20 Harvard Hunks

Every time I go to Boston, I have to visit Harvard University, the Oxford of the U.S., our oldest and most prestigious university, where 6,700 students, the elite of the elite, move toward the bright future mapped out for them before they were born. They may become the Bill Gates, Barack Obama...um, or Jared Kushner. They may found a new Facebook. They may write for sitcoms.

I am always surprised by how ordinary the campus looks. No vast Gothic quads, like at Oxford, or for that matter the University of Chicago. There are a few Colonial buildings, but mostly it's plain brownstone, with an occasional glass-and-steel science lab thrown in. The Widener Library could be any library in the world.

Cross Harvard Yard, and you come to a Tasty Burger, an IHOP, and a...a...Chipotle.

And how ordinary the students look. Not at all the children of the top 1% of the top 1%, with private yachts and guest houses in St. Moritz and Barack Obama in their phone contacts. They could be any rich kids from any college, except that they're majoring in Lithuanian Gender Politics and Akkadian Funerary Incantations, and taking courses like From Byzantium to the British Isles: The Materiality of Late Antiquity.

Who am I kidding? Most of them are majoring in economics or political science, necessary for their lives in halls of power.

I'm always surprised that Harvard has sports. What jocks want to study Medieval Catalan Poetry?

Actually, that sounds rather interesting.

Who knew that a brief google search would turn up 38 Harvard hunks?

1. A hunky swimmer (top photo).

2. A spandex-straining wrestler (notice the VE RI TAS on his side).