Senior Ben Smith hopes to have an impact both on and off the field in his last season with the Crimson.

The sun beats down on a dirt-covered Ben Smith and several of his exhausted-looking Harvard lacrosse teammates. Sundays are normally a day off for most college sports teams; a day for each player to rest, recover, and think only about himself. But this is not the case for the Crimson—a team whose goal is to be more than average.

These guys are workhorses, physically fit and trained to carry out a specific task—play together to win. But today they have traded their sticks in for hammers and wrenches to help build a house with Habitat for Humanity.

A handful of sweaty guys stand in front of a 30-ft. ladder at a house construction site in Lynn, Mass. They exchange blank stares, each one hoping someone else is going to volunteer first to climb up and finish nailing down the side paneling.

When Crimson coach John Tillman told his team that he was going to work to help give each of them the opportunity to meet their full potential as a person, the Harvard men probably didn’t think reaching literal new heights would be part of that. No one, perhaps, except the senior defenseman Smith, who coordinated the multitude of community service events the team has participated in this year.

In the past two seasons, while the Crimson has excelled on the lacrosse field, it has also found a knack for community service. Sam Slaughter ’09 was integral to getting the team involved with service events last season. Currently, Slaughter is in Africa working with communities in need.

“Last year’s seniors definitely lit the torch that Ben is now passing,” said senior Jason Duboe, Smith’s roommate.

Community outreach has become just one more way in which the Crimson can grow into a more cohesive, goal-oriented unit. And Smith has become the unofficial coordinator of these events.

“Ben was pretty much in charge of the whole thing,” sophomore Paul Pate said. “He reaches out and coordinates with Phillips Brooks House. He sets us up into our teams for the projects. It’s basically his thing that he has really taken charge of. He leads the effort and makes everything happen.”

The Harvard lacrosse team has participated in projects with Habitat for Humanity and MetroLacrosse, a Boston-based non-profit organization providing underprivileged kids with opportunities for athletic and academic success.

“If not for Ben,” Duboe explained, “I’m not sure how organized this tradition of giving back would be. He has really paved the road for us to follow this year and for guys to follow in the future.”

Smith is from Longmeadow, Mass., a typical New England town with a great tradition of lacrosse. He was introduced to the sport in third grade but didn’t start taking it seriously until just before entering high school. At Tabor Academy, Smith made a name for himself first on the ice and then on the field.

“I was actually more of a hockey player,” Smith laughed. “I didn’t even consider playing college lacrosse until junior year, when I got a letter from Coach Anderson at Harvard. And then I thought, well, this is a possibility.”

At the time though, Smith couldn’t foresee that halfway through his college career, he’d be introduced to a new coach who would help cultivate an entirely new passion for Smith—community outreach.

“We tell guys straight up that we’re going to push and challenge them here, and that we’re going to ask them to do community service,” said Tillman, now in his third season with the Crimson. “But we also tell them that they’re going to have a lot of fun.”

In the fall, players worked through MetroLacrosse to teach lacrosse clinics in urban areas and tutor those same kids for the SSAT that is a requirement for admission to private high schools like Tabor.