Honor, if not glory, in backup role

Needham's Quagliaroli wins
kudos from Harvard coach

Addenda: On June 4, 1997, Jim Quagliaroli received the
John P. Reardon '60 Award, given annually to Harvard's top male
scholar athlete. More below. On May 1, 1997, the NSCAA voted
Jim Quagliaroli to its Regional Academic All-American team.

By Marvin Pave
The Boston Globe
December 1, 1996

Jim Quagliaroli of Needham won't set any scoring records for the Harvard University men's soccer team, which is hosting Hartford this afternoon in the NCAA tournament's second round. But his coach says the Rhodes Scholarship candidate has brought something special to the Crimson varsity over the past three seasons.

"Jim's a coach's dream. He never gives up," Steve Locker said last week, a day after Harvard fought back from a two-goal deficit to topple Boston University, 3-2, in the tournament's opening round. "I've been coaching for 16 years at the college level and during that time I've met and coached some wonderful kids, and Jim is among the best."

Quagliaroli followed the footsteps of his older brother, Peter, in becoming a captain for Roxbury Latin School's soccer team, where they were teammates for Jim's freshman year.

Their father had coached youth soccer in Needham for several years, and Peter is now a teacher and assistant soccer coach at Worcester Academy.

But despite a successful career at the West Roxbury private school, where he was named an all-state private school player and a five-time member of the Massachusetts State Select team, Quagliaroli was not recruited by Locker to play soccer for Harvard.

Instead, he was a walk-on candidate who played junior varsity soccer his freshman year, worked as a counselor at Locker's youth camp on campus that summer and then impressed the coach with his knowledge of the sport and willingness to work at it.

Quagliaroli's hard work paid off with a last-minute berth on a pre-season training and cultural trip to Germany with the Harvard squad as a sophomore.

"It was not your typical route to playing varsity soccer in college," said Quagliaroli, a senior midfielder and defender this season. "I did get to start some games last year when players were hurt, and even though I'm not starting this season, I'm just as happy being part of the team. I know the best 11 players are the ones out on the field and, when things are clicking, you go with it."

Quagliaroli did manage to score his first--and to date, only--varsity goal in Harvard's opening game this year. It came on a penalty kick against Cornell. Harvard was losing, 3-0, and his goal made it a 3-1 game. It was Harvard's only loss, against 16 wins, going into today's match at Ohiri Field against Hartford.

"It was late in the game," recalled Locker, "and after the call for the penalty kick, Jim grabbed the ball and decided he'd kick it . I had no argument with that. I wasn't going to stop him. He earned the chance. And he put it away with one of the best penalty kicks we've had all year.

"Jim can always say he was Harvard's leading scorer," Locker said with a laugh, "but it's up to him if he wants to finish the story and say it was after one game."

The fact that he was there to kick it, Locker said, is a tribute to Quagliaroli's work ethic.

"Jim's the only player who's ever walked on and made the varsity since I've coached here," Locker said. "I had never spoken to him personally before he enrolled at Harvard, but after his freshman year with the JV's, he approached me and asked if he could train with the varsity in the off-season. That impressed me. We liked his attitude and his willingness to work.

"I told my assistant there was no way we could keep him off the varsity."

Locker didn't call on Quagliaroli much that sophomore season, but when injuries his the squad last fall, he became a started for the majority of Harvard's games, and, said his coach, "there was a need for him and he responded. He showed heart and dedication and was a mainstay on that team.

"This year, we've had people healthy and I haven't been able to give him as much playing time as I would like, but he's been a wonderful leader," Locker said.

"He's not a captain but he's a great go-between for me with the players. He keeps me abreast of things and has the confidence and maturity to do that. I hate to see him go."

He has, nevertheless, been a part of an Ivy League championship team, one on a quest for a national championship.

"It's a huge time commitment and I have to sacrifice my weekends to be a part of the soccer program," Quagliaroli said. "But just being around quality people, your teammates and coaches, provides an air of excitement and enthusiasm for me.

"It's nice after a long day of classes to know that I'll be with 20 other guys whom I respect as athletes and some of whom are my best friends. There are too many special moments not to make the commitment."

And there are moments off the playing field that his coach won't forget, either. "We have a team rule that when odd tasks have to be done, like positioning the practice cones or moving the nets, it's the freshmen who do it," Locker said. "Jim still does it and he's a senior. It's his nature and it's the reason he's going to be successful when he leaves Harvard."

That post-Harvard experience may just include a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship for two years of study at Oxford University in England.

Quagliaroli has already been endorsed by Harvard and has filled out his application in preparation for an interview before the Massachusetts selection committee this week at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. If he gets past that hurdle, the next step is the regional review process, from which four scholarship recipients will be named from New England.

"If I get is, my plan is to study modern American and English literature," Quagliaroli said. "I want to look at how literature can potentially affect our moral sensibility. The scholarship would be important for my emotional, intellectual and overall personal development," he said, warming up for the interviews ahead.

For the short term, though, there's a soccer game to play at Harvard this afternoon before family and friends, and for the longer term, too, he predicted.

"I'll always play. I love it too much not to."

Jim Quagliaroli received the John P. Reardon '60 Award on June 4, 1997. It is given annually to Harvard's top male scholar-athlete. Jim Quagliaroli, originally a walk-on, worked to become a solid midfielder for Harvard's Ivy Champion, NCAA-qualifying, and nationally ranked men's soccer team.

An English concentrator with a 3.70 GPA, he was awarded the prestigious James Bryant Conant Fist Prize, given for the best essay in the College on a subject of scientific interest; his essay, which explores possible explanations for dinosaur extinction, is permanently bound and housed in the Pusey Library Archives. He is perhaps the first English major to ever receive first prize in this competition.

Quagliaroli, who was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship, was involved in community service work in South Boston and would spend several hours every week teaching, coaching, and tutoring lower income middle school and high school children in Cambridge. His coach, Steve Locker, says Jim "is the absolute best young man that I have ever had the pleasure to work with in my 16-year career. He rises above everyone else in every aspect of his personality. Every player looks up to him and attempts to emulate him."