The greatest of them all: The 1968 Game

Above former Yale football coach Carm Cozza's office door, there is a picture of Calvin Hill, PC '69, Bruce Weinstein, PC '69, and Brian Dowling, BK '69, somber and dejected, their hands in their pockets. "Their team was a lot like this year's," Cozza said, looking fondly over his shoulder at his stars of 1968. "Both teams had a fine offense, a big-play defense, and a great quarterback who could hit a variety of receivers."

But something went awry for those stars on the hallowed turf of Harvard Stadium on Nov. 23, 1968. "That game was played in heaven and dropped on us," Cozza said. When Joe Walland, TD '00, and Rashad Bartholomew, MC '01—this year's Dowling and Hill—take on Harvard this Saturday, again with the Ivy title on the line, their only opponents will be the Crimson. In 1968, however, Yale was playing against Harvard—and fate.

The 1968 Elis boasted one of the finest offenses the Ivy League—and maybe all of college football—had ever seen. Led by quarterback Dowling, who threw for 1,438 yards and 17 touchdowns in the season's first eight games and later finished ninth in the Heisman trophy voting, the Bulldogs had compiled an 8-0 record. The team had scored 208 points in its seven conference outings, and its closest game had been a 25-13 victory over Cornell. The running attack was a balance of speed and power, led by future NFL Hall of Famer Hill. The Elis entered The Game ranked in the nation's top 20, unheard of for an Ivy League team of that era.

The entire University threw its support behind the '68 Bulldogs. "I can remember people gathering in the Berkeley quad and calling to Brian [Dowling]," second team All-Ivy linebacker Andy Coe, TD '70 recalled. "Then he'd show up at the window and it was like God came out." Garry Trudeau's, DC '70, Yale Daily News comic strip Bull Tales, featuring a lanky, verbose quarterback named B.D., also added to the Dowling myth. But Dowling and the other seniors weren't just great athletes. "They were also the greatest guys to be in a locker room with," Coe said. "I loved being around those seniors."

The Harvard team also entered the contest 8-0—the first time since 1909 both teams had entered The Game undefeated. While Yale's success was centered around its offense, Harvard's fortunes depended on its defense—a unit known as the "Boston Stranglers"—which led the league in total defense. On offense, team captain and halfback Vic Gatto, only 5'6", was the star, rushing for 663 yards that season. Tom Jones, now the actor known as Tommy Lee Jones, anchored the Crimson offensive line. On paper it looked like Yale had a clear advantage. But the Elis certainly did not underestimate their opponents. "The Harvard game is the Harvard game," Dowling told Cozza. "It doesn't matter if they've won every game or lost every game, we're going to go after them."

Setting the stage

COURTESY NEW YORK TIMES Crimson tight end Pete Varney's two-point conversion with no time remaining ended the greatest Game ever played.

Though the atmosphere at Yale the week before The Game was electric, there were some subtle hints that fate was working against the Elis. Hill had a serious tongue infection, and four members of the squad fell victim to the flu. The team stayed in a motel outside of New Haven on Thursday night before it departed for Cambridge to avoid the bug. "I think the flu was part of it, but I also think they wanted to keep us away from distractions," center Fred Morris, JE '69, said.

But distractions could be found aplenty that week. Tickets were being scalped for as high as $160; Yale's allotment of 15,000 tickets sold out instantly. To pacify those excluded, the Yale Club of New Haven sponsored a closed-circuit television broadcast of the contest at the New Haven Arena. Media scrutiny for both teams was intense. "We had reporters all over us and we'd get crowds at our practices," Gatto said. The Elis and the Crimson strode onto the sunlit field to the cheers of a larger than capacity crowd of 40,280 at Harvard Stadium. Extra seats were placed within feet of the sidelines. "It was the loudest I'd ever heard it," Cozza said. "It sounded like the locusts had come in." But it wasn't the seven plagues that would destroy his team—it was the six fumbles.

Dowling took the Elis 80 yards in 12 plays on their second drive, running for the touchdown himself. "We were feeling confident, maybe too confident," fullback Bob Levin, CC '69, remembered. "We were beating them badly at the line." After the Elis blocked a punt a few minutes later, Yale's two transcendent stars, Hill and Dowling, connected on a three-yard touchdown pass. The Elis seemed to be on their way to one of their trademark routs. "We knew what it felt like to go out and comfortably win football games—and this was it," Morris said. And after Dowling hit wide receiver Del Marting, JE '69, with a five-yard bullet and then found Marting again for the two-point conversion to make it 22-0, an Eli victory seemed inevitable. A few handkerchiefs even found their way into the gloved hands of the Eli faithful, and chants of "You're Number Two" rose up in the crowded stands.

Though the offense was still the story, the Eli defense was also upstaging its Crimson rivals. The Yale line had throttled Harvard quarterback George Lalich, who had completed only two of six passes for 22 yards in the early going. Harvard Coach John Yovicsin turned to backup quarterback Frank Champi, a little-used reserve who had only thrown 12 career passes and would leave the Crimson squad after only two games the following year, never to play again. If Dowling was The Game's star, Champi was a supernova—ephemeral yet brilliant for one historic moment. "We didn't know anything about Champi," Cozza said. "But he had very good feet and he made the plays." It may not have been merely his quick feet that were on his side that day at Harvard Stadium. "After the game, my roommate told me that he had a dream the previous night about me going in and playing well," Champi recalled.

COURTESY YALE UNIVERSITY SPORTS ARCHIVES While the scoreboard showed a 29-29 tie, it signified an improbable victory for Harvard and a devastating loss for Yale.

Immediately, the unknown quarterback began turning Harvard's dreams of a comeback into reality. Before the half, Champi found Bruce Freeman to bring the score to 22-6. At halftime, the moods of the Harvard and Yale locker rooms were as different as the profiles of Dowling and Champi. "I told them to keep playing our game, don't let up," Cozza said. "With this team, I didn't have to say a lot." Despite their lead, the Elis knew that in The Game, anything could happen. "With Harvard more than any other team, you never could feel you had it in the bag," Bouscaren said. In the Harvard locker room, the Cantabs were exasperated. "We knew that we played very poorly, but we also knew that we didn't get any breaks," tight end Pete Varney said. "We knew the next score would be important."

The Crimson did, in fact, strike first in the third quarter after fullback Gus Crim powered his way across the goal line from the one-yard-line. Though Dowling answered early in the fourth quarter with a five-yard scramble to restore the Elis' lead to 16, Levin fumbled the ball at the Crimson 14 on Yale's next possession. This would be the last time that Yale's offense would touch the ball, and the last time the legendary backfield of Dowling, Hill, and Levin would be on the field together.

The impossible happens

With 3:34 left, Champi led the Cantabs onto the field. Harvard quickly advanced to the 30, and an Eli holding penalty moved the ball to the Yale 47. On second down, the Yale line finally got to the quarterback, leaving the Crimson with a third-and-18. Champi dropped back and lost the football while being tackled. "Everyone on our team stopped," Cozza said. "They told me that they heard the whistle. With all the noise in there, I don't know what they heard." But there was no whistle. While the Yale defense stood idle, Crimson tackle Fritz Reed scooped the ball up and rumbled 23 yards to keep the drive alive. A few plays later, Freeman hauled in a Champi pass in the end zone. Harvard lined up to go for two, and when Champi's pass to Varney fell incomplete, the Eli faithful released their collective breath. But again the Elis were flagged, this time for interfering with Varney. Even the Cantabs were surprised. "It was really a questionable call," Gatto said. "I think the refs were just as caught up in the momentum as everyone else." Crim bulled across the line to bring the Crimson within eight with 42 seconds remaining.

Everyone in the stadium saw the onside kick coming—everyone except the Bulldogs, that is. "We didn't have our hands team in there," Levin said. Harvard's Billy Kelly fell on the kick at the Yale 49 and the Cantab offense came on to try for one more miracle. In another refereeing mistake, the clock never started, giving Harvard 42 seconds to mount their final drive. "I can remember standing on the sidelines and fantasizing about the if's and maybe's," Morris said. "I thought it would never happen."

As the Crimson drive began, Hill and Dowling, the two men most responsible for Yale's success, asked Cozza if they could enter the game on defense. Cozza refused. Instead, they watched the final plays from the sidelines. On first down, Champi scrambled for 14 yards, and 15 yards were added on a phantom facemask penalty. After two incompletions, the Crimson stood at third-and-10 on the Yale 20. The Crimson called a risky draw play to Crim, who gained 14 yards to the six. The Bulldogs sacked Champi for a loss of two on the next play, leaving the Crimson one final, all-important play.

Three seconds remained on the coal black Harvard Stadium scoreboard. Yovicsin sent Gatto, who had exited earlier with an injured hamstring, back into the game. Champi took the snap, saw the Lilliputian Gatto spring free between Ed Franklin, DC '69, and Don Martin, TD '69, and fired. "I faded back and I couldn't see anyone open," Champi recalled. "I waited and anticipated getting hit, but the hit never came, so I just got flushed out to the left. I rolled toward the sideline and kept looking." He found not only Gatto but a place in college football lore. "I had been hurt earlier in the game, so I was just trying to move around as well as I could," Gatto said. "I found myself open in the corner of the end zone and he got me the ball." As soon as Gatto hauled in the reception, he was engulfed in a sea of Crimson. "The next thing I knew, fans were on top of me," he said. "The field was littered with them." It took 15 minutes to clear the field before the conversion attempt could take place. "We felt very confident about the two points," Champi said. "It seemed almost inevitable—there was this feeling that it was meant to happen." The Crimson lined up in a pro set, as they had on their previous conversion attempt. Champi dropped back and threw a high ball to Varney, who grabbed it in front of Yale defensive back John Waldman, SY '69, to knot the game at 29 with no time remaining. "I was split out to the left, and I used my size to get position on the defensive back," Varney said. "We had tried the exact same thing on the first two-point conversion and I drew an interference call. Frank told me in the huddle that he was looking my way." The Yale defense was stunned. "Their offensive line did their job and we couldn't get to the quarterback," Bouscaren said. "We thought we could stop them this time."

The aftermath

Again, the Harvard faithful spilled onto the field. "I was up on someone's shoulders and I looked down and saw all [the Yale players] with their heads down," Gatto said. "Later, Calvin [Hill] came into the locker room to congratulate us. It was so surreal." It took the Crimson almost an hour to get off the field. The Yale players exited with shocked haste. If the rest of their season had been a Renoir, vibrant and dynamic, this was a Dali, eerie and empty. "We were all in denial," Bouscaren said. "We couldn't believe that it just happened." No one knew exactly what to do. "We saw the Harvard fans going nuts," Morris said. "It was a stunning, speechless moment." It was a moment most Eli players can still remember vividly. "I remember sitting down, crying. I couldn't believe it. Absolutely nothing was said," Coe recalled.

After the "loss," a Crimson cloud lingered over Yale. The Harvard Crimson's headline on Monday was the insultingly ironic "Harvard beats Yale, 29-29." Yale's Division I-leading 17-game winning streak, and Dowling's personal winning streak of 67 games dating back to junior high, had come to an abrupt end. "We beat the hell out of them and they know it," Levin said. "We were not beaten. We let them tie us." A few days after the game, the Harvard team invited the Yale team to a joint Ivy League championship banquet with them. The squad refused. "Everyone was a little bitter," Morris admitted. "There was no way in hell we'd do it. Ninety-nine out of 100 times, we'd win that game. When we put it to a team vote, it was an almost unanimous no."

The Eli banquet following the season was an intensely somber affair. The highlight film, full of brilliant plays from the season, was perfect up until highlights of the fourth quarter of the Harvard game appeared. The picture became fuzzy and yellowed and the audio cracked—just like the season. "Because I was the 1969 captain, I had to speak," Coe said. "I said something stupid like, `We'll get 'em next year,' but I felt bad about it. Those guys shouldn't have gone out like that." Morris agreed. "It was like walking into a test that you thought you would ace and then failing it. Even today we have a hollow feeling." Levin said, "In a strange way, it's good that it happened, or else no one would still remember us."

As this year's Bulldogs get ready to face the Crimson, they know the stadium will not be as full, the media attention not as overwhelming as it was when Dowling and Hill electrified fans in the Bowl. Yet they know a loss or tie would hurt just as badly. Things weren't supposed to end that way in 1968. If fate changes its allegiance this time, then maybe we'll see Walland and Bartholomew smiling next to a league championship trophy above coach Jack Siedlecki's door 31 years from now.

Cover photo of Harvard Crimson courtesy of Harvard Crimson; cover photo of Joe Walland, TD '00, by Julia Tiernan; cover photo of Brian Dowling, BK '69,courtesy of Yale University Sports Archives; photo of Bruce Weinstein, PC '69, courtesy of Yale University Press.

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