modeled after start-up conferences in the less undergraduates suffer from the perennial services with free WiFi. The job application Valley like TechCrunch. Tech recruiters at- fear that they must choose between making requires essays, interviews, and tests, not tend the fair, giving students the amorphous money and changing the world. In Silicon Val- unlike the intellectual acrobatics one goes promise that this class can be their golden ley, though, it seems that they can have both. through to get into an elite college. And in ticket to getting a job out West. They can gamble on starting a company, po- the minds of those undergraduates who as- CS 50’s sloganeering seems at odds with tentially coming up with a new technology pire to work there, both Silicon Valley and the intellectual refuge I’d imagined Harvard and making billions, or work for a Google or Harvard provide prestige, intellectual fulfill- to be: I couldn’t imagine even McKinsey set- a Facebook, content with their financial secu- ment, and a coddling space in which these ting up tables in introductory Ec classes the same way tech companies put up booths at Silicon Valley appears to offer undergraduates the CS 50 fair. But even those outside CS enclaves seemed resigned to a Silicon Valley a form of disruption just subversive enough takeover. Advocate members look at falling subscription rates and joke about mining to upset the status quo, but not so subversive Bitcoin to keep us out of the red; my profes- sors cling half-heartedly to buzzwords like as to upset their parents. the “digital humanities,” conveying a sense that the end is nigh. I’ve found myself con- rity and their place in a company invested in still unformed geniuses can figure out what templating learning Python, and coaching innovation. No matter what path they choose, they want to do with the rest of their lives. friends on their Google applications, as if I’d Silicon Valley appears to offer undergraduates Perhaps I was wrong to accuse Silicon Val- never left home in the first place. a form of disruption just subversive enough ley of invading Harvard; instead, they were to upset the status quo, but not so subver- never so separate in the first place. Undergraduates looking to strike it rich sive as to upset their parents. It’s no wonder Sometimes on my nighttime Widener in the Valley tend to split into two camps. Zuckerberg became the face of Harvard for trips I lug my bag of books past CS 50’s of- The first group aims to work for existing incoming freshmen like me. fice hours, which turn the normal tomblike tech outfits like Twitter or Google, com- In fact, last year Zuckerberg returned to silence of the elegant second-floor Loker panies known not only for paying well but campus to give the main address on Com- Reading Room into a cacophony of ama- also for providing employees with luxurious mencement day, making a case for the Har- teur coders typing and laughing and bark- perks such as company gyms, subsidized vard education he did not complete. He ad- ing questions at passing TFs. It reminds me apartments in trendy cities, and free food. mitted that this made him an unusual choice of a start-up’s open-office workspace: the There’s also an advantage to applying for as speaker, joking that the speech would be high ceilings, the lack of cubicles, the pro- summer internships, since the competition the first thing at Harvard he ever finished. But grammers clustered around each table il- for entry-level jobs in the Valley increases he argued that school gave him something be- luminated by their laptops’ glow. I know precipitously post-graduation. On-campus yond a degree. After all, the Harvard Face- that some of these undergrads will end up recruiting allows students to cut the line, book is the company’s namesake; he started working in similar—if less ornate—rooms and 50 percent of those who land Facebook the site, he said, to make the world feel more across the Valley. I picture them, arriving on internships in their junior summer find a re- like a tight-knit college community. their first day of work, only to find them- turn offer waiting for them in the fall, practi- This aspiration manifests in the com- selves already at home. cally erasing senior-year future-job anxiety. pany’s corporate culture as well: Facebook Those in the second group hope to start calls its headquarters a “campus,” with ame- Despite it all, Berta Greenwald Ledecky Fellow Na- a company of their own, dropping out of nities including cafeterias, gyms, and shuttle tasha Lasky ’19 is still a Hist and Lit concentrator. school to eat ramen on the floor of a clut- tered Palo Alto flophouse as they dream up the Next Big Thing. While very few actually have the chutzpah to quit college, aspiring SPORTS founders fancy themselves disruptors and iconoclasts, pitching their nascent startups in the same hazy, delirious tone that idle writers use to talk about their always-de- Growing Pains ferred novels. University resources like the i-lab and the i3 Harvard College Innova- tion Challenge cultivate student start-ups, A young men’s basketball team battles inconsistency. grooming pitches and matching budding CEOs up with industry mentors. These two camps seem to reflect oppos- n January, the men’s basketball team opener against Dartmouth just days away. ing values—one prizes security and confor- fell 62-56 against Vermont—the Crim- The situation looked grim, yet the players mity, the other risk and rebellion—but they son’s third consecutive loss, dropping spoke optimistically. “It’ll click for us even- aren’t as different as they appear. Many aim- I their record to 5-9, with the Ivy League tually,” said Seth Towns ’20. “Our record,” Harvard Magazine 27

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Seth Towns ’20 is one of the team’s most versatile offensive threats. Against the Huskies, the Crimson trailed 32- 11 and lacked the energy and balance (Aiken and Lewis combined for more than three- quarters of the team’s points) to sustain a comeback. The Crimson also had five turn- overs in the first four minutes—the young team had gotten rattled on the road. The schedule left little time to recuperate: after the Thursday-evening loss to North- eastern, the squad traveled to then-seventh- ranked Kentucky for a Saturday matinee matchup. The Crimson played hard in a competitive 79-70 loss—especially Towns, who scored 25 points and sank six three- pointers. Forward Weisner Perez ’19 re- called that the strong performance against a

ERIC MILLER/HARVARD ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS MILLER/HARVARD ATHLETIC ERIC top team prompted Amaker to tell the team added Chris Lewis ’20, “doesn’t show how that our team matured a lot,” said Aiken, one that they had a “clean slate.” good of a team we are.” of four sophomore starters. “I don’t know That sentiment helped to carry the Crim- This underscored the team’s dilemma. On what would have happened if we were in son four days later in a two-point victory paper, they are studs: Towns and Lewis are this position last year.” at Fordham. Towns sank a trey with nine two of four sophomores who were ranked seconds remaining to give the Crimson their among the top 100 recruits in the country That confidence soon dissipated. The first lead. He then got back on defense and in high school. Yet injuries, illnesses, and Crimson lost six games on an eight-game forced Fordham’s leading scorer into an off- inconsistency this season led to the team’s road trip that began at Holy Cross, where balance miss. worst non-conference record in 10 years. the team fell behind 12-2 and lost 73-69. A After losing to Yale in last year’s Ivy frustrated Amaker benched the starters After a two-week break in December for League tournament, the Crimson moved for a matchup two days later at Manhat- exams, Harvard posted a 74-63 home win on—literally. Shortly after the season, the tan College. The strategy backfired, though; against Boston University, pushing their team vacated Lavietes Pa- the Crimson fell behind by post-Kentucky record to 2-0. But then the vilion to facilitate the last 18 points and lost by four. Crimson dropped three games (at George stage of its two-year reno- The team’s poor starts re- Washington and Minnesota and at home vation. In the fall, the team flected a bigger challenge. against Vermont) in a streak that renewed returned to a modern fa- “Youth,” Amaker said, “is concerns about the team’s focus—and led cility: a video board, a always probably synony- Amaker to bench the starters again. It new floor, and new locker mous with inconsistency.” also highlighted other issues. One was rooms and coaches’ offices. The next chance to weak shooting. As of January 17, the Crim- Stemberg coach Tom- build momentum came son had the lowest field-goal and three- my Amaker emphasized over Thanksgiving, when point shooting percentages in the league. the importance of making Harvard traveled to Cal- Another was the absence of Aiken, who upgrades that would “ex- ifornia for the Wooden missed six of seven games with a knee in- cite and energize.” “What Legacy tournament. Un- jury. Without their leading scorer, Harvard would make it even bet- fortunately, the Crimson ter,” he added, “is if we took an 89-71 opening- can win here.” round loss to then-twen- Harvard

In their first two COMMUNICATIONS ATHLETIC MICHAEL REAVES/HARVARD ty-first-ranked St. Mary’s games, the team did just Bryce Aiken ’20 missed a College, and numerous Hardwood that. First, it knocked significant stretch of non-confer- players caught a virus that ence play with a knee injury but Follow the men’s and off MIT. Then the Crim- returned in late January to help swept through the event. women’s teams all son—picked first in the lead the Crimson to victories at The Crimson did man- season long in reports Yale and Brown. Ivy pre-season poll—de- age to defeat St. Joseph’s and analyses by Harvard feated the University of 77-71, but the illness ham- Magazine correspondent David L. Massachusetts in overtime. The star of pered them in the tournament finale, a 70-61 Tannenwald ’08, appearing online at that game was Bryce Aiken ’20, who tallied setback against Cal State Fullerton. The fol- harvardmagazine.com 30 points, including a game-winning three lowing week multiple players missed prac- with two seconds left. “This game showed tice ahead of a 77-61 loss at Northeastern.

28 March - April 2018 www.gocrimson.com

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 had the league’s worst scoring offense. Then the team won four The silver lining was the conference’s of five taut conference road best defense. That strength was on display games. It pulled out a 62-57 in Harvard’s Ivy opener against Dartmouth. overtime win at Dartmouth The Crimson limited the Big Green to just before sweeping Yale and 19 first-half points and won 61-51. Brown by single digits. And The defense also kept the team com- after falling to Columbia in petitive in its non-conference finale, a 63- Manhattan, Harvard came 62 setback at Wofford College. Still, the from behind to defeat Cor- team struggled nell 76-73. to make plays to After losing so many close win. After Towns games earlier in the year, what tied the score on had changed? First, Towns

a tough hook was excelling. Through Feb- VIRGINIA OF BRIAN MCWALTERS/UNIVERSITY shot with just ruary 4, he led the league in scoring in con- Jeannie Boehm ’20, shown here attempt- under a minute ference play. Another factor was improved ing a field goal against the University of Virginia, ranked in the top 10 in the left, Harvard shooting: as of early February, Harvard had conference in rebounding and blocked gave up two of- the best three-point field-goal percentage shots through late January. fensive rebounds in the league. Finally, the team was making

GIL TALBOT/HARVARD ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS before commit- smart plays. At Yale, with just over two min- injury at Columbia and sat out at Cornell. Point guard Katie ting a foul that utes remaining and the score tied at 49, Justin Still, that the Crimson had won five of its Benzan ’20, a first-team All-Ivy selection as a allowed Wofford Bassey ’20 faked his defender into the air and first six league games (five on the road) sug- freshman, has spear- to inch ahead on was fouled beyond the three-point line. He gested the team was learning to navigate headed the team’s a free throw. The sank all three free throws to give the Crim- what Amaker called the “fine line” between attack, averaging 3.9 assists and 13.0 points game ended after son a lead it would not relinquish. winning and losing. per game through the Towns missed a Aiken’s health remained a concern. Af- The women’s basketball team returned start of Ivy play. driving layup. ter returning against Yale, he aggravated his four starters from last year’s squad, which

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Harvard Magazine 29

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal won 16 consecutive games but fell in the Ivy slate that, according to head coach Kathy points against Yale) and the impressive League tournament semifinals. This year, Delaney-Smith, is “the strongest ever.” play of Katie Benzan ’20, who led the team the Crimson dropped their first two games, The Crimson learned that the hard way in assists and scoring. Harvard played five of including a 76-51 thrashing by Maine. But when they dropped their Ivy opener at Dart- those first six league games at home, and it thanks to a balanced attack, the team won mouth. But then the squad reeled off five- would try to sustain momentum while play- eight of their final 11 non-conference match- straight Ivy wins in a streak that showed ing six of its final eight games away. ups. They then prepared to focus on a league Harvard’s explosive offense (scoring 97 vdavid l. tannenwald

unbeaten in Ivy play and brought home its Jenny Allard first championship. Five others have fol- lowed, along with six 30-win seasons and five NCAA berths. Harvard softball is now a perennial postseason threat. That’s only half the story, though, Allard insists. The other half, harder to define, is wrapped up in the spontaneous road trips that seniors take together during the Janu- ary term, or the fact that even on their day off from practice and each other, the players can usually be found together. Years after the women graduate, they travel by the doz- ens to attend each others’ weddings, or par- ents’ funerals. And it’s also in the fact that, for the third year in a row, Harvard earned one of the top 10 GPAs in the NCAA (3.588, the highest in the Ivies). That achievement began in the locker room, with a goal-set- ting challenge from Allard (who, with mas- Steering Softball ty of Michigan in the late 1980s who threw her ter’s degrees from the School of Education Head softball coach Jenny Allard, who first softball when she was five years old, Jen- and the Extension School, spent 12 years as a has led Harvard’s team for more than half ny Allard arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1994, freshman proctor and now is a non-resident of its existence and ranks among the Ivy one of five coaches the University hired that adviser). It ended with the players pushing League’s most successful coaches, doesn’t year and the first full-time coach for softball. each other forward. want this to be a story about her. “Write She was just 26, only three years into coach- “We have a strong culture,” Allard says. about the team,” she says. “Write about what ing (one as a part-timer at a high school in Without it, the wins on the field don’t mean Harvard softball has become, not just the California, two as an assistant at Iowa), still as much—and there are fewer of them. She titles but the culture, the bonds.” She gives exploring a profession—and a passion—that figured this out during the 2006 season, a low a little wave of her hand. “Talk to the play- she’d turned to after a planned career in ac- point on the stats sheet, when the team went ers—they’ve got good stories.” counting left her cold. In those early seasons 20-24 and finished out of the top three in the And they do. Here are some of the stories with the Crimson, she remembers, she and her league. There were illnesses and injuries and the players tell: players practiced in the indoor track, with its other issues, and for Allard, something shift- Senior co-captain Maddy Kaplan, one of concrete floor and retractable tennis courts— ed. “I’d learned a lot by then about how to the team’s strongest hitters: “Coach Allard or else in Lavietes late on a Friday night, after coach the game, the strategy, putting players is a big reason why I came to Harvard.” the basketball teams were gone. “We’d pull together, developing skills, all the technical Former pitcher Rachel Brown ’12, Ed.M. the nets away and get out this Astroturf that pieces,” she says. “What I’ve really learned ’16, who helped lead the team to back-to- rolled the length of the court.” since is character and development, and the back Ivy titles in 2011 and 2012: “It all begins The spring before she arrived, the team whole person.” A decade later, she says, “The with Coach—she’s created this communi- had gone 18-25 overall, and 4-6 in the Ivy players hand that down to each other.” ty of women who want to be together; we League. Harvard had never won a confer- Not that her demands aren’t high, on and make our best friends on the softball team, ence championship. Allard set out to change off the field. She expects hard work and and those connections go on for years.” that. “The freshmen I came in with, I didn’t good behavior, selflessness and support- Senior outfielder Alexa Altchek: “She recruit,” she says. “Those kids were all very iveness. “I tell my players, ‘My job isn’t to knows how to pull greatness out of us.” talented, and I said, ‘You’re not graduating make your life easy; my job is to make your Junior co-captain Kaitlyn Schiffhauer: without an Ivy title.’” They didn’t. In Allard’s life better.’ So, knowing what you’re capable “Coach is the thread that connects all of us.” first season, Harvard finished second in the of doing and helping you get there.…There conference, with a 28-14 record overall, 9-3 are times when I’ve got to push you, because A star pitcher and hitter for the Universi- Ivy. Three years later, in 1998, the team went I know you can get to another gear.”

30 March - April 2018 Photographs by Stu Rosner

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746