Saved by the Bell: Newly Inspired Tips For The Game

PHILADELPHIA—You wonder how hard it really is to tear down a goalpost.

After Saturday’s massacre at Franklin Field, a slew of Penn fans attacked the uprights. The protective circle that police had formed around the far post proved about as effective as a chain mail vest made of paper clips, and the Penn fans began to work on it, climbing and shaking as hard as they could. There was jumping, there was bumping and, regrettably, there was a fair amount of humping.

But the structure remained intact—just significantly bent—and the Quaker faithful eventually headed home, back to the dorms where they could further bask in their drunken glee and eventually sober up and realize they still go to school in Philadelphia. And the goalpost remained at an angle, a pathetic but enduring symbol of triumph.

A lot of things went right about the way Penn fans conducted themselves on Saturday. A good-sized crowd came out for the ESPN College GameDay festivities, and even though the game didn’t get anything close to a full house (the rain hurt), there were points of light in the huddled masses.

The chants from Penn were loud, obnoxious, coordinated and often timely. “You have two points” was brilliant and, for far too much of the game, appropriate.

“F--- you, Harvard” didn’t come off as the most cerebral chant, but got the point across.

And they booed our band, which—well, frankly, I didn’t care much one way or the other when they booed our band.

The point is this: Penn’s fans had something college fans often lack, which is a certain level of organization. When the Alma Mater started up, everyone seemed to know it. Penn’s attack on the goalpost wasn’t a swarming so much as it was a coordinated strike—the fans first went to midfield, giving the cops a false sense of security, and only later did a couple of leaders steer the mass directly into the circle of authority, crashing right through it and leaving the police helpless.

Organization is a good thing, and in that spirit I present the following tips for Saturday against Yale:

1. Do you know where your booze is coming from?

Since Harvard-Yale will, in theory, be keg-less (worst idea since Ernest Goes to Africa), it would be good to have some idea ahead of time where you’ll have gotten smashed. Despite the number of cans and bottles that will fill the tailgates this weekend, it’s still best to show up at the Stadium at least halfway there already. You never know.

Obviously, don’t drink to the point where you’ll fall off a truck. And if you’re underage, well, Harvard-Yale is of course not meant for underaged drinking. But if you’re legal, and if you’re out there, come prepared.

2. Our fight song goes something like this:

Ten thousand men of Harvard want victory today/ For they know that o’er old Eli, fair Harvard holds sway/ So then we’ll conquer all old Eli’s men/ And when they day ends, we’ll sing again/ Ten thousand men of Harvard gained victory today!

Kinda lame, huh? And most people don’t know it. Still, it’s what we’ve got. A good way to obscure the lameness is to follow Tip No. 1 and sing anyway. Observe:

Ten thousand men of Harvard want victory today/ Nananananananana na Harvard nana nay!/ Nanana na na na na nanana/ Na na na na naaa, na na na na/ Ten thousand men of Harvard gained victory today!

3. “Safety school” always works. But more basic cheers along the lines of “You have two points” and “Your team blows” also work. The basics are good—use these and think on the fly. Any first-time fans who join the cheerleaders’ “First and ten/ Do it again/ Score, Harvard, score!” and “Hold that line” should be escorted from the facility.

4. If Penn loses to Cornell Saturday, not only will you have to dodge the bacon falling from the sky and dress warmly to adjust for the temperature change hundreds of feet beneath us, but a win over Yale will give the Crimson a share of the title. Should this go down, there may be occasion to hit the goalposts.

Whatever you do, don’t slug the cops—HUPD’s finest aren’t jerks like the mace- and club-happy Yale cops were last year. I would suggest carrying goggles, though. Mace, even when accidentally sprayed, is never fun.

And I would hope that people would look around for leadership and coordination once the operation was underway, preferably from physics concentrators who know how to do this sort of thing.

Of course, we could also just not drink at all, scream “Rah! That was a terrific thumping” at every Dante Balestracci hit and shake the Yalies’ hands in a civilized fashion after the game. Wouldn’t that be delightful?

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.