The fall was good (even without any Ivy titles), and the winter was better (with four crowns). But then came the spring season–with four more League titles and five National Championships on top of that to truly make this a stellar 2002-03 Harvard athletics' campaign. Do you need further proof? Crimson teams combined to post a solid .641 winning percentage on the year.

Harvard pushed Gehrig Division winner Princeton to the limit, before dropping a 5-2 decision to the host Tigers in game three of their Ivy League Championship series that determined the circuit's automatic NCAA bid. The Crimson won game two as freshman Josh Klimkiewicz (Lexington, MA) went 2-for-3 with four RBI and one run scored, while the pitching of freshman Matt Brunnig (Deland, FL) and senior captain Barry Wahlberg (Lynn Haven, FL) kept the Princeton bats at bay in a 4-3 triumph. Harvard finished the year at 20-23.

Success on the water raced from one dock on the Charles River to another. After Harvard-Radcliffe crews won three national titles, the sailing teams added two more. First, Harvard captured its second straight National Team Race Championship, going 5-2 in the championship round to edge out St. Mary's (4-3) and Southern California (4-3) at Bayview Yacht Club in Grosse Point, MI. The Crimson's skippers were seniors Clay Bischoff (Miami, FL) and Dan Litchfield (Wayland, MA), junior Cardwell Potts (New Orleans, LA), and freshman Vincent Porter (Geneva, WI). The Crimson’s crews were seniors Lema Kikuchi (Bethesda, MD) and Michelle Yu (Mountain View, CA), sophomore David Darst (Greenwich, CT) and freshman Ruth Schlitz (Falmouth, MA). The Crimson followed that with a dominating display at the North American Coed Dinghy Championship to lay claim to its first title in that event since 1974. The Crimson pulled away on day two of the three-day competition and easily won both A and B divisions, wrestling the title from runner-up St. Mary’s College by 63 points. Third-place Hawaii finished 74 points behind. Bischoff sailed with Kikuchi and Darst in the A-division. In B-division, junior Potts joined up with Yu and junior Diana Rodin (West Roxbury, MA).

Track and field has added a new layer to qualifying for NCAAs, with a Regional Championship feeding athletes into the nationals, slated for June 11-14 in Sacramento. This year's NCAA Regionals took place at George Mason University, where senior sprinter Chris Lambert (London, ENG) made the qualifying cut by placing fifth in the 200 meters. Lambert broke an Ivy League record that had stood for 16 years with his victorious time of 20.58 in his trial, then ran 20.79 in the finals, just 0.21 seconds off the championship pace. Other Crimson seniors competing at Regionals included Nathan Shenk-Boright (Middlesex, VT), whose time of 14:45.04 in the 5000 meters was good for 33rd place, and co-captain John Traugott (Neponsit, NY), who was 32nd in the 1,500 meters after traversing the course in 3:54.41. Freshman Samyr Laine (Newburgh, NY) finished 19th in the triple jump with a leap of 14.8 meters.

The women's NCAA Regionals were also at George Mason, where the top Harvard performer was Johanna Doyle (County Wicklow, Ireland). The junior finished 10th in the hammer throw with a toss of 56.73 meters. Classmate BreeAnna Gibson (Tuttle, OK) was 25th in the shot put, her best throw being 13.30 meters, and fellow junior Alexandra Petrone (Piscataway, NJ) was 21st in the javelin (39.52). Senior Helena Ronner (Goteborg, Sweden) turned in a leap of 11.81 meters in the triple jump, good for 30th place.