Half-time festivities at The Game, Yale Bowl

The Game (always capitalized) is a title given to several U.S. college football rivalry games, but most particularly the annual contest between the Harvard University "Crimson" and the Yale University "Bulldogs." The Game is played in November at the end of the football season, and the venue alternates between Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl. In 2003, the rivalry was rated the sixth-best in college athletics by Sports Illustrated On Campus (after Alabama-Auburn, Duke-North Carolina, UCLA-USC, Army-Navy, and Cal-Stanford).^[1] As of 2006, Yale leads the series 65-50-8. The Yale Bowl is a football stadium in West Haven, Connecticut. ... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... A college football game between Colorado State University and the Air Force Academy. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Yale redirects here. ... Yale logo featuring stylized profile of Handsome Dan Handsome Dan is the mascot of Yale Universitys athletic teams, a bulldog. ... Look up November in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Harvard Stadium is a football stadium in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. ... The Yale Bowl is a football stadium in West Haven, Connecticut. ... The first issue of Sports Illustrated, August 16, 1954, showing Milwaukee Braves star Eddie Matthews at bat in Milwaukee County Stadium. ... The Iron Bowl logo. ... Tipoff of UNC-Duke game The UNC-Duke rivalry is a fierce rivalry, particularly in mens college basketball, between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) athletic teams. ... The Army-Navy Game, an annual college football game generally played on the last weekend of the regular season in early December, pits the football teams of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York (Army), and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland (Navy), against one... The Big Game is the annual football game between Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (known simply as California or Cal), held in November. ...

History

The first meeting of the teams occurred on November 13, 1875 at Hamilton Field in New Haven; Harvard won 4-0. In the early years The Game was played under rules resembling modern rugby, and was particularly brutal. In the second half of The Game of 1892, Harvard introduced the flying wedge formation, devised by chess master Lorin F. Deland, which so devastated Yale players that it was outlawed the following season (nevertheless, Yale won 6-0). After The Game of 1894, about which newspapers reported seven players carried off the field "in dying condition," the two schools broke off all official contact including athletic competition for two years. Since resuming in 1897, The Game has been played annually except during the First and Second World Wars. The first known reference to "The Game" occurs in an 1898 letter by former Harvard captain A. F. Holden (class of 1888) to Harvard coach Cam Forbes on the occasion of The Game being permanently moved to the end of the season ("it also makes the Yale-Harvard game the game of the season"). But capitalized reference to The Game appears to have been first made by columnist Red Smith in the late 1940s, and it first appeared on the cover of The Game program in 1960. November 13 is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 48 days remaining. ... 1875 (MDCCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about the city in Connecticut. ... Rugby football, often just referred to as rugby, refers to sports descended from a common form of football developed at Rugby School in England. ... 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... A flying wedge is a charging technique in which troops are arrayed to form a wedge or V shape. ... A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he can nearly always beat players of the general strength found in chess clubs, who themselves typically can nearly always prevail against the level of play generally possessed by the average player in the general population. ... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... A world war is a military conflict affecting the majority of the worlds major nations. ... 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1888 (MDCCCLXXXVIII) is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... A columnist is a journalist who produces a specific form of writing for publication called a column. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and the Internet. ... Walter Wellesley Red Smith (September 25, 1905 in Green Bay, Wisconsin - January 15, 1982 in Stamford, Connecticut) was an American sportswriter who rose to become Americas most widely read sportwriter. ... The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... A programme or program with respect to events such as theatre performances or fêtes is a printed leaflet outlining the parts of the event scheduled to take place, principal performers and background information. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ...

2005 was the 122nd playing of The Game, making Harvard-Yale the third-most-played college football rivalry, after Lehigh-Lafayette and Princeton-Yale. The 2005 Game was one of the series' most dramatic games. Harvard came back from being down 21-3 at the half to tie it up at 24 with a Liam O'Hagan two-point conversion. After three overtimes that saw two fumbles and two interceptions, Harvard running back Clifton Dawson '07 scored the winning touchdown. The 30-24 victory was Harvard's fifth straight in the series. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Significance

For many students and alumni of Harvard and Yale, The Game is an important event. The schools are located only a few hours' travel from one another; and, perhaps because they are generally regarded as among the nation's most prestigious (as well as being two of the three oldest), the rivalry is intense. Beating the rival is often considered more important than the team's season record. Furthermore, since Ivy League schools do not participate in post-season football games, The Game is usually the final game of the season (except for 1919, when Harvard beat Yale 3-0 and went on to the Rose Bowl, where they defeated Oregon 7-6); since most Ivy League football players do not go on to professional careers in the sport (the league does not offer athletic scholarships), it is almost always the graduating seniors' final organized game. The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education located in the Northeastern United States. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Rose Bowl is an annual American college football game, usually played on January 1 at the stadium of the same name in Pasadena, California. ...

The Game is significant for historical reasons. The schools that would become the Ivy League played a large part in the development of American football in the late 19th century; football's rules, conventions, and equipment, as well as elements of "atmosphere" such as the mascot and fight song, include many elements pioneered or nurtured at Harvard and Yale. For many years, The Game was also likely to determine the Ivy League championship, although recently it has been rare to find both schools enjoying a strong season simultaneously. The Game receives relatively little national attention today; most college football fans are more interested in games between larger institutions whose teams are made up of scholarship athletes, many of them bound for professional careers. The huge seating capacities of Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl, however, testify to the vast crowds, including many "locals" without official ties to either university, who once attended The Game. United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport that is both fast-paced and strategic. ... Mascots at the Mascot Olympics in Orlando, Florida. ... A fight song is primarily a sports term, referring to a song associated with a team. ... Harvard Stadium is a football stadium in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. ... The Yale Bowl is a football stadium in West Haven, Connecticut. ...

Trivia

In what is usually considered the best Game, in 1968, the Harvard team made a miraculous last-moment comeback, scoring 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie a highly-touted Yale squad. Yale was coming off a 16-game winning streak and its quarterback, Brian Dowling, had not lost a game he had started since the sixth grade. The tie left both teams 8-0-1 for the season, inspiring the Harvard Crimson to print the headline "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29" [1] The Harvard offensive tackle was Tommy Lee Jones, later to find fame in Hollywood. 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... In sports, a winning streak refers to a consecutive number of games won. ... Brian Dowling was the starting quarterback of the Yale University football team in the late 1960s. ... The Harvard Crimson, of Harvard University, is the United States oldest continuously published daily college newspaper. ... The offensive team or offense in American football or Canadian football, is the team that begins a play from scrimmage in possession of the ball. ... Tommy Lee Jones at the Cannes Film Festival Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Oscar-winning American actor and director. ... ...

Half-time at The Game in 2005, Yale Bowl

The Game is an inviting target for pranksters. The most famous exploit was carried out at Harvard Stadium during the second quarter in 1982, when a Harvard score was immediately followed by a huge black weather balloon, previously installed under the 45 yard line by students from MIT as the letters painted on its side proclaimed, slowly inflating until it exploded, spraying talcum powder over the field (Harvard won, 45-7). On November 18, 1990, during the third quarter of The Game, MIT students carried out a less surreptitious assault by firing a rocket which hung an MIT banner over the goal post (Yale won, 34-19). In 2004, some Yale students impersonated the (non-existent) Harvard pep squad, handed out placards to some 1,800 adult Harvard fans, and alleged that by holding up the placards they would be spelling out "GO HARVARD." Instead, the signs spelled out "WE SUCK"[2]. Harvard won the game 35-3. Image File history File linksMetadata The_Game_at_Yale,_2005. ... Image File history File linksMetadata The_Game_at_Yale,_2005. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Rawinsonde weather balloon just after launch. ... Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT, MapúaTech or simply Mapúa) is a private, non-sectarian, Filipino tertiary institute located in Intramuros, Manila. ... November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Yales We Suck Prank On November 20, 2004, at The Game, Yale students, using a card stunt, succeeded in tricking over 1800 Harvard fans into holding up placards that spelled We Suck. // How The Prank Was Done: The Plan and Execution Michael Kai and David Aulicino, two Yale students...

The Game has also become known for the large, joint Harvard-Yale tailgate parties that run throughout The Game in the fields next to the host stadium every year. While most alumni who travel to The Game actually watch it in the stadium, many students treat the tailgate as their primary destination. The Tailgate attracts thousands of students and has recently roused the concern of the Boston Police Department. Tailgating has a number of different meanings, coming from the tailgate present on many vehicles such as light trucks and station wagons: The practice of driving closely behind other vehicles on a roadway. ... The Balls Police Department (BPD) has the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. ...

The Little Red Flag is a Harvard pennant which, since 1884, has been waved by Harvard's "most loyal fan" after each score by Harvard during The Game. As of 2005, the honorary position is held by William Markus of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who attends every Harvard football game. A pennant is usually a narrow tapering flag most commonly flown by ships at sea. ... 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nickname: Steel City, Iron City, City of Champions, City of Bridges, City of Colleges Location in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States State Pennsylvania County Allegheny County Founded 1758 Mayor Luke Ravenstahl (D) Area    - City 151. ...

Counterfeit tickets for The Game were first discovered in 1891 when it was played in Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts (Yale winning, 10-0). 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...   Nickname: City of Homes Settled: 1636 â€“ Incorporated: 1636 Zip Code(s): 01103 01108 01119 01129 â€“ Area Code(s): 413 Official website: http://www. ...

Apocryphal tales assert that before the 1908 Game, Harvard coach Percy Haughton strangled a bulldog to death in the locker room to motivate his players. Whether this is true or not, Harvard did win 4-0, the culmination of a 9-0-1 season. 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Yale logo featuring stylized profile of Handsome Dan Handsome Dan is the mascot of Yale Universitys athletic teams, a bulldog. ... A changeroom (in Australia, Canada, and other areas, including some parts of the USA, and also known as a changing room, change room, lockerroom, or locker room in the United Kingdom or USA) is a place where people go to change their clothes. ...

Harvard's 1890 12-6 victory marked its first national championship. Since then Harvard has also won titles in 1898, 1899, 1910, 1912, 1913, and 1919, while Yale has won 12 national championships. 1890 (MDCCCXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar). ... 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

On November 22, 1992, the first Wild Turkey Breakfast was held on the morning of the Game. An annual gathering, Wild Turkey Breakfast typically involves 100-150 celebrants, bourbon, bagels, beer, and a couple of rock bands. Wild Turkey Breakfast (literally, the Breakfast of Bourbon and Bagels) is a holiday in the Ivy League calendar, usually observed on the Saturday before the fourth Thursday in November, which coincides with The Game. ...

Bibliography

• Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905, edited by Ronald A. Smith (University of Illinois Press, 1994; ISBN 0-252-02047-2) is Harvard head coach Bill Reid's daily diary of the 1905 college football season.
• The Only Game That Matters, by Bernard M. Corbett and Paul Simpson (Crown, 2004; ISBN 1-400-05068-5) is a year-by-year history of The Game; Corbett is Harvard's radio play-by-play announcer.

1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

Footnotes

1. ^ The most played rivalry in College Football is the Lehigh-Lafayette Rivalry between Lehigh University and Lafayette College who have met 141 times since 1884, followed by Princeton-Yale, which has been played 129 times since 1873.

Lehigh University and Lafayette College have one of the most passionate rivalries in college sports. ... Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. ... Lafayette College, located in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, is an independent, undergraduate, coeducational, residential institution. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey in the United States of America. ... 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

External links

• Unofficial website, maintained by alumni
• Series history, from the Ivy League website