To the Editor:

While Mike Menitove (“Want to win The Game? Here’s how fans can help,” 11/17) has a point about Yale fans making too much noise during our own offensive drives, his annual diatribe against everyone else who attends The Game is misplaced. I attended every home game in 2001 and can report that members of the Band outnumbered all other students in attendance at half of them. Yale’s Band members show up at the Bowl every week before most Yalies are out of bed because they are Yale’s most devoted fans, not its least, and they have always used good judgment in starting cheers.

As to his assertion that “no one” does non-football and residential college cheers at big football games, he’s wrong by his own admission. One place, Yale, does. That enthusiasm is what motivates thousands of devoted Yalies, past and present, to love this place enough to make the pilgrimage to Cambridge during Yale’s Thanksgiving break for The Game. Meanwhile, The Harvard Crimson is forced to run features comparing how much Harvard students hate their own school to Yale’s spirit. This difference in attitude is yet another reason why, regardless of what happens on the field this Saturday, Harvard’s team may fight to the end but Yale will win.

Allen Dodson ’02

Nov. 17, 2004