Hired by The Crimson in 1967 at a time when 15 employees worked in the building each night, Sorrento originally served as a typesetter.

But as the "cold type" replaced the labor-intensive "hot type" process, Sorrento became the only night-time employee retained by The Crimson. Sorrento "pasted up" the pages until 1986, when the building introduced a computer system which sent articles directly from thenewsroom computers onto film. (See technology story, page 3.)

Some of Sorrento's best memories are from the old days, when executives took advantage of the stringent deadlines mandated by old technology to pull pranks on novice writers.

"I think the best hoax of all was the one we played on Mike Barrett ['70] that [University President Nathan M.] Pusey ['28] was going to be secretary of defense," Sorrento says.

One night, Barrett was assigned to watch the Associated Press (AP) wire ticker for important stories. Bells started ringing shortly after 11 p.m., when a story about Pusey being appointed to the Cabinet came over the wire.

According to Sorrento, news executives, including "[former Crimson President] Bo Jones '68 and his crowd," had sent the story to the AP as a joke and then asked the news organization to send it directly back to them.

At the time, stories had to be finished by 12:30 a.m. to be laid out on the page. When Barrett ran downstairs with the story just a few minutes too late, Sorrento told him the story could not go in the paper.

"I thought he was going to have a heart attack," Sorrento says. "We used to play hoaxes like that all the time."

Sorrento's role has changed throughout the decades as The Crimson's technological system has evolved.

Now that he no longer has to lay out the pages by hand, Sorrento says he serves as an "advisor" instead.

"What I do right now is mostly backup...a little quality control, mostly teaching," he says.

However, Sorrento says one thing that has never changed is the ambiance at The Crimson, where the students seem more "like family" than classmates.

Nevertheless, Sorrento has had to adjust to some changes, including the omission of the Saturday paper which began this year.

"The time off is nice, but I like the traditions," he says. "The summer paper twice a week used to be a training session for executives, for the juniors, and the Saturday paper was nice for the sports."

Students know Sorrento to be an avid sports fan. He regularly accompanies Crimson editors to Red Sox games each spring.

"I'm a great fan of all Boston sports teams," Sorrento says. "[But] the Red Sox are the ones I can go to the games more. Working at night you can't go to a regular Celtics game or hockey game."

Sorrento says that his 30 years at The Crimson have been "a great time." He describes it as being "better than money."

"If I didn't like the kids here, and I didn't like to work with them," he says, "I would have been gone long ago.