Sports
Sisters in Thin Air
The tallest group of women ever to play basketball for Harvard
is now on the court. They're not just high, but mighty: "This
is potentially the most talented team I've ever coached,"
says Kathy Delaney-Smith, now in her eighteenth year at the helm
of women's hoop. On this altitudinal squad, the highest of the
high include sisters Melissa Johnson '00 and Sarah Johnson '03,
who--at six feet five and six feet three, respectively--are the
first sororal duo ever to suit up for the Crimson. Born 20 months
apart (Melissa is 21, Sarah 19), the striking siblings attract
attention off the court as well as in the paint. They are a playful
pair. "Everywhere we go, people ask, 'Are you twins?'"
says Melissa. "Sometimes I say yes!"
The Johnsons have inspired many nicknames; at Westhill High
School, outside Syracuse, New York, there was the predictable
"Twin Towers," the corporate-logo "Johnson &
Johnson," the buddy-movie "M.J. and Little J."
Epithets can get tiresome, but they don't bother the Johnsons,
who are comfortable standing above the crowd. "Yes, we will
wear high heels," says a chuckling Sarah. "And platform
shoes."
Opponents may need something like platform shoes--or pogo sticks--to
defend against the sisters, who both play either center or power
forward. Harvard runs a "triangle" offense in which
those positions are basically interchangeable; the pattern stations
one tall player at low post (near the basket), another near the
corner of the court, and a third close to the top of the key.
Although both sisters can face the basket and hit 15-footers,
Sarah's hook shot is her bread-and-butter, while Melissa has greater
range. Yet "their real strength is with their backs to the
basket," says Delaney-Smith. "They may be the best low-post
players I've ever had here. I don't know how a team would defend
against both of them: most teams aren't going to put two centers
on the floor at once. If they play a six-foot power forward, we
post up the Johnson girls and shoot over that player."
Harvard also fires cannons from the perimeter. Historically,
the Crimson attack has emphasized three-point shooting; Delaney-Smith
estimates that in at least half of her 18 seasons, Harvard has
ranked among the top 10 colleges for three-point attempts, conversions,
and percentage. This year, their coach reports, seniors Courtney
Egelhoff, one of Harvard's best ever from outside the arc, and
Laela Sturdy, plus "a whole slew of underclassmen,"
are treble threats.
Furthermore, the upper-story game does not end with the Johnsons.
Each year, in recruiting, "We [basketball coaches] all fight
over the very few centers in the United States who are six feet
three and above," says Delaney-Smith. At that rarefied elevation,
Harvard currently has four on the floor. The Johnsons are joined
in thin air by six-foot-three sophomore Lindsay Ryba, who was
impressive at center last year, and six-foot-three freshman Kate
Ides, whom Delaney-Smith calls "hands down, the most powerful
incoming freshman I have ever coached. Kate lives in the weight
room and her numbers there are amazing. She brings us an 'enforcer'
ability."
Despite this array of strengths, the pre-season coaches' poll
picked Harvard only fourth in the Ivies. Last year, Brown and
Harvard (10-15 overall, 7-7 Ivy) tied for fourth place in the
league, behind Dartmouth, Princeton, and Penn. That was a disappointing
campaign for the Crimson, which, led by superstar Allison Feaster
'98, had reeled off three straight league titles in 1996, 1997
and 1998. In addition to the ongoing Feaster famine, Harvard graduated
three starters in June.
But some polled coaches may have forgotten that Melissa Johnson
will be playing this year; she transferred to Harvard in the fall
of 1998 from the University of North Carolina. NCAA rules for
transfer students required Melissa to sit out last season. Even
so, she trained and practiced with the Harvard team; "I did
everything but travel and play in the games," she says.
Having played two years for the Tarheels, Johnson still has
two years of athletic eligibility left, but whether she will spend
a third year at Harvard is as yet undetermined. College policy
discourages students from taking five years to graduate unless
there is a substantial academic reason for doing so. A philosophy
concentrator who hopes to write and direct films, Johnson may
have such a reason; she aspires to do a senior thesis on film
and aesthetics under the supervision of professor of philosophy
Richard Moran, who was on leave last year.
After her sophomore year at North Carolina, Melissa was elected
basketball tri-captain, but says, "I always had Harvard in
the back of my mind." Having now spent a year in Cambridge,
she says, "I'm getting the education of a lifetime, and I
really like playing for Kathy Delaney-Smith. She's the least egotistical
coach I've ever encountered--Kathy cares about the players, not
just as athletes, but about what's going on in our lives, our
academic work. My roommates are not athletes, and it's great--they're
into things like drama, which is stimulating. To top it all off,
my sister came here."
Sarah took a more direct route to Harvard, influenced by Melissa's
positive experience. A recruiting weekend proved decisive: Sarah
liked both the Crimson basketball players and what she calls Harvard's
"healthy balance" of academics and athletics. "On
my way home, I knew Harvard was for me," she says. "The
ambiance here is unlike anywhere else."
The sisters grew up in the Syracuse area, daughters of Barbara
Johnson and the late Norman Johnson, who played football, basketball,
and baseball at Bates College. Their mother was an excellent golfer
before departing the links to raise three daughters. First-born
Toby, a three-sport athlete, attended West Point and is now learning
to fly helicopters in Alabama; Sarah jokingly calls her the "runt"
of the family at five feet nine. (Barbara Johnson is also five
feet nine; her husband was six feet three.) All three girls played
soccer; Sarah also rode horses, while Toby and Melissa went out
for track. In the triple jump, "I had the most abominable
form you could ever see," Melissa recalls, "and I won
everything." She explains this anomaly with one word: "Size."
By eighth grade, Melissa and Sarah had begun to focus on basketball.
They played together a lot, working on moves in one-on-one games,
as well as playing in community leagues and going to basketball
camps each July. The sisters have been lifting weights together
since junior high school, and their lighthearted spirits have
frustrated some trainers. In the middle of a set, for example,
one sibling might make a wisecrack and "We'd just crack up,"
says Melissa. Yet on the court they can be serious indeed. In
1996 the Johnsons played together on a Westhill High School team
that won the New York State championship, ending a four-year reign
by Poughkeepsie Lourdes by beating that school by 20 points in
the semifinal. Sarah's last high-school team defeated opponents
by an average of 35 points in league and sectional play. Years
of playing together make the Johnsons formidable on the basketball
court. "I know Sarah's game, know where she likes to have
the ball passed to her," Melissa says. Delaney-Smith expects
that the sisters will be on the floor together at times.
Though their games are similar, their personal styles diverge.
Melissa is at home in jeans; she once did a 50-day Outward Bound
program and enjoys taking incoming frosh on camping trips as a
Freshman Outdoor Program leader. In contrast, Sarah may wear a
long skirt to class. Her position on camping: "Not into the
outdoors--I like my showers, and having toilets around. I enjoy
going to movies, hanging out with friends--the usual teenage stuff."
The differences between "Johnson & Johnson" haven't
led to sibling rivalry, except of the most productive sort. Sarah
calls Melissa a "role model," and Melissa characterizes
her standards as "Hard on my teammates, harder on my sister,
hardest on myself. I try to give Sarah everything I know--I'm
not threatened by the idea that she could be better than me."
The sisters blend well into the Crimson squad, which Melissa says
has "phenomenal chemistry." Or, as Sarah puts it, "We're
all like sisters."
