The Post-Scrapbook Season

When Tim Reilly was elected captain of the Harvard men's lacrosse team at the end of last season, he knew he was in for a hard road.

The Crimson had just finished its most successful season ever. Rising as high as third in the nation, Harvard finally commanded the respect of the lax world by advancing to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.

It was a season which involved those special moments of which athletic dreams are made. Like the time when Don Rogers's overtime goal lifted the Crimson over undefeated Yale before more than 3000 people in New Haven, guaranteeing a share of the Ivy title. Or the opportunity to fly down Tobacco Road to take on North Carolina in the national tourney.

As a starting midfielder on that team, Reilly cultivated his greatest athletic memories.

"I still look at the scrapbook from last year. That was the most satisfying athletic experience I've ever had," Reilly says. "The reason that I played lacrosse for 14 years was for a year like that."

When this year rolled around, Reilly assumed the leadership of a team that had been decimated by the graduation of senior standouts like attackman Dave Kramer, and defenders Chris Bentley and Mike Murphy. It was clear from the beginning that Harvard would not be able to conjure up the magic of the previous season.

Like all athletes who continue to play after a championship season, Reilly had to contend with the gloom of falling short of that shining moment. As the losses piled up, Reilly--the Crimson's leader--took them personally. Growing up in the lacrosse hotbed of Long Island, he had never known anything besides winning.

But hard times make people grow, and in the midst of all the gloom, Reilly learned a lot about himself.

"The more I look back on this year, it's been an incredible learning experience," Reilly says. "It was the first year of losing I've ever had. I think it's going to help me get through life."

Life After Lax

For Reilly, life after college begins in July, when he will begin a two-year program with the investment banking firm Alex Brown and Sons in Baltimore. An economics concentrator, Reilly hopes to go to business school five or six years down the road.

Living in Baltimore, where lacrosse is as embedded in culture as apple pie, Reilly will surely get an opportunity to continue his playing days in some capacity. But after his glory days at Harvard, any post-college competition just might seem anticlimactic.

"Right now, I'm pretty content about what I've done in lacrosse and my gut feeling is that the lacrosse career might be over," Reilly says. "Being in competitive lacrosse for four years, I don't think I'd be content playing club lacrosse. There is nothing like the high of playing Division I."