(Updated 2001 Feb 02)

My background:
I was the captain of the life sciences intramural softball team, the InfraRed Sox, for a couple of years when the office of Sports Tsar was created. Running an intramural team basically amounted to recruiting people to flesh out a roster, and then before each game nagging a team's worth of players into showing up. As a sports tsar, I expected that the main change would be that the entire graduate student population would become the talent pool. This is how I justify my salary, anyway. I outlined these plans in my campaign statement for that first term, and I was elected with over 80% of the vote.

As I half-expected, duties expanded to running teams in sports other than softball (volleyball, basketball, indoor soccer), although there were graduate-student teams that existed without my intervention: flag football and GSIEF's indoor soccer team. A pleasant surprise is that there was sufficient demand for two basketball teams and two Spring softball teams. Along the way, I inherited the reins of pickup volleyball from Patrick Tufts, but Dmitri Ivanov and Bill Kobertz have put as much into sustaining volleyball as I have, I think.

So, I ran for re-election. I won, but I barely cleared 60% of the vote this time. I expressed a status quo stance in my campaign statement for this second term; maybe I needed some new ideas. In this second year, I added intramural soccer to the list of teams I oversaw, although most of what I know about soccer I learned from the Super Nintendo. Also, I took more of an active role in Monday outdoor volleyball by acquiring a free, legal car and a volleyball net system.

I ran for a third term on the ticket of the Unopposed Party. Even after declaring in my campaign statement that I might graduate before completing my term, I got a personal-best 83% of the vote. If anyone has any ideas on what I might do, there is a link below to send e-mail to me, which I will read as I count down the seconds to graduation.

Team pages:

• softball
• volleyball
• basketball

Send questions or comments to T.R. Shaikh