Helen Huynh

It was a cold autumn day in the middle of November. The leaves were falling, and the days grew shorter. A crowd of 2,000 spectators gathered in New Haven’s Hamilton Park. As they took their seats, 30 men dotted the field before them. 15 of them were clad in crimson knee breeches while the other fifteen sported dark blue jerseys. Unbeknownst to them on this day — Saturday, Nov. 13, 1875 — these spectators were watching no ordinary weekend “football” game. For 50 cents, they bought themselves a place in history as the witnesses to the first iteration of The Game between Harvard and Yale. A rivalry was born.

Since then, Harvard and Yale have fought ferociously on the gridiron. The first contest at Hamilton Park saw a Harvard victory at 4–0 followed the next year by Yale’s first at 1–0. A few years later, in 1894, came the infamous “Springfield Massacre” at Hampden Park where more than a handful of players were critically injured and carried off in what one newspaper labeled as “dying condition.” Due to this, The Game was put on pause for two years. 

Without codified and consistent rules, football was a dangerous game in its infancy. The lucky few were left with blackened bruises and broken bones. Tragically, 45 athletes died from football injuries and accidents between 1900 to 1905. The engagement at Hampden Park contributed to greater calls for reform and safety which made their way to President Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard alumnus and admirer of the sport. At his urging, top university officials across the nation, including representatives from Harvard and Yale, assembled to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States which would evolve into what we know today as the NCAA. Football’s maturation in development and popularity was due in part to the Yale-Harvard rivalry, and as the latter evolved in the decades that followed, so did American football.

The Game was played for the first time at the Yale Bowl in 1914 to a crowd of roughly 70,000 spectators, including former presidents Roosevelt and Taft, both alumni of Harvard and Yale, respectively. The first game played at Harvard Stadium was held eleven years prior in 1903. Throughout this period, Yale dominated The Game. By the 1950s, Harvard and Yale would fight and alternate for the title. In 1959, columnist Red Smith would popularize the phrase “The Game” many decades after it was coined in 1898 by Harvard team captain A.F. Holden in a letter to coach William Cameron Forbes. It was billed as “The Game” a year later and has been referred to affectionately as such ever since. 

In its storied history as the third-most played college football series and the second-oldest college rivalry, there is perhaps no other contest as famous as the 1968 game at Harvard Stadium. In its final few minutes, Yale led Harvard 29–13 only for the Crimson to tie the Bulldogs in the final forty-two seconds, bringing the score to 29–29. Despite this tie and in light of the fact that Yale had a 16-game winning streak hitherto, the Harvard Crimson decided to run the infamous headline — “Harvard Beats Yale 29–29.” This vignette is but one of many storied aspects of The Game and the Yale-Harvard rivalry in its totality. 

Harvard and Yale students don’t leave their clever wit and cunning at the library; the 148 year-old football rivalry is marked with spirit, traditions and most notably, pranks.

Harvard bit first in 1933, when members of the Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine, allegedly kidnapped Handsome Dan II. Members of the Yale community spun into a state of anxiety at the loss of their mascot, who didn’t appear until the morning after The Game — a Yale loss — in a ubiquitous photograph of Dan licking the John Harvard statue. Slabs of meat had been smeared on John Harvard’s feet.

Another one of Harvard’s publications, The Harvard Crimson, struck in 1961. Staff members distributed a fake clipping of the Yale Daily News that claimed that John F. Kennedy, the current president and a Harvard alumnus, would attend The Game in Cambridge. On game day, as the Harvard Band played “Hail to the Chief,” Crimson president Robert Ellis Smith strutted onto the field wearing a mask of President Kennedy and surrounded by men dressed as Secret Service agents. The spectacle deceived many.

Indeed, the THC-YDN rivalry goes hand in hand with the football one: throughout the years, the publications have parodied each other. Another striking example was in 1969, the first year of co-education at Yale. The Crimson forged a copy of the News with the headline, “Disease Strikes 16 Eli Football Starters; Bulldogs Forced to Forfeit Harvard Game.” A section on the bottom of the page read, “Cheerleaders May Be Source,” referring to an invented STD explosion spreading through the football roster.

The next noteworthy offense was in 1992 — this time a battle of the bands. Harvard aimed to sabotage the Yale Precision Marching Band’s half-time show, forming an “X” over the Yale band’s “Y.” However, Yale was a step ahead, having early intel about Harvard’s plan and proactively broiling their own. As the Harvard band approached, the Yalies formed an “H,” making it such that Harvard crossed themselves out.

Yale retaliated in what is often deemed the most iconic prank of the long-standing rivalry: 2004. Yalies, clad in “Harvard Pep Squad” attire, distributed crimson and white placards to Harvard fans, who thought the handouts would spell “Go Harvard.” Alternatively, when the fans raised their placards in unison, they spelled out “We suck.” Several media outlets covered the fabulous prank. Though Harvard won The Game in 2004, it was Yale who came away with the last laugh. Now, we await the next deception.

Beyond the sporting arena, both universities have produced acclaimed luminaries of stage and screen and of song and story; names on the Fortune 500 and the Time 100; and members of Congress and numerous sports teams. Clearly, much has happened since that fall weekend in Hamilton Park in 1875. Harvard and Yale’s rivalry, its cold war, has since transcended its athletic origins. Older than the Edison–Tesla feud yet as famous as that between the Capulets and Montagues, the Yale-Harvard rivalry has transformed into an enshrined part of American culture. 

The existence of a rivalry between Harvard and Yale should come as no surprise. The laws of physics state that two large objects will be attracted to each other by the strong force of gravity. Harvard and Yale, being the intellectual powers they are, were always meant to clash, whether it be on the gridiron or beyond. And regardless of who you are, whether you are a proud Bulldog or a prideful member of the Crimson, you cannot fail to acknowledge the fact that when two giants collide, greatness is born.