The recent news of top Minnesota high school quarterback Liam O’Hagan’s commitment to attend Harvard in the fall was undoubtedly good news for the next four years of Crimson football. After all, the 6’2, 210 lb. O’Hagan was also recruited by D-IA heavyweights Colorado, Boston College, Vanderbilt and Minnesota, and was both All-Metro and All-State in his senior year at Breck High School.

However, O’Hagan’s matriculation at Harvard could prove to be doubly good news for the Crimson athletic program if he decides to make his way over to O’Donnell Field next spring to try out for the baseball sqaud—his fastball has reportedly been clocked in the nineties.

While football coach Tim Murphy told The Crimson in an interview earlier this month that O’Hagan had decided to focus his efforts to the gridiron, Harvard baseball coach Joe Walsh couldn’t deny when pressed that he would love to have O’Hagan try out for the baseball team as well.

“I’m excited that he’s coming here,” Walsh said earlier this month. “There haven’t been an awful lot of two-sport athletes here recently.”

While Walsh is correct that there haven’t been any recent two-sport athletes playing both football and baseball, two prominent Harvard athletes have been playing very successful roles in two different sports for a number of years and another has just begun a multi-team commitment.

Senior Rob Fried stars as a winger for the hockey squad in the winter before taking the field as a long-stick defensive midfielder in the spring for the lacrosse team.

Likewise, junior Zach Chandis has been an everyday player for both the men’s soccer and lacrosse teams since his freshman year.

In addition to these two upperclassmen, freshman running back Clifton Dawson just began running track for Harvard, coming in second in the 60 meter dash in a meet against Yale earlier this month.

However, Chandis and Fried came to play two sports in very different ways. Fried was recruited solely as a hockey player whereas Chandis was duly recruited by both the lacrosse and soccer programs.

“I did not come to Harvard intent on playing lacrosse,” Fried said. “I was just playing JV lacrosse with some of the other hockey players and a spot opened up on the varsity level at my position, and it was so much fun that I decided to stick around.”

Since Fried was recruited by the hockey program, he realizes that his first priority is to the hockey team and he focuses on this sport when conflicts arise between his commitments to both teams. He will join his comrades on the lacrosse field after Harvard’s hockey season has ended this spring, something that Fried obviously hopes is as late as possible.

“I came to Harvard to be a hockey player and, to some extent, my admission to Harvard was due to the hockey team’s recruiting efforts,” Fried said. “As such, I am indebted to the hockey team first and foremost. The lacrosse coaches understand that commitment and realize that hockey comes first.”

Chandis was originally recruited by soccer coach John Kerr, but lacrosse coach Scott Anderson heard about Chandis’ skills as a lacrosse midfielder through some of his old high school teammates.

“When I came up for a visit, I met with both coaches separately and they felt if I could handle [playing both soccer and lacrosse], they would have no problems with me doing two sports, and they even encouraged it,” Chandis said.

While Fried and Chandis agree that playing two sports is incredibly challenging and increases risk of injury, both maintain that their play in one sport helps the other immensely.