“Football and its discontents,” an article by alumnus Jeffrey Manning ’81 in the most recent Yale Alumni Magazine, prompted me to write about my own discontent specific to Yale football. While thrilled at its return, the heartbreaking sight of just 2,000-plus at The Bowl for the initial two contests paints a grim picture as to how far the mighty have fallen.

Once highly-anticipated by students, alumni and community, an afternoon game at the usually-filled Yale Bowl has now reached rock bottom in both attendance and interest. While the new turf field is a remarkable achievement, the gameday emptiness of The Bowl highlights its appalling disrepair. The recent annual “Youth Day” drew no kids, but no matter, as the once coveted general admission end zone seating they would rush to is now covered with tarps sporting advertising to hide the decrepitude of neglected wood-splintered benches. Dilapidated public lavatories feature clogged toilets and non-operational sinks — tailor-made for a pandemic — while the only section getting attention seems to be the private club area beneath the press box. Once considered an “Eighth Wonder Of The World,” the Yale Bowl was the first bowl-shaped stadium in the country and was the footprint for the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, and Michigan Stadium. Its name is also the origin of college football’s “Bowl” games. Sadly, the sensibilities of all true fans of Yale football must overwhelmingly ache when witnessing its current condition.

To be fair, the looking glass sends back a reflection showing Yale is not completely at fault. The NCAA split Division I into two subdivisions in 1978: I-A for big schools, and I-AA for smaller ones. The Ivy League did not move down even though it knew it was on the wrong side of a disparity between the big and small schools. In 1982, the NCAA required that a program’s average attendance be at least 15,000 to qualify for I-A membership. This worked for Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Penn, but not for the other four. But the conference chose to stay together and was demoted to I-AA starting with the 1982 season. That year also saw the birth and boom of sports cable TV with a huge menu of college football, forcing one to choose between Top 20 teams like Notre Dame and USC on TV, or Yale and Columbia at The Bowl. For so many, the choice was an obvious one, especially with no hope of Ivy postseason play.  

But while other Ivies have worked to jump-start the conference’s downward spiraling football trend, Yale, for the most part, has failed to do so, resulting in football’s diminished visibility for both campus and community alike. Harvard’s recent Friday night lights game against Brown drew 20,000-plus — and Penn does well with Friday games, too. And with the exception of the amateurish camera coverage offered on ESPN-plus broadcasts, Yale football has forsaken its relied-upon radio coverage, forcing fans to access the oppositions’ online broadcasts. Research shows each Ivy opponent carrying this season’s games on both student radio and commercial stations, yet Yale’s student station chooses to broadcast such vital programming as “Live From The Moon” during gametime.  The student attendance is sparse, and the Yale Marching Band, which once sported upwards of 75-marching members, now resembles a combo in size.  Even the bulldog mascot and the song “Boola Boola,” which once defined Yale’s identity, are now unthinkably more synonymous with the University of Georgia.

Has Yale thrown in the towel regarding football, and if so, even with deep pockets, how long can a program last with no attendance — save for The Game — coverage or interest? Where are Camp, Kiphuth, Ryan, Cozza and Beckett when we need them most?

I write this with a heavy heart, for Yale football — its history, tradition and excellence — throughout my soon-to-be 70 years, has been and will always be a major portion of my life. My family bled Yale blue, as my dad’s ashes are in The Bowl, and my mom, Gloria McHugh — still cheering today at 94 — was the celebrated and deemed irreplaceable Executive Director of Alumni Relations at the Yale Law School until 1996. When I approach The Bowl on my pilgrimages from Florida, I genuflect prior to entering, but the hollow feeling I now experience when compared to the euphoria of yesteryear is gut-wrenching. Maybe Yale football does not amount to a hill of beans when compared with the problems of today’s mixed-up, muddled world, but boy-oh-boy, you should have been there during its heyday. Regardless, always remember: “Harvard’s team may fight to the end, but Yale will win.”

FOR GOD, FOR COUNTRY, AND FOR YALE!

MARC G. McHUGH is a lifelong Yale football fan now living in Venice, Florida. Contact him at mchughmarq@gmail.com.