WINSDAY WISDOM Session 42
THE GAME! It’s time!
College football has its storied rivalries. Only one is known as “The Game.”
It is not the OU-Texas Red River Classic. It is not OU-OSU Bedlam. Not Bama vs. Auburn in the Iron Bowl or LSU at Death Valley. Not Michigan-Ohio State. Not USC-UCLA. It is not even Notre Dame vs. The Sisters of Stoney Brook.
The longest running big time rivalry is Harvard-Yale. One writer declared the game to be “a clash of civilizations that seemed no less than that of Athens and Sparta.”
In New England, it is simply called THE GAME. And I was on the sidelines for the greatest game in THE GAME history. The next year I would be the starting sophomore quarterback for Harvard playing before a crowd in excess of 70,000. But for this game, I manned the headsets and waved the towel.
Before the ESPN days, Harvard and Yale won 25 national football championships. This would be the last of their nationally important games. It was a sad and memorable year. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated. The Viet Nam War involved many brave young men and their counter protesters.
The two teams were mirror images, both undefeated. The Yale Bulldogs were nationally ranked in the AP poll. They were an offensive juggernaut with three future NFL draftees including Calvin Hill, a future star running back for the Dallas Cowboys. He would also become the father of Duke and NBA player and TV announcer, Grant Hill.
To give you an idea of how good Calvin Hill was—the year after graduation he won the NFL’s rookie of the year award over O.J. Simpson (before the Juice cut loose and ran a wheel off.) Quarterback Brian Dowling had not lost a game since junior high. The perpetually helmeted “B.D.” was the inspiration for Garry Trudeau’s famous counterculture cartoon strip, Doonesbury, the first to win a Pulitzer Prize.
The Harvard defense was tops in the country. The team had only one future (movie) star, Tommy Lee Jones (roommate of future VP Al Gore). Tommy Lee Jones wore Harvard Crimson before having a small part in Love Story and later starring in Men in Black. Also attending THE GAME were Yale students, future President George W. Bush and future Oscar winner Meryl Streep.
Harvard stadium held 57,750, and tickets to the game were going for hundreds of dollars. (This was before the Internet and StubHub.) It became one of the weirdest and most memorable gridiron games ever. It was almost stranger than fiction.
The game quickly turned in Yale’s favor as they dominated the entire contest. The Yale quarterback threw to Hill for a second TD. That was followed by another scoring pass. The second quarter was not half over and Yale had scored 22 points. Harvard did manage to score before halftime, but the mighty Yale team marched into the locker rooms ahead 22-6. The Harvard defense blocked a punt in the third quarter to make the score closer.
Was there hope? No. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Yale punched Harvard in the mouth as they marched down the field and stuffed the ball into the end zone. 29-13.
Looking across the stadium, I saw hundreds if not thousands of white handkerchiefs waving as the poor-sport Yale students taunted us. They were arrogant and foaming at the mouth for humiliation.
Their chants pierced the air. “We’re Number One! You’re Number Two!” I remember hearing the Yale band playing the “Mickey Mouse Club” theme song. The wild celebration continued as Yale went on another drive late in the game. Only 14 yards away from a fifth touchdown, the Yale fullback fumbled.
Harvard was down by 16 points with 42 seconds remaining in the game. Harvard’s backup quarterback, Frank Champi, took over. With a third and 18 on the Yale 38, he was sacked, but the ball dribbled out of his arms on the way down and a Harvard lineman picked up the pigskin and rumbled to the Yale 15. (It is strange how legends are made.) With another chance, Champi passed for a touchdown, but the two-point conversion failed.
So now Harvard would lose with less humiliation. But wait—a flag. Yale was called for phantom pass interference. The Harvard fullback rushed in for the extra points. 29-21.
Everyone in the stadium knew that an onside kick was coming, but that did not stop Harvard from recovering it. No one was leaving the stadium. Some scrambled to get back in, and the white handkerchiefs had disappeared.
Harvard quickly marched down inside the 10-yard line. Actually, the QB ran for his life going backwards, but a face mask penalty put Harvard on the 20 and the next play via a completed tipped pass advanced the ball to the 8- yard line.
Three seconds were left on the clock. There was time for one final play which started badly. Flushed from the pocket by the heavy rush, QB Champi scrambled for his life. As he was hit, he threw a desperation pass off the wrong foot, which was caught by the running back for a touchdown.
There was no time left. Harvard fans stormed the field which was a little ironic since the score was 29-27 in Yale’s favor. (So much for being Ivy League smart in math!)
As the officials cleared the field, the Harvard student section was waving white things (handkerchiefs, towels, underwear) and chanting, “We’re Number One! You ain’t Nothing!” The repetitive slogan engulfed the stadium. “We’re Number One! You ain’t Nothing!” (Apparently, correct grammar was also deemed to be unnecessary in the Ivy League.)
The field was cleared by security. The two-point conversion attempt would take place with no time on the clock. This was before the college overtime rule. (Apparently, something better than “kissing your sister” had not been thought of as an Ivy League option. “The Game” would change everything regarding overtime rules.)
For this momentous gridiron contest, the only options were a tie or a loss. The Harvard quarterback hit the big receiver on a slant route. He held the ball in the air with both hands. Game over.
No one was mistaken about who won the “tie game.” The Yalies grabbed their Bulldog and exited to the locker room with bowed heads. The Yale student body cried into their handkerchiefs as they booed and cursed. The Harvard players jumped up and down in jubilation. The Crimson team and the entire student body raced onto the stadium turf and celebrated the win long into the night.
Harvard had scored 16 points in 42 seconds. I don’t remember a whole lot after that. We all stormed the field. It was all a happy blur. But I do remember it better than anything I learned in the classroom through all my college years. (The university president shook my hand at graduation. He offered a word of commendation. He did not mention my GPA. Apparently, there are times that the Ivy League has higher interests than higher education.)
It was the banner headline across the next day’s front page that best captured what we had witnessed: “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.”
What can we learn from a long-forgotten football game that is meaningless in the big scheme of things?
NEVER QUIT. Keep trying no matter what the odds. NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER.
That goes for loving God and loving others even more so than in an athletic contest. Loving first and most is hard. Sometimes, it is a struggle against overwhelming odds.
But love wins! Always! There is no relationship that is hopeless. There is no enemy that is undeserving. There is no obstacle too wide or too long or too high or too low. There is no circumstance where it is not worth the effort.
Love First. Love Most. Never give up!
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 