Harvard fullback plans opera career

BOSTON -- Harvard senior fullback Noah Van Niel plans to trade the gridiron for the opera stage after the Crimson's season finale this year.

The tenor has apprenticed in Florence, Italy, and New York and says he's ready to see how far his talent can carry him. This fall, he'll audition for postgraduate programs in vocal performance.

The bruising sport and the singing art both involve mastering certain skills and both inspire nervousness and self-doubt about performing for large crowds, Van Niel told The Boston Globe.

And while the Harvard football playbook may be complex, opera playbooks come in English, Italian, German and French. "You've got to know them like the back of your hand," says Van Niel, who has taken two years of college Italian.

Van Niel scored the first two touchdowns of his college career last weekend when Harvard defeated Lafayette, 27-17. On the likelihood of his football career ending, he notes that playing college football is "four more years than most people get."

He isn't Harvard's first operatic football player. Ray Hornblower, a halfback on the school's unbeaten 1968 team, is a lyric tenor who has performed throughout Europe.