard, Sam King’s accolades on the field speak for themselves.

But, what makes him stand out even more as The Crimson’s Male Athlete of the Year is his dedication to his friends, teammates, and school off the field.

King — forthcoming about being on the small side of lacrosse players at just about 5’9” — has adopted an underdog mentality that has rooted his work in being the first player to show up at practice and the last player to leave.

“Being a smaller guy, that has been my mentality. I’m not that athletic, I’m not that big, so I just have to work on some other things which I think forces me to work a little bit harder,” said King.

His dedication doesn’t go unnoticed. A two-time captain for the squad, King’s exemplary leadership positions him as not just the quarterback of the offense where he easily picks apart some of the nation’s most impressive defensive units, but as a leader for his peers in the locker room as well.

“Being captain comes with responsibility, but I didn’t want to make the mistake of trying to be someone I necessarily wasn’t,” King said. “So, just sticking to who I was and trying to take that responsibility seriously and help guys and help us win.”

Humble beyond compare, what makes King’s brilliance even more striking is his desire to highlight every player but himself. And, that selflessness made the offense hum this season. Looking more cohesive than ever before, King’s one-more attitude made the Crimson’s attack the second-most efficient unit in Division I during the mid-season rankings.

Tallying a career-high six assists at Providence in the first game of the season, King found himself as a facilitator on the offense, deviating from his role as the initiator as he exploited gaps on the defense that resulted from opponents — rightly so — sending the quick slide and double to shut down his unstoppable question mark dodge.

Having a dodge be somewhat synonymous with a player is unheard of in lacrosse, but King has mastered the curl around the left side of the cage. King’s question mark dodge highlights his strengths: his initial dodge behind the cage, ability to re-attack and navigate the pressure of his coverage, and his ability to adapt his dodge based on the over or under-playing of the defensive unit.

Utilizing his explosive first step to hang his defender up behind the cage and gain that separation down the alley, King’s high-IQ shines through as he reads his marks. He also never keeps his head down; he’s always looking for a cutting Jack Speidell or a skip-pass to Miles Botkiss for an outside lefty rip.

It’s textbook perfection.

Yet, King doesn’t simply rely on that one move. He found himself as an outside shooter at times this season, picking up loose balls on the turf, and finishing broken plays from the wings. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

Situating himself more in that feeding role from X, it wasn’t until the team’s game against Marquette that King really popped off as a shooter. With a season-high seven goals on a mere eight shots, King wanted the lacrosse world to know that Harvard was here to stay.

However, to get there, King had to put in the work.

While seemingly linear, the captain’s meteoric rise to stardom started later than most players because he was recruited later in the high school process due to his smaller size. King was initially recruited to play lacrosse at Denver, but when Head Coach Gerry Byrne took the helm of the team in 2019, his first order of business was flipping Sam to a Crimson jersey.

“It was probably one of the first things that we did relative to recruiting,” said Byrne, “was to reach out to his high school coach and start a behind-the-scenes dialogue to see if he’d be interested in coming to Harvard.”

Ranked as the 21st overall recruit in the nationwide 2021 class by Inside Lacrosse during his recruiting process, he is one of just many highly-regarded players that Byrne has folded into Harvard’s ranks. In Sam’s recruiting class, Byrne pulled five top-100 players.

That level of talent was obvious from the jump, but even among such accomplished athletes, King’s game has skyrocketed to a different level.

Since stepping onto the field, King has been hard to ignore. Ingratiating himself into the starting lineup from the first game, the Baltimore native racked up an easy 46 points as a rookie, scooping up six ground balls and forcing seven caused turnovers that earned him an All-Ivy Honorable Mention moniker.

Named The Crimson’s Male Rookie of the Year, King has only continued to build on his athletic successes. By the end of his senior season, which was cut short during the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the team fell to No. 6 Syracuse in an overtime heartbreaker, King secured his name in the Harvard record books.

What distinguishes Sam is his utter value for the ball. Every coach lauds the hustle plays in the middle of the field, but King takes that ferocity to a new level. An animal on the ride, King’s 15 CTOs and 39 GBs land him in the top three of any non-defensive player in Division I.

As the only player in Harvard program history to hit 100 goals, 100 assists, and 100 ground balls, King’s stats speak for themselves: he impresses at every facet of the game. He is the glue that holds the offense together. He vacuums loose balls, boxes out on the scrum, and doesn’t fail to let his teammates shine.

“He brings a selflessness to contributing in that he’s not fixated on the number of points that he scores,” said Byrne. “He wants to be a part of really good offense being played. And, sometimes, he’s the beneficiary and sometimes others are.”

While the men’s squad wasn’t able to advance past the Sweet Sixteen during his tenure, King is set to join yet another storied program following graduation as a member of the Utah Archers, the back-to-back champions of the Premier Lacrosse League.

Selected as the 20th overall pick — of 32 selections over four rounds — King’s lacrosse career is only beginning to take shape. As the hosts of the ESPN draft special said about the senior: while not the best at one particular thing, King excels at everything.

That is what makes him so dangerous. He has learned to wield his size, speed, and shiftiness. He has used any doubt about his height or size or strength as fuel to propel him to brilliance. The linchpin of a program that has been radically overhauled during his four years on campus, King has brought that same mentality of mental toughness to each and every practice, scrimmage, and game.

Starting out as the Ancient Eight underdogs and receiving the sixth Ivy League bid as an at-large for the NCAA Tournament his freshman year, King has internalized any doubt about himself and his team and has capped off his career in Cambridge in a style for which he should be nothing but proud.

For King, this is just the start of his lacrosse journey, and the lessons he learned at Harvard will hopefully only continue to serve him well as he makes his mark on the professional lacrosse world.

He is, deservingly, The Crimson’s 2025 Male Athlete of the Year.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Forst can be reached at katharine.forst@thecrimson.com.