As much as I am titillated by the heaving of tight ends and the grunting of wide receivers, I find it somewhat incongruous that football is such a primary medium for the rivalry between two elitist bastions of eggheadedness like Yale and Harvard. Wouldn’t The Spelling Bee be a showdown better suited to our general puniness? Why not have a declamation competition where nerds in blazers pontificate on the classics? Mainly we don’t do these things because they’d be boring. So, I’ve tried to come up with some other versions of The Game that, while not a sport that none of us can play very well, would still be fun to watch.
The Game: Bulldogs vs. Cantabs, the real thing. The Cantab prays to his dour Puritan God as the Bulldog goes for the jugular. In a primeval rage, the Bulldog takes its Thanksgiving dinner early, only this time the Pilgrim is on the table.
The Winner: Bulldogs, for proving they are more than useless puddles of drool and cute.
The Loser: What the heck is a Cantab?
The Game: The Engineering departments of Yale and Harvard each build a robot to fight on behalf of their creators. The robots face off in a gym somewhere and are given points on durability, design and energy efficiency.
The Winner: Yale, because it is discovered that the Harvard robot is actually just a random Harvard student plucked from his study station.
The Loser: commandline: love.execute – error. Does not compute
commandline: fun.execute – error. Does not compute
The Game: Presidents Levin and Faust fight to the death in front of their respective boards. Levin swings the two-ton, lethally bling-studded Yale Pimpcane at Faust’s jawline. She nimbly dodges and sicks the demonic hordes of Mephistopheles on her foe. Just before she tears out Levin’s soul, Larry Summers stabs her in the back with one of those knives from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that kill demons.
The Winner: Larry Summers’ career as Buffy Summers’ uncle in his new CW show: Larry the Strictly-Female-Vampire Slayer.
The Loser: Women in the Academy.
The Game: The members of the Elizabethan Club play the members of the Signet Society in a croquet match.
The Winners: This actually happens. WE DO NOT LIVE IN REAL AMERICA.
The Game: A representative student from each university is chosen to sing the entire score of “Beauty and the Beast” and given points on style, accuracy and flair.
The Winner: Me.
The Loser: The world at large.
The Game: Having The Game at Yale vs. Having The Game at Harvard.
The Winner: Yale because when we host The Game, our tailgates aren’t lame-o because we don’t have a backwards, ineffective policy that restricts alcohol consumption and shuts the party down at noon. Also, we give the other school enough tickets so the damn thing doesn’t sell out.
The Loser: Look in the mirror, Harvard. No one loves you but yourself.
The Game: Toad’s vs. The Kong. Toad’s has dancing, but The Kong has those really long straws for the Scorpion bowls. Toad’s wins on diversity of sexually transmitted diseases actually transmitted within its walls, and The Kong wins because, although its kitchen is only slightly less narsty than the Toad’s dance floor, people actually eat the food that comes out of it.
The Winner: I don’t remember.
The Loser: My limit as the number of Scorpion bowls approaches infinity is pee.
The Game: Having a good time. As in, being a real person and having fun in college. Making close friends, relaxing, being able to carry on a conversation that isn’t about yourself with someone who is not like yourself. Also, having sex on a regular basis.
The Winner: Yalies, because we actually do these things.
The Loser: Harvard students, because they do not.