JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL the College and the coauthor of the article formed thing about the assigned reading, time management, and perfectionism are “Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Gen- I could not immediately understand. unfortunate reminders of the challenges eration,” says he has spent the last few Wanting to put the best face forward, not undergraduates face. years spreading the message that Harvard wanting to seem unprepared, or just And while the message of excellence is not looking for perfect candidates: “Ad- being too bored to sit quietly—there without perfection may be repeated by missions isn’t a hundred-meter dash, it’s a were many ways of understanding our be- every voice of authority within the College, marathon—we look for students with havior, but none seemed that compelling, that hardly drowns out the competing character and personality.” He reports so I started asking my peers. voices from outside the gates. Résumés, ap- that the admissions o∞ce is promoting Students, it seems, really do worry plications, and interviews all require ac- gap years to applicants as well as to those about how they are being evaluated in complished and overachieving subjects, students who are admitted, and empha- every minute of every section they attend, leaving many undergraduates without the sizes that Harvard “encourages students with every word of every paper they courage or strength to acknowledge their to take time o≠, to enjoy themselves and write. A perpetual nervousness haunts own limitations. “The saddest part is that their studies.” the undergraduate experience, and stu- the College is producing more corner-cut- But the idea for this column came to me dents’ reluctance to share these worries ters than risk takers,” says Timothy Mc- at a time when I was not enjoying my publicly does not mean they don’t exist. I Carthy. “And some of the most successful studies very much: I was leaving a section have noticed it most often in section, but people in history were miserable failures, or certain that no one else in the room had these pressures exert themselves on play- great risk-takers, or both.” completed any more of the assigned read- ing fields, in newsrooms, behind stage ing than I had, which was very little in- curtains, as well as in classrooms. The Bu- Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow deed. Why none of us could admit that, reau of Study Counsel’s well-attended and graduating senior Casey N. Cep will miss the why instead each of us said some unin- workshops on busyness, procrastination, tiny white rooms of Harvard College.

SPORTS & Transition Coach Tommy Amaker is the new ruler of roundball.

arvard has never won at Seton Hall and Michigan. As a coach, an Amaker was part of two Duke NCAA championship. Changing championship teams (1991 and 1992), that legacy, which dates made six Final Four appearances, and Hfrom 1955 (the first year of play in the reached postseason play 22 times. league), ranks high among the priorities “Tommy joins us with experience and a of Tommy Amaker, the Crimson’s new pedigree that are second to none in col- head coach of men’s basketball, who met lege basketball,” Scalise said. When local media, fellow coaches, and support- Amaker rose, he thanked his new boss ers at a press conference, complete with “for your math there with all the postsea- brunch, in mid April. “I’m excited about sons,” and then added, “You omitted the coaching in the Ivy League,” said Amaker. fact that I’ve been fired”—to explosive “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to make his- laughter. tory.” Addressing those of his Harvard The University of Michigan did re- athletes who were present, he added, lease Amaker—after six seasons (2001- “You already are winners. If you are at 07) in which the Wolverines compiled Harvard, you’re a winner. And if you can a creditable 109-83 record, but failed to day.” He added that he never felt any attack those rebounds like you attacked make the NCAA tournament. Some pressure there to alter his convictions. that orange juice, we’ll be fine.” Michiganders reportedly considered Amaker succeeds Frank Sullivan, who Nichols Family director of athletics Amaker to be too principled for big-time compiled a 178-245 record over 16 seasons. Robert Scalise introduced Amaker, not- college hoops. “If that’s the speculation,” A widely respected figure, Sullivan none- ing his success as a player and assistant he told , “I’ll take it theless was fired this spring; Scalise was coach at Duke, and in head coaching jobs every day of the week and twice on Sun- concerned that Harvard had begun to

74 Julywww.gocrimson.com - August 2007 Photograph by Stu Rosner finish behind not only Penn and Princeton (Ivy powers who have won or shared the Sports Wrap Ivy Rookie of the Year, set a Harvard league title every year since 1988), but also home-run record, clouting 18 dingers. less-prepossessing rivals. Sullivan’s most re- Softball cent squad, for example, went 12-16 and 5-9 The softballers (31-15, 15-6 Ivy) won Men’s Heavyweight Crew in the Ivies, finishing sixth in the league. the league championship, with Ivy Harvard won the Eastern Sprints and The new coach also adds a note of racial Pitcher of the Year Shelly Madick ’08 finished second (tied with Stanford) to diversity to the sta≠. In March, the Boston (16-6) tossing a no-hitter against Penn in Washington at the IRA national champi- Globe reported that none of Harvard’s 32 the playoff. Hofstra and Albany both onship regatta. Yale upset Harvard in head coaches (in 41 intercollegiate sports) edged the Crimson, 3-2 and 1-0, in the their annual four-mile race, breaking a was African American—nor were Scalise NCAAs. Freshman Lauren Murphy, the seven-year Crimson win streak. and his 13 senior administrators. (Har- vard’s last black head coach was Peter Roby, who headed the men’s basketball ALUMNI program from 1985 until 1991. Another African American, Tom “Satch” Sanders, coached the Crimson from 1973 to 1977.) “To think that Harvard would not have a Seeing Red single African-American head coach, male or female, in 2007 is breathtaking,” Cli- menko professor of law Charles J. Ogletree Beachcomber tracks marine toxins in Florida. Jr. told the Globe. Since 2001, Scalise has hired new head pidemiologist Lora Fleming had defecated on a Miami beach. “That coaches for men’s ice hockey and volley- ’78, M.D.-M.P.H. ’84, tackles was part of the recreational microbes ball, women’s lacrosse, skiing, and water breathing, cancer, and unex- study—or, as we call it, the ‘poop in the polo, and men’s and women’s golf and pected days at the beach. At the water’ study,” she explains. Even trickier track and field and cross-country. All are Eo∞ce, she directs research on a database than corralling the canines was “figuring white. In April, at a gathering organized by of 3 million cancer cases, or culls morbid- out how to get the damn seabirds to go on the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural ity factors among blue-collar workers the plastic we had laid out for them. Then and Race Relations, he explained that in across the country. Other days she may some bird guy called us from Mississippi “white middle-class suburban” sports like find herself swabbing the noses of asth- and said, ‘I have two words for you: skiing, field hockey, and women’s lacrosse, matics exposed to Florida red-tide toxins. “Cheese Doodles.”’ They eat the doodles good minority candidates tend to be Not too long ago, she and a colleague and poop, apparently.” scarce, and said that greater diversity spent a morning chasing after dogs that Fleming’s aplomb sometimes shields among athletes would eventuate in more diversity among coaches. “We contact the Black Coaches Association on every search Lora Fleming we do,” he said. Amaker started at guard for four years at Duke, playing against stars like and graduating with a de- gree in economics in 1987. He captained the Blue Devils as a senior, when he was named an all-American and National De- fensive Player of the Year. The Seattle Su- personics chose him in the 1987 NBA draft, but he went into coaching, includ- ing nine years at Duke under the cele- brated , “Coach K,” who enthusiastically endorsed the new ap- pointment. “What an amazing selection,” Krzyzewski said. “Tommy will be fantas- tic for Harvard and Harvard will be fan- tastic for Tommy. I am just ecstatic about the potential of that marriage.” craig lambert

Photograph by Christian Howard/Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami