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Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
1968. With the unpopularity of the Vietnam War growing after the Tet Offensive, especially after newscaster Walter Cronkite denounced our presence there, Lyndon Baines Johnson had decided not to seek a second full term for the Presidency of the United States after barely edging out peace candidate Eugene McCarthy. As the kids tried to stay clean for Gene, American troops had killed innocent civilians in a hamlet called My Lai. Protesting university students were taking over administration buildings across the country. Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton was killed in a shoot out between the Oakland Police Department and the Black Panthers. The Catonsville Nine raided a selective service office and burned the draft cards found there in with napalm. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream ended on April 4th, when he was shot by a sniper, in Memphis. On the verge of taking the Democratic nomination for President, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles, California. The streets of Chicago erupted in violence outside the Democratic National Convention where Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was accepting his party’s nomination of President as police battled protestors. Richard Nixon was crowned by the Republican Party for promising law and order, having a secret plan to end the war, and achieving victory through the southern strategy, while dividing America. Apollo 7 broadcast from orbit. Track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised a gloved fist in a black power salute after placing 1st and 3rd in the 200-meter run in the Mexico City Olympics. Yale announced it was finally going to let female students in. The Zodiac Killer began his rampage in San Francisco. Flower power was dying. It was the year of politics. A year in which many Americans thought the nation was falling apart and documentary filmmaker Kevin Rafferty decides to focus on a football game played on November 22nd by a bunch of upper class Eastern elitists from Harvard and Yale? It is surprising the quarterbacks could even call the play with the silver spoons between their teeth!
It is the oldest rivalry in college football history. Way back in 1898, it was moved to the end of the season so that it would be “the game” of the college football season. I checked the National Football League rosters and they are not populated by Ivy League pieces of beef. The last time Harvard went to a New Year’s Day bowl was back in 1919. (They defeated Oregon 7-6.) Neither school even offers scholarships for that matter now. In fact, there was only one black player, Calvin Hill, on either team that day. Granted, Hill went on to play running back for the Dallas Cowboys where he was Rookie of the Year and made the Pro Bowl four times, and later played with the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns, before retiring with the World Football League’s Hawaiians. (He is probably more famous as the father of NBA star Grant Hill. His wife Janet was the roommate of Hillary Rodham Clinton at Wellesley College.) Still, the cast of characters surrounding the game is pretty interesting. The quarterback for Yale was Brian Dowling, who had not lost a football game he played in since junior high, who managed to survive on the edges of the NFL for three seasons before retiring to become a sportscaster. Dowling is probably more famous as the basis for the character B.D. in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury. An offensive tackle for the Harvard team was the roommate of future Vice-President of the United States Al Gore, Tommy Lee Jones, The Men In Black, The Fugitive, Academy Award winning Tommy Lee Jones. (According to author Erich Segal, the character of Oliver in the novel Love Story was based on Jones and ironically the movie was the young actor’s first break in Hollywood.) On the Yale side of the ball, another lineman was the roommate of another future political heavyweight and son of a Texas Congressman, George Bush. If that is not enough name dropping, a Yale fullback was dating an aspiring actress from Vassar named Meryl Streep.
What made the game so great? Under the leadership of Dowling and ground game of Hill, Yale was the pride of the Ivy League and was even ranked nationally. Most thought Harvard was in a rebuilding year, even though they had won all of their games. On paper, it was a Yale cakewalk and early on it appeared to be true. Yale had a commanding lead at half-time, 22-6. Fans began taunting their Harvard hosts with the chants, You’re number two!” But on the field the boys from New Haven, Connecticut could never quite deliver a knock out blow. In fact, they appeared to be all thumbs that day fumbling five times. Frustrated, Yale defensive back Mike Bouscaren admits to delivering a cheap shot, trying to knock Harvard backup quarterback Frank Champi out of the game. With less than three minutes left in the game, Yale had a commanding 29-13 lead and were driving down field toward the goal line. At this time most fair-weather fans would be heading to their cars to get ahead of traffic. Then Levin fumbled. Mental mistakes lead to penalties and an amazing performance by Champi, who was disliked by most of his teammates and had been thrown in the game by the coach for a change of pace. (In fact, Champi quit the team following the game and never played football again. Yet, in the last 42 seconds, he managed to score 16 points to tie the game. (At this point, college football had no tie-breaking overtimes to decide games.) It was such an amazing performance! The Harvard Crimson newspaper’s headline on Monday was "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29".
So what, some of you are saying, a bunch of rich kids beat a bunch of other rich kids, why watch a documentary about it especially when the ending is given away in the title of the movie? Isn’t that like retitling The Crying Game, The Crying Game Because the Chick Has A … or Soylent Green, Soylent Green Is People? What is the big deal about a football game, except nostalgia for some graying fat cats to get all starry–eyed. Rafferty was a Harvard undergrad in the stands at the time. And let’s admit it, the game in recent years has become a wee bit of a joke, more interesting for what happens off the field than on. (In 2004, for example, a small group of Yale students pretended to be the fictitious Harvard pep squad and passed out 1,800 placards for Harvard fans to hold up which given the queue, believed it would spell out “GO HARVARD.” Instead, it announced “WE SUCK”.) Even though the ending is known and it is pretty clear that most of the audience for this documentary already know how things turned out, Rafferty does a great job using game footage and interviews to build suspense.
Still, there were more important things happening in 1968. There are more important things happening today. There is an old Chinese curse that states, “May you live in interesting times.” 1968 was an interesting time and so is 2009, maybe one of the most interesting times in our history. While I love politics, sometimes we need to watch a football game, play a video game, listen to music or go to the movies, to give us some space from the “interesting times” of our lives. These diversions give us a chance to zone out, smile a bit, and enjoy ourselves. Harvard felt it won in a tie. I think that is the best we all can ask for out of life.
Verdict: An Entertaining Documentary