How To College Right: Notes for My Olympic Sister

“Hi Crimson Sports editors, I’ll be a freshman this fall at Harvard, and I’m planning to comp for the sports section. Next week I’ll be in Omaha for the U.S. Olympic Trials to watch my sister swim. Would you like me to help cover the Harvard athletes at Trials? Best, Michael Ledecky. “

I like to joke that I’m the longest-tenured member of The Crimson’s 142nd Guard. With my 15-year-old sister, Katie, slated to compete at her first Olympic Trials, I saw a chance to get a two-month head start on my comp of The Crimson’s sports board. Martin Kessler and the Brothers Samuels warmly received my reporting proposal on June 19, 2012, and the rest is history. Over the next two weeks, I wrote my first two stories for The Crimson’s website, met my future roommate on the opposite side of a post-race interview, and watched my sister take the first step toward Olympic gold.

AROUND THE ECAC: Men's Hockey, Vesey Aim to Make Postseason History

What a difference a goal makes.

AROUND THE ECAC: Eight Teams Battle for Four Spots in Lake Placid

It’s trophy season in college hockey land. The Minnesota bros are blow-drying their mullets, the Notre Dame gents are hitting the ice baths, and Seb Lloyd and the boys are signing three-year deals with Dunster House. It truly is a magical time.

Last weekend, the ECAC bid adieu to Princeton, Brown, Cornell, and Clarkson as Harvard, Dartmouth, Rensselaer, and Union moved on to face the conference’s top four seeds.

Men's Hockey Defies Odds, Expectations

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the stands of the Bright-Landry Hockey Center, watching the Harvard men’s team host Yale. I was having a nice chat with Secretary of State John Kerry about the upcoming Iranian nuclear talks when a girl next to me asked her friend a question.

“Like, what is Harvard’s sport?”

With Season Over, Men's Hockey Program Stands at a Crossroads

“Let’s play hockey.”

The chant rang out loud and clear on the Yale side of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium on Friday night in New Haven, Conn. as the Harvard men’s basketball team closed in on a third straight outright Ivy League Championship. A couple of blocks away at Ingalls Rink, however, the Bulldogs were in the process of thoroughly dismantling the Crimson, 4-0, in game one of the first round of the ECAC Men’s Hockey Tournament.