The Season Begins and Ends Today

Think about the number of really enchanted days you spend each year. Sit down, now, think about it: there's Thanksgiving, maybe, and Christmas if you're gentile, there's the first warm day of spring, and of course, the last day of exams. And then there is the Harvard-Yale game.

Allow me to correct myself for verbosity: it's simply The Game. You can have Oklahoma-Nebraska, USC-UCLA, Army-Navy, Michigan-Ohio State and Arkansas-Texas.

I'll take mine served up right here, thank you, down home in the good ol' Ivy League.

The Crimson eleven takes on a Yale squad at the Stadium this afternoon in a contest full of more history than Robinson Library. It's Massachusetts versus Connecticut, Cambridge versus New Haven (ugh), but most of all it's Harvard against venomous Yale. And for the members of the Class of '79 on Harvard's team, it's pride versus humiliation--a loss today would mean three straight shutouts by their '79 varsity counterparts in blue.

Pride

The word "pride," to my memory, has never appeared in many Crimsonstories, but this is one case where it applies--there is a hell of a lot of pride on the line today. For the first time in the memory of any undergrad, The Game leaves no chance at tying or winning the Ivy title.

So you bet pride's on the line--there's really not too much else.

It will take a good deal of talent, as well, to beat this year's Yale team.

The 4-2-2 Elis have recovered from the devastating Rutgers wounds that knocked them from the Ivy League vanguard--the defense has allowed eight points per Ivy game, the offense has a run-pass quarterback (Pat O'Brien), a tough inside fullback attack and a fast outside double-halfback attack, along with a shoo-in All-Ivy split end in John Spagnola.

And a Yale victory, coupled with a Dartmouth loss, would mean a share of the league title.

Crowin'

Harvard (4-3-1) has some names to crow itself. QB Larry Brown needs 183 yards passing to set the single-season school mark (he owns the career record with 2403). Halfback Ralph Polillio needs just over 100 yards to surpass the 1000-yd. total offense mark.

The much-criticized defense remains much-injured, so you can expect to see a lot of unfamiliar numbers in there today.

The Harvard season began, of course, with lots of unfamiliar numbers in there, but strong title hopes nonetheless. The Crimson had supercool Larry Brown back at quarterback, a stable of runners led by RalphPolillio and Wayne Moore, a dependable offensive line (without which no football team--anywhere--does anything of note) despite the essentially virgin defense.

Oh, yes, there was one more thing there: the usual all-out optimism that permeates all mediocre-or-better football teams in the pre-season. The optimism led at least one columnist for this newspaper (guess who?) to go out on a limb and say the Crimson would win the Ivy title easily.

It didn't work out that way. Harvardlost to Columbia, 21-19, in the season opener, and if all of us didn't realize it was going to be a weird season after that game, we were suckers. Twelve points spearate the Crimson from an 8-0 season, if you can believe that.

Coach Joe Restic and the Multiflex had to bear a lot of the blame for that loss (along with Weird Incident Number One of the year--a two-point conversion on a trick play by the Lions). The three halfback offense seemed ineffectual at the time, and it looked even worse after the next week's results came in: a 10-0 trouncing of UMass with fullback Matt Granger in the power I.

The Crimson handled Colgate easily, but lost by five to Cornell when a superlatively skilled tailback named Joe Holland punished the Harvard defense for 244 yards in the customary Cornell game downpour.

Then came the Dartmouth win; Weird Incident Number Two at Princeton when sure victory evaporated with a fluke fumble.

Then came Brown. The Crimson eleven played its finest game of the year, standing up to the mighty Bruins as they had to the oversized UMass Minutemen four weeks earlier. Again, the offense took charge late in the game (the injury-torn defense had once again failed), only to see victory slip away as dusk descended on Soldiers Field. 31-30, the final tally read, as Gary Bosnic's 30-yd. field goal attempt in the fading light sailed just wide (Weird Incident Number Three).

Weird Incident Number Four came at Penn, in a game where the offense faltered, the defnse looked shoddy, but luck prevailed in the closing seconds when a forceful Quaker rally fell just short.

It was a "dream schedule:" seven homes games, including the first five, two of the first four against non-league foes and the others versus Cornell and Columbia.

That has brought us to today. The game means little to Harvard in terms of the standings; for Yale it means an outside chance at a tie in the event of a Dartmouth loss at Princeton.

In terms of atmosphere, there will be just a little bit of everything there today. There will be ghosts--yes, lots of ghosts from past contests--there will be plenty of alumni, there will be lots of Yalies, and a lot more non-Yalies, there will be rye and bourbon and just about every other drink under the sun.

But most of all there will be Polillio and Brown and Clark and Kross and MacLeod and the rest; and what the hell, let's say a cheer for Spagnola and Crowley and that gang. It will be the last time any of us gets to see number 22 and number 1 and the others, and for me at least, that is very sad.

But every college football player has to go sometime, and geez, what a way to go--in the Harvard-Yale game. Or, more accurately, in The Game.