Tara LaSovage '99 bats in a game against Yale on April 10. The star second baseman earned 1998 Ivy League Player of the Year honors after batting a blazing .526 in League games, stealing a team-high nine bases, and helping Harvard notch its first-ever Ivy title and inaugural trip to the NCAA tournament. "I don't think that I stand out as a star. I just like to think of myself as consistent and that I lead by example," she says, adding, "but when the game is on the line, I do want to be the one up at bat. I want to be the one to do it." Photo by Jon Chase.

Busy doesn't begin to describe Tara LaSovage.

The senior plays two sports at Harvard -- field hockey and softball -- and is a captain of both. She has worked numerous hours of community service, and was an integral part of the recently formed Harvard Student Athlete Partnership (HSAP), where she tutored a bilingual fourth grade class last spring.

Oh, and she carries a 3.2 grade point average as a biology concentrator.

Yet as busy as LaSovage is in and out of the classroom, she finds the time to excel for her Crimson teams. Last fall, she was the starting midfielder for the field hockey team that finished second in the Ivies, and reached the Semifinals of the ECAC's. A year ago, she garnered Second Team All-Ivy honors and was voted to the Coaches' National All- Academic Team.

She's even better on the softball diamond. The star second baseman earned 1998 Ivy League Player of the Year honors after batting a blazing .526 in League games, stealing a team-high nine bases, and helping Harvard notch its first-ever Ivy title and inaugural trip to the NCAA Tournament.

"Tara does a lot of things, and she does them all very well," says softball coach Jenny Allard, whose squad went 34-22 overall and was undefeated in the Ivies. "She is a very compassionate person, and I think that is what makes her a good leader because she is in tune with the people around her."

While growing up in Ann Arbor, Mich., LaSovage learned how to balance interests that varied from sports to ballet, horseback riding, and playing the flute.

She first took up softball at age 12, "primarily because all of my friends were playing. I began playing on a traveling team, and I think that the only reason I made it was that we had a race on the first day and I beat our coach," she admits half-jokingly.

While attending Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, LaSovage lettered for the field hockey team that won four straight state titles, and jump-started a young softball program and aided its drive to the state finals her junior year.

When it came time to choose a college, LaSovage was coveted by the nation's best academic schools and eventually narrowed her list to Northwestern and Harvard.

"I originally wanted to go to Northwestern, but I wouldn't have been able to play both softball and field hockey," says LaSovage. "Then my Uncle Louie sat me down and asked, 'would you rather say that you could have played ball at Northwestern, but you went to Harvard, or that you could have gone to Harvard, but played ball at Northwestern?'

"His words really sunk in, and it was then that I knew that I couldn't pass up this opportunity," she adds. "I've loved my time here, and I wouldn't trade it in for the world."

A few times during her Crimson career, LaSovage has been asked to switch positions. She alternated between defense and midfield for last year's field hockey team, and started her softball career as an outfielder. Regardless of her sport on the field, LaSovage, has continued to do what she has done her entire life . . . excel.

"Tara is a fierce competitor and very aggressive," praises Allard. "She's a spark plug for the team, and she'll do anything I ask of her. Last spring, she always came through when we needed it most. At Cornell, when we had to sweep to clinch the Ivy title, Tara led the game off with a triple. That got us going."

Yet LaSovage is a reluctant hero.

"I don't think that I stand out as a star. I just like to think of myself as consistent and that I lead by example," she says, before adding, "but when the game is on the line, I do want to be the one up at bat. I want to be the one to do it."

Beyond her aggressiveness and competitiveness, LaSovage exudes a quiet confidence that carries over to her teammates. It was most evident during last year's softball run.

"By the time Ivy League games started, there was a feeling that even if the other team scored first, or if we were down, there was no reason to panic," she says. "We had an overall calm and we knew that we were going to win. It was all about taking care of business, and if one person didn't step up, then another would."

At the same time, LaSovage also knows the price of success and that the Crimson is a targeted team this year.

"I think that schools will be gunning for us and that it will be difficult, because it's always difficult to repeat," she cautioned before the 1999 season began.

LaSovage has lived her life to become a complete person, someone who balances sports with academics, community service with tutoring, and friends with family. And, not surprisingly, LaSovage has begun to map out her career after Harvard. She plans to take the MCATs (the medical school entrance exam), spend a year away from the classroom, then return to school in the fall of 2001. Her choice of study isn't that much of a stretch, either.

"I've always wanted to go into family medicine -- as a general practitioner -- because I want to work with the whole person. I've experienced how some specialists only see one part of the person, but they don't see the entire person."

Helping the whole person. For someone as well-rounded as Tara LaSovage, it's a perfect fit.