From the Sidelines

Still the greatest rivalry in sports

When we reconvene in New Jersey for Thanksgiving, I have no doubt that my friends and I will engage in our annual argument over which of our schools is a part of the best rivalry in college football.

"It's Michigan-Ohio State," my Wolverine friend will say. "They've got the best players, and the game always has Big Ten title ramifications."

COURTESY SPORTS PUBLICITY Eric Johnson, JE '01, has scored 12 touchdowns this year while pulling down a 3.65 GPA.

"It's Boston College-Notre Dame," my friend from Beantown will assert. "The battle for Catholic pride." "It's Lehigh-Lafayette," my friend from the Keystone State might contest. "It's the oldest." My friend from Dartmouth will, as always, remain silent on the issue.

I will sit back and listen to their jingoistic proclamations, pretending to mull them over. I may suggest a few other rivalries—Florida-Florida State, Alabama-Auburn—to throw them off a bit. But I know which college football rivalry is the greatest of them all. And we've got it.

It's hard to explain to people what The Game means, what it's like. On the morning of The Game, Lee Corso does not expound upon the merits of Yale's secondary or Harvard's passing game on Gameday. It's not on network TV. We're lucky if the final score shows up on the ticker at the bottom of the screen on CNN Headline News. But if one was in the The Bowl for The Game last year, to see The Catch, The Win, The Ivy Title, one got a sense that the Yale-Harvard rivalry is exactly how college football was always meant to be.

In fact, it has been nearly two decades since a Yale player was taken in the NFL draft. The speculative babble that usually surrounds the big-time Division I-A rivalries—"Will Drew Henson play pro baseball or football? Which of Texas's two potential NFL quarterbacks will start?"—does not apply here. Sure, the actual play in a Michigan-Ohio State contest is better than it is in The Game; the players hit harder, run faster, throw farther. But the teams in those games have so many distractions. They wonder whether their TV ratings will meet expectations, whether they will get into one of the higher-paying Bowl games, whether they will move up in the national rankings. The players, too, are distracted. They have to consider how their play will affect their draft position, and wonder if that brand-new, fire-red Lexus sitting in the student parking lot might threaten their scholarship eligibility.

For Yale and Harvard, it's vastly different. Each side in The Game plays with only one motivation: to defeat the other. Two words constantly scroll across the screen of the computer in Yale Head Coach Jack Siedlecki's office: "Beat Harvard." This is the goal for every season for the coach, and for each player on the Yale squad. There are no bowls or rankings to consider. Ivy League titles may come and go; Yale won one last year, but will not this year. As long as Harvard is vanquished, however, the season is considered a success. Do you honestly think that Joe Paterno, or Lou Holtz, or Bobby Bowden, or Steve Spurrier could ever focus so much energy on winning a single football game?

But The Game is about so much more than simply scoring more points than Harvard. The Game is about student-athletes, in the truest sense of the term. The men on the Yale and Harvard teams are not mercenaries, given a free ride simply so that they can bring good publicity to their school and provide three hours worth of solid entertainment each Saturday. They must make their way into their schools first through the classroom, then on the football field. Eric Johnson, JE '01, the star wide receiver for Yale, pulls down a 3.65 grade-point average at one of the best universities in the nation—and he spends six days a week playing football. Many argue that college football players should be paid a salary on top of their scholarships, because of how hard they work. No one works harder on—and especially off—the field than the players at Yale and Harvard, who must pay to attend college. A season's worth of finishing English papers when the players can hardly move after practice is released in a single day, at The Game.

The Game is about the seniors on the teams, the vast majority of whom will be playing in their final organized football game. It is the culmination of what they have worked for all their lives, with no real professional prospects and little reason to keep playing besides the fact that they love playing and they love their schools.

The Game is about Peter Mazza, JE '01, the local boy from Cheshire, Conn. who became Yale's captain and defensive leader. The night after the most difficult loss of his life (to Princeton), Mazza came into the Herald office at 1 a.m. to deliver an article about what The Game means to him, in his words. You will never see a more eloquent and inspirational sports article than the one which Mazza produced (p. 4, The Game Issue). Do you think Florida State's captain would care enough to take the time to do something like that?

The Game is about tradition. On Sat., Nov. 18, Yale and Harvard will continue the third-oldest rivalry in college football. The rivalry extends to all aspects of life; most Bulldogs root for Yale to defeat Harvard in anything (except, perhaps, 2000 presidential election). And the reverse is true for Cantabs. Each year, on one day, the football teams battle it out to determine which school will reign for that year, and which will have to wait until the next fall to assert their supremacy once more. It is the manifestation of what has become, and remains (despite what the lead article of this issue of the Herald says), the most contentious rivalry between two colleges in the United States, a rivalry that extends far beyond the football field. There are many rivalry games in college football; there is only one Game. The Game is college football.

This Saturday, in the 117th edition of The Game, the Harvard team may very well fight 'til the end. But Yale will win.

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