Photograph by Jim Harrison

Soon after she was admitted to the class of '00, Tricia Maureen Michels, of Matthews Hall and Honeysuckle Avenue, Fountain Valley, Orange County, California, sent Thomas Everett, director of the Harvard Band, a videotape of herself twirling. "She is an accomplished twirler," says Everett, "and she was looking for avenues for expressing herself at college. I told her that for various reasons--a shortage of rehearsal time, very limited performance time, a desire to give Band members time to express themselves--the Band doesn't work with twirlers." Neither do the cheerleaders, Michels discovered. (Once upon a time, incidentally, the cheerleaders were all men--when the place had cheerleaders. This year they were all women.) "I told her," says Everett, "'There's no twirling club, no competition, no direct association with the cheerleaders or the Band, but Harvard has a tradition of people making a niche for themselves.'" Michels twirled at football games. (She is shown on page 57 twirling at The Game.) She stood near the cheerleaders and twirled when they cheerled. Sometimes she twirled flaming batons, disallowed by safety-conscious authorities mid season. "The Band once had a drum major who juggled," says Everett, "and in the 1940s or '50s Stan Pinto, a staff member, was drum major and twirled his staff, but Harvard's never had anyone like Michels on the field. She's a talented, enterprising young woman, and I expect we'll be seeing more of her."

"I'd love to start a tradition," says Michels.