Harvard 2022-23: What's Up?

[Trillium]

If I could go back and make one different choice in my life, it would most definitely be not allowing my daughter to go to Harvard. I had strong reservations about Stone to begin with, but if I’d known a fraction of what has since become public knowledge hell would freeze over first. A toxic coach combined with a school that condones it—not a chance

[dave1381]

You, Skate79, and others in this thread can likely better speak to how much of a unique sacrifice this would be. One of the big selling points to these student athletes is walking out the door with a degree that says Harvard on it. Now these young ladies are being asked to choose: give up on the dream of earning a Harvard degree, or give up on the dream of playing D-I hockey. From the outside looking in, I don't know that the dilemma existed to the same extent in that era at any other program, considering both the name recognition of the degree and the competitiveness of the hockey team.

These points are true in general, though for the player I am referencing, hockey was not all-consuming for her, and she had already had the kind of D-I career most would wish for. So for her the decision to leave was easier.

I think any allegations of the like from 20 or more years ago pale in comparison to what is being reported on now.

While I wish that were true from the perspective of my own peace of mind about all this, the mental health concerns were still there for these two players I referenced who quit the team 20 years ago.

What is really different in the recent allegations is (1) the cumulative numbers of players affected, and (2) the extent to which players are calling out the broader culture enforced by team captains and the alumni and accustations of hazing. I take (1) very seriously and I still think (2) is largely nonsense.

I find it curious that these articles which reference (among other things) examples of players who were either cut or forced to play despite injuries and serious illnesses--which may have resulted permanent health consequences--were minimized in favour of offering opinions and discussion instead on whether hazing is bad and whether Stone even knew about it.

I agree 100% the articles were focused on the wrong issues. Part of this is these stories involve "hazing beat" reporters who may focus too much on hazing.

I do find it very disturbing that there is a tendency among many to dismiss these stories as isolated cases, when players across three decades were interviewed, with similar examples.

To be clear, I am no longer of that view, now that I've read The Globe and The Athletic articles and fully processed everything.

Of course, I did dismiss these as isolated cases 20 years ago. The player who left the team I spoke with in depth 20 years ago did think something was deeply systemically wrong here. I honestly disagreed. It's clear to me now that she was right. Too many people have been hurt now.

Now part of the reason I was dismissive of a systemic problem 20 years ago is the broader rot of Harvard Athletics and of college athletics in general. I knew many Harvard athletes 20 years ago who left teams and who felt their coaches were manipulative (in ways that may be termed "emotionally abusive" today but I sure didn't appreciate the concept back then). I knew other people my age with eating disorders. So it was easier to dismiss a couple players from Harvard who had problems, while the whole rest of the team seemed ecstatic with each other and with their success. Meanwhile, around the same time I was speaking with Northeastern players who were telling me they were physically abused by their coach. So in this context, it was easier for me to downplay systemic problems with Harvard Hockey. Of course, I still could've done more, even in this context.

Someone has to step up to enact change. Because no one did, not only did their teammates facing life-altering trauma, but athletes decades later are continuing to experience what may be escalating abuse. So, in my books, I feel all alums are in some way accountable for allowing this fiasco to continue, with those coming out publicly in support of Stone to be especially worthy of scorn. It took great courage for those who spoke on the record for The Globe and The Athletic to come forward. They no longer have anything to gain personally from doing so, and are being villainized by some for speaking out.

I agree that the players speaking out against Stone required courage. Understandably though, the players speaking out have tried to throw everything at this problem, regardless of the merits. The criticisms though are a mix of serious issues and others which are exaggerated. We can appreciate them but not stand by entirely while they tar the alumni as much as they want. So I can understand that the immediate reaction from alums would be that those speaking out were "petty and vindicative". There are elements of the criticism of Coach Stone that are quite serious, and I also find some of the complaints about the alumni and the broader team culture to be more vindicative. Still, I don't blame the victims for feeling vindictive in this situation! I see no other way this process was going to play out, sadly. What's most important is that the players who spoke out, their voices have been heard, and an investigation is happening.

[Trillium]

I agree that the players speaking out against Stone required courage. Understandably though, the players speaking out have tried to throw everything at this problem, regardless of the merits. The criticisms though are a mix of serious issues and others which are exaggerated.

I'm very curious what you think has been exaggerated? My own reaction to reading the articles was that none of it was exaggerated at all. My thought was that it had barely scratched the surface of the deep problems with so many examples noted that brought to my mind similar other examples over long periods of time. I was annoyed that there was so much focus on hazing, which was far down the list of issues, and believe that so much focus on that, unfortunately obscured so much of her most disturbing and pathological behaviours. There are many examples of her perpetual "Stone First" rather than "Team First" agenda that have not even been addressed yet.

Any one of these things, to which is added the long term decline in team performance, high program attrition, and appallingly poor student satisfaction surveys on culture should individually have been enough to get her fired. That Harvard's administration has continued to double down in support of her in the face of all these facts is damning of the level of rot within the institution. And unfortunately not at all surprising to me whatsoever.

[Cornholio]

Trillium - is the Harvard degree worth it to your D? It seems the players who chose an ivy path want the name on the degree and are willing to pass up scholarship money, fewer games and only 4 years (no matter what) of eligibility for that ivy degree. Did your D enjoy her ivy experience and the contacts she made at school, and whatever professional doors that open, or is that overblown? Just curious.

[Trillium]

Trillium - is the Harvard degree worth it to your D? It seems the players who chose an ivy path want the name on the degree and are willing to pass up scholarship money, fewer games and only 4 years (no matter what) of eligibility for that ivy degree. Did your D enjoy her ivy experience and the contacts she made at school, and whatever professional doors that open, or is that overblown? Just curious.

That's a complicated question to answer.

I do have more than one child with an Ivy League degree. If I look at how their career trajectories compare with the majority of their former classmates who chose non-Ivy schools, there is no question that their careers and long-term financial prospects were enhanced quite a bit by the opportunity. And yes, doors were opened with companies simply because of where they went to school. The network in our experience is overrated, it's mostly the name and prestige of the schools themselves that matters. I think the network matters far more for males because of the "old boys club".

In the case of my D who went to Harvard, if we had to do it over again--with her or her siblings--we would never again chose Harvard. The negative impact on her physical and emotional well-being and her self-confidence was life altering. That alone, despite the positives, is enough reason to not do it. Our experiences with the holier than thou administration were very poor also.

Unfortunately, one also has to look at the negative financial hit. She had multiple full-ride scholarship offers that she turned down, only to find we were instead paying huge dollars to be living in an emotional nightmare run by a malignant narcissist. Hardly a worthwhile ROI. Beyond that, suddenly (despite the fact that she was a proven 25+ goal scorer and a dominant impact player in club hockey prior to Harvard) finding herself riding the bench behind some players who wouldn't have even made her club team, because of Stone's insistence on playing 2-3 lines of her inexplicable favourites, was another hard pill to swallow. So, not only did we see her personality and happy-go-lucky nature affected (and I worried for years about potential suicide) , but incurring an unnecessarily big financial hit to boot for that "privilege", and the game she'd loved played with great success her whole life pre-Harvard, suddenly became one filled with pain, heartache and great disillusionment.

To directly answer the question, did she enjoy her Ivy experience at Harvard? I would say all things considered, no, overall. She made a few good friends, had some incredible professors, took some really great courses she could not have taken elsewhere, with tiny class sizes, that engaged her intellectually...but the horrific experience she endured with Stone sadly overshadowed everything else. As a result we have no fond memories of Harvard at all, and think of how dramatically different and infinitely better her experience (both hockey wise and more broadly) would have been had we opted for other choices (some also Ivy). At least she has now a Harvard degree to show for her agony. I would not ever advocate transferring to a far less prestigious school just to play hockey. Realistically, with rare exceptions their long-term hockey futures consist of playing men's beer league.

If you are asking whether you should choose an Ivy league school over a D1 scholarship opportunity, I would say it depends. There are abusive coaches in some D1 scholarships programs, and terrific coaches in other Ivy League schools (and lots of mediocre ones in between, in both). My advice would be to choose the school you would choose if you were not an athlete at all (with the caveat that the coach is not abusive) . And if you have an opportunity to go to an Ivy League school without an abusive coach, I'd absolutely highly recommend taking it. That means most, if not all, of them other than Harvard.

[Offsides Guy]

That's a complicated question to answer.

I do have more than one child with an Ivy League degree. If I look at how their career trajectories compare with the majority of their former classmates who chose non-Ivy schools, there is no question that their careers and long-term financial prospects were enhanced quite a bit by the opportunity. And yes, doors were opened with companies simply because of where they went to school. The network in our experience is overrated, it's mostly the name and prestige of the schools themselves that matters. I think the network matters far more for males because of the "old boys club".

In the case of my D who went to Harvard, if we had to do it over again--with her or her siblings--we would never again chose Harvard. The negative impact on her physical and emotional well-being and her self-confidence was life altering. That alone, despite the positives, is enough reason to not do it. Our experiences with the holier than thou administration were very poor also.

Unfortunately, one also has to look at the negative financial hit. She had multiple full-ride scholarship offers that she turned down, only to find we were instead paying huge dollars to be living in an emotional nightmare run by a malignant narcissist. Hardly a worthwhile payback. Beyond that, suddenly (despite the fact that she was a proven 25+ goal scorer and a dominant impact player in club hockey prior to Harvard) finding herself riding the bench behind some players who wouldn't have even made her club team, because of Stone's insistence on playing 2-3 lines of her favourites, is a hard pill to swallow. So, not only did we see her personality and happy-go-lucky nature affected (and I worried for years about potential suicide) , but we incurred an unnecessarily big financial hit to boot for that "privilege", and the game she'd loved played with great success her whole life pre-Harvard, suddenly became one filled with pain, heartache and great disillusionment.

To directly answer the question, did she enjoy her Ivy experience at Harvard? I would say all things considered, no, overall. She made a few good friends, had some incredible professors, took some really great courses she could not have taken elsewhere, with tiny class sizes, that engaged her intellectually...but the horrific experience she endured with Stone sadly overshadowed everything else. As a result we have no fond memories of Harvard at all, and think of how dramatically different and infinitely better her experience (both hockey wise and more broadly) would have been had we opted for other choices.

If you are asking whether you should choose an Ivy league school over a D1 scholarship opportunity, I would say it depends. There are abusive coaches in some D1 scholarships programs, and terrific coaches in other Ivy League schools (and lots of mediocre ones in between, in both). My advice would be to choose the school you would choose if you were not an athlete at all. And if you have an opportunity to go to an Ivy League school without an abusive coach, I'd absolutely recommend taking it. That means most, if not all, of them other than Harvard.

Best advice my daughter got was, unless she was dead set on a major that would benefit from an Ivy degree (ex, finance), take the full scholarship somewhere else and try for the Ivies when wanting a post-graduate degree. This advice was based on this person seeing too many women hockey players go Ivy League only to end up getting liberal arts degrees and end up with jobs they could’ve gotten with any public school degree and with no Ivy debt.

[Trillium]

Best advice my daughter got was, unless she was dead set on a major that would benefit from an Ivy degree (ex, finance), take the full scholarship somewhere else and try for the Ivies when wanting a post-graduate degree. This advice was based on this person seeing too many women hockey players go Ivy League only to end up getting liberal arts degrees and end up with jobs they could’ve gotten with any public school degree and with no Ivy debt.

I've heard this from others, and personally disagree. A big flaw in this logic is that getting into an Ivy League post-grad degree program isn't actually all that easy, at least without an exceptional GPA, or perhaps an Ivy undergrad. I've been told over the years by many parents who went the scholarship route, and later felt they had made the wrong choice when they saw how things turned out among their classmates who went Ivy instead.

From a true education standpoint, I would argue that a liberal arts education is the best one you can get. It's not only much more well-rounded, but it allows you to explore a broader depth of subjects which, as was the case with my kids, is far more likely to lead to discovering a field/passion which they would otherwise never have been exposed to. The true value of education goes far beyond merely getting a job. But sure, if you really want to be a firefighter or a public school teacher (and I know Ivy graduates who did both), an Ivy degree will not enhance your job prospects.

If I think of the Ivy classmates of my own kids, the vast majority are now Doctors, Lawyers, Investment Bankers, Business Executives, Management Consultants, etc. Hardly the profile of most schools.

[Cornholio]

Trillium - thanks for your insight and for being very open about your family's experience. I hope you D has done well post-Harvard. And I do agree - if a top recruit has more interest in liberal arts or wants the finance/politics/doctor/lawyer/banking/consulting path, an ivy degree (and really one of the top 3 of Harvard/Yale/Princeton) has a huge advantage. But if they are more STEM or really just playing hockey and will do something in hockey afterwards (coaching or whatever), then the scholarship might be better. I don't know how many true STEM focused top recruits there are (we debated on the RPI thread) but an ivy would not bring as much value especially compared with the cost than say over any flagship state school (any of the Big 10 schools) or at a place like RPI/BC/BU/Northeastern.

[dave1381]

As the discussion turns to careers, it reminds me that Alia Crum '05, who rarely made the regular playing rotation at Harvard, is now a well-cited Stanford associate professor in psychology. The research topics she is most well-known for include "how to make stress productive", and the placebo effect of exercise, and they explicitly draw from her experience as a player at Harvard.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insight...enefits-stress
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/better-believe-it
https://www.shawnachor.com/project/b...in-your-favor/

In the Spring 2003 semester, I was in the same section as her and Kalen Ingram for the Harvard core Literature & Arts class, "Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood." Shawn Anchor was our TA then, and he has since become one of the most well-known researchers in positive psychology, and he later co-authored with Alia. The last time I saw her was in Fall 2005, when we ran into each other at the Harvard registrar office to collect transcripts for PhD applications. So happy she's had such an awesome academic career!

[dave1381]

I was annoyed that there was so much focus on hazing, which was far down the list of issues, and believe that so much focus on that, unfortunately obscured so much of her most disturbing and pathological behaviours.

We're in agreement on this point. I don't care to discuss unimportant topics any further. The main focus of the investigation I hope would be on what really matters here: the negative longer-term mental health outcomes for what appears to be a number of her players, and to what extent she and the Harvard administration are responsible for failing them.

[Skate79]

As the discussion turns to careers, it reminds me that Alia Crum '05, who rarely made the regular playing rotation at Harvard, is now a well-cited Stanford associate professor in psychology. The research topics she is most well-known for include "how to make stress productive", and the placebo effect of exercise, and they explicitly draw from her experience as a player at Harvard.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insight...enefits-stress
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/better-believe-it
https://www.shawnachor.com/project/b...in-your-favor/

In the Spring 2003 semester, I was in the same section as her and Kalen Ingram for the Harvard core Literature & Arts class, "Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood." Shawn Anchor was our TA then, and he has since become one of the most well-known researchers in positive psychology, and he later co-authored with Alia. The last time I saw her was in Fall 2005, when we ran into each other at the Harvard registrar office to collect transcripts for PhD applications. So happy she's had such an awesome academic career!

Her TEDx talk is wonderful. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/0tqq66zwa7g

[thirdtime's . . .]

I think it’s increasingly clear that the Daniels lawsuit is a major factor in Harvard’s ever more damaging delay in addressing the health of HWH. They’re not bringing in the New York law firm to administer a revised questionnaire on player satisfaction, that’s for sure. They’re doing their due diligence — in the guise of review of culture — in order to defend the university and prepare for a settlement. The fact that this is not being handled in-house speaks to what’s at stake. Of course this process should have started months ago, and certainly others in addition to the woeful AD (“Onward and Upward”) are responsible for being negligent last spring. As the university now reckons the cost of years of neglect, Harvard and Stone find themselves hog-tied. Daniels v. Harvard is making the inevitable resignation, ‘retirement’ or firing of Stone anything but straightforward. Meanwhile, of course, the players suffer in limbo.

That’s my speculative take on Harvard’s continued foot-dragging.

[Prowler]

That's a complicated question to answer.

I do have more than one child with an Ivy League degree. If I look at how their career trajectories compare with the majority of their former classmates who chose non-Ivy schools, there is no question that their careers and long-term financial prospects were enhanced quite a bit by the opportunity. And yes, doors were opened with companies simply because of where they went to school. The network in our experience is overrated, it's mostly the name and prestige of the schools themselves that matters. I think the network matters far more for males because of the "old boys club".

In the case of my D who went to Harvard, if we had to do it over again--with her or her siblings--we would never again chose Harvard. The negative impact on her physical and emotional well-being and her self-confidence was life altering. That alone, despite the positives, is enough reason to not do it. Our experiences with the holier than thou administration were very poor also.

Unfortunately, one also has to look at the negative financial hit. She had multiple full-ride scholarship offers that she turned down, only to find we were instead paying huge dollars to be living in an emotional nightmare run by a malignant narcissist. Hardly a worthwhile ROI. Beyond that, suddenly (despite the fact that she was a proven 25+ goal scorer and a dominant impact player in club hockey prior to Harvard) finding herself riding the bench behind some players who wouldn't have even made her club team, because of Stone's insistence on playing 2-3 lines of her inexplicable favourites, was another hard pill to swallow. So, not only did we see her personality and happy-go-lucky nature affected (and I worried for years about potential suicide) , but incurring an unnecessarily big financial hit to boot for that "privilege", and the game she'd loved played with great success her whole life pre-Harvard, suddenly became one filled with pain, heartache and great disillusionment.

To directly answer the question, did she enjoy her Ivy experience at Harvard? I would say all things considered, no, overall. She made a few good friends, had some incredible professors, took some really great courses she could not have taken elsewhere, with tiny class sizes, that engaged her intellectually...but the horrific experience she endured with Stone sadly overshadowed everything else. As a result we have no fond memories of Harvard at all, and think of how dramatically different and infinitely better her experience (both hockey wise and more broadly) would have been had we opted for other choices (some also Ivy). At least she has now a Harvard degree to show for her agony. I would not ever advocate transferring to a far less prestigious school just to play hockey. Realistically, with rare exceptions their long-term hockey futures consist of playing men's beer league.

If you are asking whether you should choose an Ivy league school over a D1 scholarship opportunity, I would say it depends. There are abusive coaches in some D1 scholarships programs, and terrific coaches in other Ivy League schools (and lots of mediocre ones in between, in both). My advice would be to choose the school you would choose if you were not an athlete at all (with the caveat that the coach is not abusive) . And if you have an opportunity to go to an Ivy League school without an abusive coach, I'd absolutely highly recommend taking it. That means most, if not all, of them other than Harvard.

This easily could have been written verbatim by me, if I was more articulate and better educated that is.

[Prowler]

‘This is a sham:’ Harvard faulted for response to abuse claims in women’s hockey program run by Katey Stone - The Boston Globe

[dave1381]

Several of Stone’s current and former players who have been contacted by the law firm said they have been given no indication of the scope of the inquiry, no assurance they will receive any emotional or psychological support during the process, and no guarantee they will be informed about the review’s findings or recommendations.

This Globe article is better than the rest, as at least it focuses more on areas where the Harvard adminstration is clearly at fault: an absence of concern for anyone's mental health and providing any way for players to provide meaningful feedback on longer-term mental health impacts of playing for Katey Stone. Denhollander's opinion is one you have to respect, and she was a good source to use here.

Other points of this article are weaker though, especially as the article rehashes the other stuff.

Jenner & Block’s client is Harvard, not the women who allegedly were harmed in Stone’s program.

Well duh? This is presenting as something sinister but is fairly normal? Of course Harvard is paying for the investigation. It's up to Harvard and the law firm though whether there is a legit investigation here or not, where players can really speak without bringing harm onto themselves.

The Athletic corroborated many of the Globe’s allegations and reported others, nearly all of which, if substantiated, would violate Harvard and NCAA policies governing the well-being of student-athletes.

Really? I don't think editors should let writers throw around blanket statements like this. What are the most prominent policies violated exactly? And you know what? The NCAA even says 74% of student-athletes experience hazing by some defintion. You can say that Mass. law or the NCAA's policies should be tighter here, and the enforcement should be tighter, perhaps, but obviously the Harvard women's hockey team is being singled out here. The Athletic and Hohler will claim hazing is interrelated with what Katey Stone is doing and another thread in a tapestry of abuse, blah-blah, but these threads are very loose at best. I mean, people be like, oh my god, why hasn't Katey Stone done more to stop underage drinking in college (fainting couch). I stand by that any focus on hazing here is distracting from the unique harms actually worth investigating here.

She (Daniels) has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Notice there's no longer mention of Daniels' "lawsuit". Someone speculated a few posts ago that Harvard is very concerned about the "lawsuit" -- I find that doubtful. I think instead Daniels' complaint rather has already largely served its purpose. It brought media attention to how certain cliches are discriminatory against Native Americans, it helped improve Daniels' standing within her home community, and it helped attract media attention on broader issues with Harvard's program. I have met many racist, politically incorrect, inappropriate people in my lifetime and Katey Stone is about the furthest from that of anyone I've ever met. She's always media-savvy and on message and consistent in what she says, more so than any other coach I dealt with across sports within Harvard and across coaches in college hockey, and a few cherry-picked comments and glances I don't think changes that. There are systemic concerns in this program, but racism is not one of them. I stand by that any focus on racism here is distracting from more important harms to players worth investigating here.