Word: programer
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...tragedy emerges as the Harvard program drifts toward the mythical status of all-powerful, while athletes in Cambridge are constantly churned up by contradictory forces. The problem can be seen most clearly in the women's sports program here, which has bounded to great heights in the past four years...
Consequently, Harvard carries an athletic program that attempts to compete successfully on a national level. It insists on maintaining Division I eligibility in most sports and aims to move up the division ranks in other sports, where fledging Crimson squads are not immediately eligible for top-flight status e.g., women's basketball, which, since 1976, has moved from being a pathetic joke, to the top of Division II in the AIAW, to frustrating inconsistency in Division...
Obviously, Harvard's rigorous admission standards, lack of a persuasive recruiting program, absence of a physical education or similar "quasi-academic" major, and refusal to indulge in many other athletic ego-stroking actions, limits the University's appeal. Many of the nation's blue-chip prospects, who have athletic tunnel vision and hunger for a high-caliber program, are not going to be attracted by the educational advantages of a Harvard. Yet inexplicably, Harvard often competes against the very schools that do harbor such hot-shots. The handicap that Crimson teams must confront in contests is both clear and substantial...
INTERMITTENT sucesses only provide the architects of such a program with a false sense of progress. The self-delusion, though, is apparent; take, for example, the case of the men's swim team...
However, Harvard people are proud, and though they won't openly claim that the school boasts national sports power, they also won't readily humble themselves to admitting that we have a program that just cannot stack up against "major-leaguing" sports universities. And it shouldn't--not if this is going to remain the nation's foremost educational institution. Unfortunately, very few people can combine top-flight scholarship with superstar capabilities: most mortals must choose one or the other, making the second choice an avocation, more than a profession. (In that rare category of scholar-athletes, Harvard draws...