Harvard

Anyone remember high school or college, being invigorated by ideas, events and weird new people, but also being overwhelmed by it all? Then you stumbled onto a magazine--maybe Ms. or Esquire--in which someone older, wiser, but still way hip--Joan Didion? Tom Wolfe?--peered into your confused world and sorted it out with stunning clarity?

Orange High School's season came to an end Friday evening in its second-round Desert-Mountain playoff game in Fred Kelly Stadium at Orange as the Panthers lost to Harvard, 21-10. The Panthers (7-5), who came from behind in the fourth quarter last week against Norte Vista, couldn't rally this time as the Saracens' secondary kept Orange quarterback Mike Stock from throwing deep. "Harvard is disciplined," Panther Coach Mark McMahon said.

Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Buffalo Bills is from Harvard, and that makes him unique. He's the only quarterback from that school to become an NFL starter. But there's an everyman side to this son of a rocket scientist, and not just because he proposed to his wife at a McDonald's. "Actually," he said, "it was a McDonald's connected to a gas station. " Fitzpatrick, you see, is a stickler for accuracy. That shows up on Sundays. In two games — both Buffalo victories — he has thrown for seven touchdowns with one interception, directing a team that leads the NFL in scoring with 39.5 points per game.

Last week, the nation wrestled with nuanced questions about racial progress. Did Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley profile Henry Louis Gates Jr., arresting him more for his color than for his "crime" of being disorderly? Was Gates uncooperative to the point that he practically asked for handcuffs? Then President Obama weighed in, declaring that Crowley had acted "stupidly," preventing a one-day news item from dying a natural death.

The scoreboard behind him beamed the simple, cold truth Thursday night in a final score that read: Harvard-Westlake 62, Alemany 45. But Alemany sophomore guard Justin Savitt, after a second double-digit loss to the first-place Wolverines in Mission League play, still isn't convinced Harvard is better. "I don't know what it is against this team," said Savitt, who scored 15 points on five three-point baskets, four in the fourth quarter. "I think we can beat them."

Florida Gulf Coast University sent the Hoyas back to Georgetown. Harvard dashed New Mexico's hopes. Wichita State sent Gonzaga back to Spokane. Is there any hope for a perfect bracket in the NCAA March Madness men's college basketball tournament? Not according to ESPN, which tweeted over the weekend that there were no perfect brackets among more than 8 million submissions this year. But the math majors at Davidson (whose team was ousted after losing in the first round) are going strong, according to mathematician Tim Chartier, who launched "March Mathness" in 2009 as part of the undergraduate class he teaches at the North Carolina college.

With two words, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown launched himself into controversy Thursday morning when he joked about being glad that Elizabeth Warren, his likely Democratic opponent in 2012, had never posed in the nude. Brown was responding to a quip Warren made at a Democratic debate Tuesday.  Asked how she had paid for college - compared with Brown, who once posed partially nude for Cosmopolitan - Warren said: “I kept my clothes on.” Brown fired back during an interview onBoston radio station WZLX: “Thank God!

Harvard 7, Agoura 6--Harvard quarterback Gene Kim had his team's only score on a 50-yard run on the second play of the third quarter at Harvard. Sam Cooper kicked the deciding extra point. Agoura scored on a 22-yard pass from Brian Jauch to Shane Geringer with 5:30 left in the first half. The conversion kick was wide right. Harvard's defense held Agoura to just 12 yards in the second half after the Chargers had gained 175 in the first half.

The amazing Grovinya "Sweets" Underwood is on my left, her aunt on my right, her basketball coach in front of me. We're sitting in the library at Centennial High in Compton, talking about the odds against beating the odds. Underwood lost her mother to breast cancer, her father to a heart attack and a 21-year-old cousin to murder. She was 10 when she moved in with her aunt, Corlotta Adams, who was both loving and demanding. Very demanding.