Junior linebacker Bobby Schneider (#35, on left) was named the 139th captain of Harvard football at Monday's annual banquet.
In a memorable, record-book-rewriting year for Harvard football, singling out one player for MVP recognition must’ve been a tall task.
But the Crimson figured it out, naming senior defensive tackle Josue Ortiz the winner of the Frederick Greely Crocker Award, annually given to the top player on the team.
A host of other seniors, including defensive tackle Ben Graeff, quarterback Collier Winters, offensive tackle Kevin Murphy, and captain middle linebacker Alex Gedeon, received accolades at the football awards banquet.
But perhaps the evening’s greatest honor went to junior linebacker Bobby Schneider, who will succeed Gedeon as the captain of Harvard football as the program enters its 139th season.
(Continued)
Senior Josue Ortiz looks to the scoreboard in the final seconds of his last game in Harvard Stadium, a resounding 37-20 victory over Penn.
For most, the Ivy season is over. Harvard emphatically took the title, high-stepping into history by somehow finishing three games ahead of the rest of the league with only seven conference games on the slate.
And most of the accolades have been given, too. The first team, second team, and rookie of the year awards were announced earlier this week.
But two big prizes—the largest of them all—remain: the offensive and defensive player of the year.
In all liklihood, one of two Harvard seniors—defensive tackle Josue Ortiz or cornerback Matt Hanson—will take home the defensive honor, while Dartmouth running back Nick Schwieger and Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews are the favorites to nab the offensive accolade.
(Continued)
Things just keep getting better for Harvard football coach Tim Murphy.
Just weeks after setting the program’s all-time wins record with his 118th victory at the helm of the Crimson against Columbia Nov. 5, and just days after leading Harvard to a dominant 9-1 season in which it finished three games ahead of any of its competitors for the Ivy League title, Murphy was named on Monday one of 20 finalists for the 25th Eddie Robinson Award, which honors the national coach of the year.
The honor was established by The Sports Network in 1987, and is voted on by a panel of over 150 Football Championship Subdivision sports information directors, broadcasters, and selected sports writers. It was named for College Football Hall of Famer Eddie Robinson, who led Grambling State University for 56 years and is the second-winningest coach in Division I history, behind only Joe Paterno.
“When you are nominated for an award like this it generally means you had a great team and it is a reflection of what your team (players and coaches) accomplished,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail.
(Continued)
Though she already boasts four All-Ivy first team recognitions, two Academic All-American distinctions, and a Harvard diploma, Claire Richardson ’11 added something pretty special to her resumé on Monday: a national title.
(Continued)
On Saturday evening, the stars were out at Lavietes Pavilion.
While the Harvard men's basketball team was in Los Angeles, Calif., beating up on Loyola Marymount, it was a group of NBA players—including Paul Pierce (making a fashionably late appearance in the first quarter), Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, Josh Smith, and Rudy Gay—which took to the court and dazzled a sold-out crowd of over 2,000 to benefit local charities SPIN (Serving People In Need), Sojourner House, and Crossroads Family Shelter.
Just days after the players union chose to dissolve itself—putting the 2011-2012 NBA season in doubt—the myriad highlight-reel dunks and long-distance bombs served as a small reminder of what fans would be missing through the upcoming long winter months.
(Continued)
