The Ancient Eight: A League of Patriots

If you really love America, you'd already be in Torino by now, draped in the Red, White, and Blue, standing outside the Olympic Village screaming the name of your favorite curler (curlist? Curlinger? Curling professional?) being ever ready to jump into that bobsled should some punk wuss out.

But you're not, are you?

Flake.

So, what's your excuse for abandoning your country? Too busy worrying about graduating from an Ivy League university, writing pretentious papers about Kant, and perfecting a stream of blah blah blah? Well I'm sorry to tell you this, but that just doesn't cut it anymore.

Right now, 29 of our Ivy peers are comfortably settled into their Olympic dorms, trying on their Roots berets and anxiously awaiting their chance to represent their homelands at the opening ceremony, airing tomorrow night on NBC.

And where will you (ok fine, and I) be? That's right, sitting on our bums as usual.

(After slacking off for 21 years, I figured that training for a new sport was just unfair to those who have spent their entire lives aiming for the gold. And really, as easy as the New York Times' travel section makes buying a several thousand-dollar plane ticket and a 10-day stay in the pricey Alps sound, I'm just not that up to it this year.)

We, if anyone, should come close to understanding the enormous strides that these athletes have taken to reach such a high level of international competition. For many students in the Ancient Eight, getting through the daily grind is enough, but add in the trans-global flights, intense training sessions, and forced matches against a 300 pound Norwegian named Helga-we'd have called it quits months ago.

And yet, some of the highest-ranked players in some of the most dangerous and unheralded sports in the world nonetheless choose to call the Ivies home.

Of those competing in the Olympics, the vast majority will be playing for the Stars and Stripes (17), while athletes from Canada (7), Germany (2), Switzerland, and Australia will be representing their homelands.

While Dartmouth has the highest number of Winter Olympians, setting an all-time single-school record with 13, both Harvard and Brown have large contingents from their campuses, with six and five, respectively. Yale will send two team members, while Cornell and Princeton each send one. Columbia will join Penn as the only two Ivy schools shut out of the Olympics, reducing Monrningside's once-proud Olympic contingent to the status of black sheep. 

Twenty members of various women's ice hockey teams come from the Ancient Eight, including the entire Harvard, Brown, Yale, and Princeton squads. Eleven of these women are competing for the United States' team: Harvard's Caitlin Cahow, Julie Chu, Jamie Hagerman, and Angela Ruggiero; Brown's Pam Dreyer, Kim Insalaco, Kathleen Kauth, and Katie King; Dartmouth's Kristin King and Sarah Parsons; and Yale's Helen Resor. Six athletes will wear the Canadian maple leaf: Dartmouth's Gillian Apps, Cherie Piper, and Katie Weatherston; Harvard's Jennifer Botterill and Sarah Vaillancourt; and Brown's Becky Kellar. In addition, there are two German hockey players-Yale's Denise Soesilo and Princeton's Nickola Holmes-and one wearing the Swiss red cross-Dartmouth's Rachel Rochat.

Only five of this year's Ivy Olympians are men: Cornell's Travis Mayer, who will represent the U.S. in the moguls portion of Men's Freestyle Skiing, while Dartmouth's Patrick Biggs will ski for Canada in the Men's Alpine. Biggs' classmates Scott Macartney and Bradley Wall will compete for the U.S. and Australia in the same event, respectively. Fellow Hanover resident Carl Swenson will also be present, competing for the U.S. in the Men's Cross Country event.

The rest of the Dartmouth group consists of a Women's Biathlete-Sarah Konrad, U.S.-a Women's Alpine Skier-Libby Ludlow, U.S.-and dual-competitor Carolyn Treacy in both the Women's Biathlon and Cross Country Skiing events for the U.S.

So, while you take a break from your piles of reading and achingly long research assignments to watch the opening ceremony tomorrow evening, keep an eye out for a familiar name or face.  Instead of studying alongside you, some of your fellow Ivy League peers will be in the center of the world's attention. They've given enough of themselves to get where they are, and for the next two weeks, they deserve some attention alongside the Bode Millers, Michelle Kwans, and Apolo Ohnos.