Ivy League Life Puts Cremarosa in Rarefied Air

If all went as planned--and flying during the holidays usually means delays--Kyle Cremarosa arrived at LAX on Tuesday night from Providence, R.I., woke up this morning at his Burbank home and headed to Disneyland with his girlfriend.

Of course, before boarding his plane he had to turn in 10-page papers for his philosophy and expository writing classes at Harvard University.

During Thanksgiving, he put off writing a paper and made it to the airport three minutes before a flight home.

This time, he promised himself he wouldn’t have to use his 4.5-second speed over 40 yards to reach the gate on time.

“I can’t wait to get home,” Cremarosa said. “It’s getting cold, but it’s not snowing yet.”

It’s been a memorable five months for the former Burroughs High wide receiver. Cremarosa just turned 18 and is fully embracing life as an Ivy Leaguer.

On the final play of Cremarosa’s freshman football season, Harvard tried a Hail Mary pass against rival Yale. The pass failed and Cremarosa ended up buried at the bottom of the pile as Yale fans charged the field to celebrate a victory.

Suddenly, the fans noticed a lone Harvard player still on the field. It was Cremarosa. They surrounded him and started chanting, “Harvard sucks.”

Welcome to the Ivy League, rookie.

“Every week, it was a battle to the very end,” Cremarosa said.

Cremarosa was one of two true freshmen to play for Harvard this season. He caught 19 passes for 268 yards and one touchdown.

Some college coaches are probably scratching their heads and asking why they didn’t recruit Cremarosa, who starred in an all-star game in June. He caught six passes from former Hart quarterback Kyle Boller, who raved about Cremarosa’s skills.

The previous summer, Cremarosa thought he made a favorable impression at a local combine.

“I trained so hard for the combine,” he said. “I thought I did so well, but [the recruiters] never started coming.”

Except for Ivy League recruiters, who liked Cremarosa’s high grade-point average and SAT score, and his football skills. He fell in love with Harvard during his campus visit. Nothing has changed.

He wears his old Burroughs football sweatshirt around campus. During football season, his hectic schedule results in little sleep and lots of studying and practicing.

“It’s tough, really tough,” he said. “The workload is pretty intense. I was talking to some friends at local UC schools and they’re telling me how it’s pretty easy and they have a six-week vacation in winter, and I’m struggling keeping up the C’s and get two weeks off for Christmas.”

But you’ll never catch Cremarosa complaining, not after seeing the sacrifices made by his mother, Debbie, a single parent.

“Sometimes I get down because it’s real tough. But compared to what other people have to go through, it’s not bad at all,” he said. “Sometimes I tend to take [my mom] for granted because she’s always been there. She’s gone to every single game.

“I remember one time I had a basketball game in the morning, then an hour-and-a-half drive for a soccer playoff game and came back to Burbank for a baseball game. She’d drive me everywhere. I had a 6 a.m. roller hockey practice and she’d be up. What she has done for me, I can’t even explain it.”

Maybe the most difficult moment for Cremarosa was saying goodbye when he boarded his plane last summer for Harvard. Family and friends were with him at the airport.

“I remember turning back and looking at the whole group, and I had to keep on walking,” he said.

Cremarosa’s girlfriend, Suze Abejon, a senior at Burroughs, ran up a phone bill of more than $1,000 during the summer, causing a mini-crisis that Cremarosa quickly solved. He bought a headset and found an Internet provider that offers free phone calls. Now he can talk to Abejon all he wants. No wonder he isn’t getting to sleep until 2 a.m.

But he’s home for Christmas. Mom is happy, Abejon is happy and the Harvard football coaches are happy.

Just make sure you get back on the plane to Boston, Kyle. Spring practice starts in a couple of months.

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Eric Sondheimer’s local column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422 or eric.sondheimer@latimes.com