Harvard sweats for 261,000 minutes

Though the much-anticipated results of Harvard’s first-ever Team Fitness Challenge (TFC) are in, it would seem that the more than 300 Harvard affiliates who participated in the University-wide challenge all came out victorious, or at least in better shape. Taken together, the 36 teams made up of Harvard staff, students, and faculty accrued nearly 261,000 minutes of fitness over the eight-week period, be it through yoga, jogging, weight lifting, or countless other physical fitness activities. Harvard Athletics and the Malkin Athletic Center sponsored the challenge.

Teams consisted of faculty and staff members (denoted by an “F”), students (“S”), Harvard Law School students (“L”), or a combination of the above (“C”). Many of the teams finished up the challenge strong, especially HIGH QALY-T (F11), who moved up five spots to land in the top 15. Despite the many minutes logged in the final week of competition, however, the top three teams were unshakeable.

Taking top honors were the Rice Crackers (C1) with 20,779 minutes. The team members – Paul Cassidy, Corey McCann, Srinivas Paruchuri, Sang Lin Chu, Alex Shalek, Rich Sherwood, and captain Jae Hur – will each receive a TFC champion T-shirt and a gift certificate for either a year of group exercise class or a year of towel service.

In second place is Biziouras Incorporated (C4), composed of Nikolaos Biziouras, Michael Boyle, Olivier Brighenti, Rebekah Crooks, Rachel Gisselquist, Michael Horowitz, Assaf Moghadam, John Park, Sebastian Rosato, and Erin Simpson. Logging 19,239 minutes, Biziouras Incorporated will receive T-shirts and a gift certificate to B. Good.

Third place belongs to the He-Men Way (F5) with T-shirts going to Robert Bosso, Mark Bray, Richard Cho, Tim Norton, Michael Reed, Robert Stanhope, and Lillian Stoner, and team captain Michael Kelley. The team managed 17,284 minutes.