My two most indelible Yale memories both involve Yale football — watching, not playing.
Perhaps my greatest moment of triumph came at The Game in 1999. During halftime I slipped onto the field with the Yale Precision Marching Band, wandered over to the Crimson side of the Yale Bowl and snatched the giant Harvard flag from huddling male cheerleaders. My run toward the Bulldog side with flag aloft reminded me of my Sidwell Friends varsity track and field days.
The Cantabs’ foot speed may not have been sufficient to catch me, but my tripping over a corner of the flag — a terrible reminder of my junior varsity football days — certainly helped. A gang of Cambridge hooligans beset me before I could get off the ground to run again. Fortunately, The Game was at home that year, so the security guard escorted me into the stands rather than arresting me.
After the UConn game my freshman year (the Huskies were still in I-AA back then and came to New Haven to give Yale an annual beating), an unfinished keg from a tailgate spurred an impromptu late night at Sigma Chi, which I was then pledging. There I met Joanna Winslade, who has tolerated me admirably to this day. That’s right; I met my girlfriend at a fraternity party.
Thanks and best wishes go out to all my friends from Sigma Chi, the Yale Daily News, the Progressive Party, Ezra Stiles College and wherever I else I met good people. If you show up in Ireland next year, I’m good for a pint.
Ben Trachtenberg is a senior in Ezra Stiles College.