Thinking Back: It Was Fun, Harvard

I never thought that I would have the chance to sit on press row during a nationally televised college basketball game.

I never thought that I would have the chance to drive in the snow through upstate New York en route to covering Harvard men’s hockey and men’s basketball games in the same weekend.

I never thought that I would have the chance to have a one-on-one interview with a former Duke basketball player.

Heck, I never thought I’d be a sportswriter—period.

In retrospect, I guess it shouldn’t have come as a total surprise. I was that kid analyzing the box score after a Lakers game, keeping score during an Angels game, and compiling stat sheets for my high school volleyball team.

Writing about it came fairly easily—I’d only read about 10,000 sports stories in the morning papers growing up.

In my sophomore year, when the chance to join The Crimson Sports Board arose, I thought that I would give it a shot.

One scary semester later, I was a “staff writer” for one of the country’s most prestigious college newspapers, writing about tennis and lacrosse and other sports I’d never played or watched before.

But it wasn’t really until this year—my senior year—that I got the chance to fully appreciate the opportunity presented to me.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a basketball fan. Specifically, I am a Lakers fan—but I’ll watch or play basketball just about any time and just about any place.

That made the men’s basketball beat I held so much more rewarding.

While the team didn’t have the most successful season in the world, a writer’s work—like a player’s—never stops. That is, the writing must continue even when the team loses.

That means I travelled to exciting places like Philadelphia and Princeton, in addition to not so exciting places like Ithaca.

That means I had the privilege of interviewing Tommy Amaker after his new Harvard team defeated his old Michigan team in Harvard men’s basketball’s greatest win this past December, as well as the unfortunate task of interviewing him after his team had lost seven in a row—twice.

That means I watched Harvard sweep Penn and Princeton in the same weekend for the first time since 1987, as well as got literally trampled as the Big Red crowd stormed the court at Cornell after a victory over the Crimson sealed its Ivy League Championship.

There were ups and downs—but mostly ups. What was there to complain about when my duties included watching sports from a front row seat and telling about it in my own words?

Life won’t always be this easy, unfortunately. We all move on, and sportswriting, like Harvard, will be a thing of the past for me.

Plympton Street—my home, in Adams House and my office at the Crimson—will become simply a memory after walking down it nearly every day since sophomore year.

Fortunately, I had the privilege of sticking mostly to the north side of Mount Auburn St., sparing myself long, cold walks in the winter down to the rest of the River Houses. Let’s be honest—I was pretty spoiled here.

As my four years at Harvard come to a close and nostalgia sets in, Im forced to think about what I have enjoyed and what I would have done differently.

Fortunately, the latter list remains small. Sportswriting, though, ranks highly on the enjoyable list.

The Crimson Sports board provided me with an outlet to turn my sports passion into a piece of artwork—all with a group of friends sharing that enthusiasm with me.

Harvard has given me some amazing opportunities. Sportswriting was one of them.

While it’s hard to enjoy every minute of every game, it’s easy to look back and realize how fantastic those times were.

Too easy.

As my time at Harvard and at The Crimson has come to a close, I can’t help but feel that I never thought it’d end so quickly.

But then again, I never thought I’d have the privilege of being here in the first place.

—Staff writer Kevin C. Reyes can be reached at kreyes@post.harvard.edu.