Sports also offer a release from the rigors of studying, says Bartolotta, who is double-majoring in finance and physics. Basketball has allowed him to develop his leadership skills. And the intense practice and game schedules have helped him organize his time.

Bartolotta, who plans to play professional basketball in Europe after graduation, was recruited to MIT as a basketball player. Yet many students are introduced to their sports as undergraduates. Bob Vernon '63, SM '65, never considered himself an athlete until he joined the crew team. And he did that only because an upperclassman at the fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha threw his arm around his shoulder and suggested he try out.

"Like most of us, I didn't go to MIT with athletics in mind," says Vernon, who is retired from Unisys and lives in Doylestown, PA, with his wife, Alice. "I think the upperclassmen realized that MIT can just grind you into the ground, but if you can couple a great education with good extracurriculars, then you'll be okay."

Vernon was coxswain of the varsity lightweight crew during his sophomore and junior years and team captain his senior year. In 1962, his boat won the national championship and traveled to England to compete in the Henley Royal Regatta. Last year, ­Vernon was among 10 former crew team members to join their former coach ­Gerrity W. Zwart, MArch '62, in England to celebrate the anniversary of their achievement. ­Vernon also spearheaded a recent drive to create an endowment fund in Zwart's honor to support the position of varsity lightweight rowing coach. In three months, the effort raised more than $650,000.

"I look back on my days with the rowing team as being as important to me as the academics in becoming who I am," Vernon says. "That's why I'm so committed to ensuring the rowing program stays healthy. When I was a freshman, a senior in our house was captain of the crew team"--the upperclassman who urged him to try out. "Four years later, I was the crew captain, telling the same thing to a freshman."