When Cage Reeder was accepted to Harvard, he knew his next step. He had played football throughout high school and hoped to continue participating in the game he loved. The fact that he had not been recruited for the Harvard team was not going to keep him from pursuing his passion. He contacted the coaches, proved himself at tryouts, and was ultimately granted a spot on the roster. Cage walked onto the team the second week of his freshman year, along with two other freshmen, one of whom quit a couple of days into the season. Although Cage was happy with his decision to stay, his experience at Harvard is not typical of most walk-on athletes at Division 1 programs.
Rather, there seems to be an unspoken understanding that in D1 athletic programs, especially in popular sports like football and basketball, walk-on athletes are often treated as second-class athletes. At schools across the country there are commonly three ways through which a student can become a varsity athlete. At the top of the hierarchy are scholarship athletes who are contacted by the college coaches, encouraged to apply, and provided with an athletic scholarship to cover their tuition. The second category is most commonly called preferred walk-ons. Those athletes go through a very similar recruiting process as the scholarship athletes, but without the scholarship. Finally, there are those athletes that are admitted into a school without any support from the athletic department, and get to try out only during the school year. Differences in the ways athletes join teams result not only in different statuses under NCAA regulations, but often in different strata on teams’ the social hierarchies.
A prominent example of this phenomenon is the personal experience of Tim Lavin. Lavin is a former walk-on to the USC football team who later wrote a book about his experiences as a walk-on, including “the injustices, the inequalities, the discrimination, the demoralization and the preconceived mindsets.” In Lavin’s opinion, NCAA regulations contribute substantially to the unfair conditions for walk-ons, which he describes as ranging “from the completely absurd to downright segregation and safety hazards.” In order to promote change, Lavin founded the initiative Inclusion Petition in 2014, which he now uses to push the NCAA towards more egalitarian regulations.
At Florida Atlantic University, a D1 school, walk-ons have reported feeling treated differently from their recruited peers. In an interview with the Owl Observer, former FAU football player and walk-on Kris Bartels said “There were times I may have asked for a pair of shorts, and maybe I had a response with an attitude,” Bartels said. “But if a starter had asked, it might be a little different.” Even the NCAA, which tends to emphasize the bright side of student athlete life under its regulations, acknowledges on its website that occasionally walk-ons “are relegated to substandard locker-room annexes or denied access to the main training table,” even though the situation in general is said to have improved over recent years.
The situation at Harvard is different, not so much because of the way Harvard operates specifically, but because of its membership in the Ivy League. To be sure, Ivy League schools also offer different paths athletes may take to get on varsity teams. Recruited athletes receive formal support for their college application by the coaches, go on official visits during which they meet their future team in advance, and arrive to their first day of school knowing with certainty that they have a spot on the roster. Walk-ons enjoy none of these privileges.
However, the moment a walk-on joins a team, the formal differences disappear entirely. In fact, every single varsity athlete competing for an Ivy school would technically be regarded as a walk-on at any other school. This is because of the Ivy League’s unique standing as the only D1 conference that does not allow its members to offer any athletic scholarships to their athletes. Those who are called recruits at Harvard would merely be preferred walk-ons at a non-Ivy-League college.
At first glance, Harvard’s decisive dedication to academics may be frustrating for its athletic teams, which are poorly positioned to attract high-profile athletes due to their inability to offer financial scholarships. From a different angle, however, the complete absence of merit-based scholarships may play a central role in promoting an inclusive atmosphere on sports teams.
Across sports, the vast majority of interviewed walk-on athletes reported high levels of satisfaction with their athletic experience. “I was treated completely fairly by my teammates and coaches, both of whom seemed to sincerely respect my commitment to the team,” Harvard alumnus and former walk-on to the fencing team, Duncan O’Brien, told the HPR. Walk-on athletes at Harvard generally encounter welcoming teams and fair coaches and hold leadership positions. In fact, O’Brien was elected captain of the team during his sophomore year. Current co-chair of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee Maile Sapp ’17, a senior on the Nordic skiing team, described the situation: “Once everyone is on the team, they are a Harvard Skier. We don’t put tons of attention on backgrounds—who was recruited and who wasn’t. We just focus on working together to become the best we can be and learning from each other. Coming from various backgrounds and experiences each and every one of us contributes so many unique and valuable things that really enable us all to grow as athletes and individuals.” Her co-chair, Max Yakubovich, is a walk-on on the swimming team and agrees that “there has never been any difference in treatment [between recruits and walk-ons]. This feeling of camaraderie spans across teams. “My teammates have been incredibly supportive,” soccer walk-on Lauren Spohn ’20, said. “I feel like walk-ons aren’t treated any differently from recruits.”
There are exceptions to the narrative of the welcoming Harvard team. One such case is that of a student manager who is hoping to walk onto the varsity squad. “When I walked onto the team as a manager my freshman year I never felt fully accepted,” said one interviewee, who preferred to remain anonymous. In combination with the heavy time commitment that varsity teams demand of their athletes, this feeling of ostracization led him to quit the team his sophomore year. Team policies for walk-ons differ across sports, but for some teams, athletes who are considered to not yet be ready are offered to stick around the team as a manager. Those students then help out with setting up practice, taking stats, and similar tasks. When needed, they get to jump into practice, but they never compete. Naturally, such a situation where walk-ons are encouraged to serve the team as a manager until they get their chance to play is less conducive to equality and integration in a team than if a walk-on immediately becomes a full team member.
But while there may be a need for further investigation into the integration of student managers, it is the norm for someone who successfully made the roster to be treated similarly to recruits. Because of the lack of scholarships, Harvard is investing exactly the same amount into each individual athlete across a team; therefore, coaches have no reason to differentiate between them on grounds other than their athletic performance.
The heavy emphasis on academics at Harvard that rejects this concept of the athletic scholarship therefore helps eliminate inequalities between recruits and walk-ons. At the same time, ironically, it constitutes a major deterrence for students considering walking on. At Harvard, there is little room for neglecting academic work, but being a student athlete comes with a huge time commitment. In accordance with Ivy League and NCAA rules, “athletics related activities” can take up to 20 hours per week, which do not include travel time, captains’ practices, and other “optional” events. Classes missed because of in-season competitions are counted as unexcused absences. “Walking on to the team has definitely limited my free time outside of school and soccer,” Spohn told the HPR. Sometimes she wishes that she “could be more involved in other extracurricular activities.”
While club sports offer an attractive alternative, it isn’t always an option. Some sports such as crew, wrestling, or football don’t have club teams. Other athletes desire higher levels of competitiveness and commitment than what club teams usually offer. “I did consider joining club soccer instead,” said men’s soccer walk-on Nathan Goldberg ’18, “but I really wanted to be in an environment where soccer was regarded to be as important as academics.”
The special value that the Ivy League’s regulations assign to the first part of the term “student-athlete” and the corresponding absence of scholarship athletes in the conference plays an important role in creating an inclusive environment for walk-on athletes. However, the results cannot be exclusively attributed to institutional factors—culture is also important. After all, athletes do not usually apply to Harvard with the plan in mind of pursuing their sport professionally long after college. Instead, they are looking at the university’s academic reputation and the paths it opens into the labor market. The sense of being in constant competition with each other is thus more likely to be present in the context of academics at Harvard, rather than within sports teams.
Overall it seems like this particular challenge of integration and equality is being handled well by Harvard’s varsity teams. One of the best illustrations of this impression may be the experience of Candy Janachowski, who was recruited for the women’s soccer team but also walked onto the track team her freshman fall. Even though the heavy time commitment made her eventually prioritize soccer, she speaks of her time on the track in the highest notes. “Walking onto the track team was a great experience,” she told the HPR. “The girls and coaching staff were all super welcoming and made me feel like part of the team immediately.”