Fall Fiesta Hits All the Right Notes, Harvard Men's Soccer Wins 1-0

Kudos and a job well done to Harvard Athletics on their second annual Fall Fiesta soccer game, a game where the hosts defeated Northeastern 1-0 (more on that later). Unlike last year, I was in the stands, rather than the broadcast booth, for this game, and Harvard did a great job of generating student turnout for this game. Between innovative prizes (free laundry for a year) and the promise of free Crimson Cash, t-shirts, and drawstring bags, as well as free Coke products, there was plenty to get students to come out, and stay, for the game.

The Hills Were Alive
The best feature of Soldiers Field Soccer Stadium may be its location. Sitting in the stands gives you an imposing look at Harvard Stadium, and during night games, some of the Boston skyline is also visible. But the second best feature, and the most notable tonight, are the hills behind both goals. Sort of like the old European-style terraces, the hills encourage standing and are a natural congregating spot for Harvard undergrads (particularly behind the opposition's goal in any given half.) It was from there that most of the chants originated: the standard "Let's Go Harvard," the "I Believe That We Will Win" that started at Lavietes Pavillion, the "Ole, Ole" of futbol, and even an "It's All Your Fault" transplanted from the ice of the Bright Center. Sure, one minor criticism was that the chants tended to stay on the hill, but that's because the stands were mostly the province of the freshmen, who didn't know any better. Still, the stands got more into it as the game went on, and soon every goal scoring opportunity from the Crimson was met with Harvard fans rising to their feet.

Harvard Fan Comment of the Night
"Give him a Grammy!" - guy in my section after a perceived flop by a Northeastern player. Right idea, wrong awards show.

Oh yeah, the game
On top of the atmosphere, the game on the pitch lived up to the billing. Harvard seems more comfortable in the second year of Coach Junot's system and really pressed Northeastern from the get-go. That said, Harvard lacked the clinical touch in the final third for much of the game, and the best opportunity was actually the Huskies: a diving header in the box that was turned away by star senior keeper Austin Harms. Finally, though, the Crimson benefited from a set piece and in the 83', Brian Rodgers had the ball fall to him off a corner and he slotted it in to the lower left corner of the net.

More, More
Besides the creation of the Crimson rewards program that benefits attending select games, Harvard has really done a great job in encouraging student turnout. The night football games have been such a hit that Harvard is now adding a second to the schedule. Thanks in part to their winning ways, basketball has been one of the hardest tickets to get on campus. And this year, many of the men's and women's soccer games will be played under the lights of Soldier's Field. That said, Harvard should push to have more "big events" like the Fall Fiesta. For example, a "Winter Festival" with either basketball or hockey the weekend students return for the second semester, taking advantage of the relative lack of classes and work for students during "shopping period", much as the Fall Fiesta does, as well as the continuation of the "Spring Carnival" that centers around lacrosse. Again, though, a job well done to Harvard Athletics for getting more students to events. It's a positive trend to see so many budding sports fans don their school colors.

Non-Sports: Blog Related Difficulties

For whatever reason, the sidebar on our blog was disappearing on the front page of the blog- well, not disappearing, but relocating to the very bottom of the page. This was, as they say, problematic, because that's where we keep, among other things, our upcoming schedule of broadcasts- something I'm sure you want to see and something we'd certainly like you to be aware of.

So we've switched over to a new template for the time being, although that's caused a whole new set of problems, including having to reset all of the colors on the blog to make this look like a blog for Harvard and not Columbia, and causing our WHRB Sports Blog image to be very off-centered. The colors thing is a relatively easy fix, the header image being off-centered has not been so far, but hopefully will be resolved soon.

Just wanted to let our loyal readers know that we are
a) working on it
b) hopeful you keep with us as the blog gets its facelift, even if it means the blog changes colors while you are on it
c) very interested in your feedback- if there's a problem with the colors for you, let us know so we can keep the blog readable.

Thanks all,
WHRB Sports

Reminder

Just a quick reminder- the 2009 Fall Season of Crimson Sportstalk, WHRB's sports show dedicated to all things Harvard sports, gets underway this afternoon at 1pm EST.

Some of the highlights:
Tom Brennan sits down with men's soccer coach Jamie Clark and women's soccer coach Ray Leone to discuss the 2009 seasons for the teams.
James Yoon talks with field hockey coach Sue Caples about the expectations for a Harvard team returning ten players.
And of course, we'll have recaps of all the weekend action for Harvard at the top of the hour with our Harvard Headlines.

In the Greater Boston area, you can tune in at 95.3 FM. And everyone can listen at whrb.org. (And if you have an iPhone, you can download WHRB's iPhone app, allowing you to stream Crimson Sportstalk and all WHRB shows live from anywhere with your iPhone. Just search for WHRB in the iTunes store.)

Our Blog and NCAA Compliance

I mentioned during my first post that all of us blogging on this site are both Harvard students, and student journalists working for a licensed and independent (read, not Harvard owned or operated) radio station. Now sometimes this isn't made clear, because the name of the station is Harvard Radio Broadcasting, and it is run by Harvard students, but we are licensed to use the Harvard name from the University, and that is our sole connection.

The reason I'm mentioning this all again is because of this Washington Post article (h/t to the Cornell Basketball Blog) which discusses the challenges of NCAA compliance when it comes to fans with media credentials.

So I decided we needed to do some disclosure. We are, as Harvard students, of course fans of Harvard athletics. We are friends with Harvard athletes at school and we hope they have the biggest success possible. We want them to win Ivy League, ECAC, and national championships.

But we are also credentialed members of the media, giving us greater access than the normal fan when it comes to different sporting-related events. We take this as a serious responsibility, and as such, we just want to make it clear that we have not, do not, and will not engage in the types of activities described in the Post article.

Our goal is to be a comprehensive source for news for Harvard sports in particular, and the Ivy League, and ECAC hockey in general, which means reporting scores, publishing news on current players, and interview current players and staff. It may also mean us discussing recruits here on the blog (or it may not- for both NCAA and professional reasons, we have kept all discussion of potential recruits off of the airwaves and we may decide to make that a blog-wide policy as well). But we will never contact any Harvard recruits, or respond to such contact- that's a job for the Crimson athletic dept. and the respective coaches. Otherwise we break the first rule of journalism- we would be the story, we wouldn't be reporting it.

Keeping all that in mind, I just figured we might as well discuss this so we can firmly say that we are and have always been fully NCAA Compliant, and that we have never communicated with a potential Harvard athlete, nor do we see it as our job to persuade people to don the crimson, black, and white in their athletic careers.

Rebirth of a Blog

As you may have noticed if you’ve been following this blog, we haven’t updated it in over a year. Which is really rather odd considering we’ve been advertising it on the radio for the past year, so we’re changing things around. This blog is going to be making a comeback worth visiting as a source for Harvard Crimson news and analysis.

Since it’s been a long time, you may have forgotten who exactly we are as bloggers. We are the students from the radio station 95.3 FM WHRB in Cambridge, MA, an independently owned, student-run operation. WHRB stands for Harvard Radio Broadcasting, so as may be expected, the students on the air are Harvard students. Specifically, WHRB Sports is a department at the radio station, and we provide season long coverage of Harvard Crimson football and men’s hockey, as well as select women’s hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball games. WHRB is the radio station where you can find The Game, the annual men’s Beanpot, the women’s Beanpot, and the Baseball Beanpot.

As far as our plans for the blog, we’ll be discussing them when we all get to campus in about a week or so, but for now, it includes being a place that collects all the news for the various sports at Harvard, particularly men’s football and hockey. To that end, at least a few of us that contribute on-air will be contributing to the blog- I’ll eventually badger them into introducing themselves, at least briefly, on here. While we work on getting this blog back into running order, please enjoy some of our classic interviews that can be found on the right side of the page. Also, I’ll make a bigger announcement about this later, but you can also follow WHRB Sports on Twitter, and of course, on the air, on 95.3 FM in the Boston area, or online anywhere in the world at WHRB.org.

Thanks for sticking with us,

The WHRB Sports Dept.