Practices Make Perfect

Sex in the stacks of Widener. Using John Harvard’s foot as a urinal. Pretending to like the Red Sox. At a school so heavily steeped in tradition, custom and ritual abound, touching most—if not every—aspect of student life in some way.

For the members of the football team, a squad formed in 1874 that plays in a 100 years old stadium, pre-game rites are, not surprisingly, a fact of life.

It’s just three hours to game time. The last of the players are filing through the bowels of Harvard Stadium and making their way into the locker room. There isn’t much to do; the game plan is set, the preparations have all been made. Most players just find a comfortable place to catch a quick nap after suiting up before the game.

But not tailback Clifton G. Dawson ’07. The transfer from Northwestern can barely sit still as he faces his locker, waiting for the clock to tick down. He doesn’t make a move to get ready. He leaves his gear off, waiting for the last moment.

“I cannot [sleep],” Dawson says. “I won’t put on my equipment or get taped until the last moment. I feel weird or uncomfortable.”

So he just sits as game time slowly approaches. His teammates gradually begin to rouse from their slumber and the music plays, louder now than before.

Brian C. Edwards ’04 can’t stand to hear it. The normally affable and approachable wide receiver recedes into a corner and jams his headphones securely over his ears. He won’t speak to anyone—not even to his best friend, roommate and fellow wide out James E. Harvey ’04. Not on game day.

“I like it to be really quiet so I can get focused on the game,” Edwards says. “I just bring my own music and I get the headphones on. I like to be alone and don’t like it when people try to talk to me before the game.”

As the kickoff draws near, the sound of the music and the energy inside the locker room steadily climbs higher.

Captain Dante G. Balestracci ’04 sits at his locker, one hand tightly wrapping tape around his muscular fingers on the other hand. Over and over again, like a boxer preparing to slip his gloves on for a prizefight, his hands mindlessly tape themselves as he mentally scans back through game footage and the task that lies ahead.

The tenor of the room suddenly changes and the last song begins to blare: “I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord. I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life, oh Lord. Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord.”

Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” begins to filter down through the room, as it has before every game.

“That’s the last song we listen to because it’s kind of like the calm before the storm,” Balestracci says. “You have to build yourself up to playing and you can’t just go wild in the locker room. You have to wait until you go out onto the field and it gets you going and it gets you excited. If you listen to the lyrics it’s kind of like ‘one time, the chance of a lifetime.’”

Then it is onto the field and into the huddle, where at the center of the team is Adam M. Kingston ’04, the punter.

“To be honest, at our first game I was surprised to see he was the one leading the pre-game chant,” Dawson says. “Usually the kickers are quiet guys.”

But there’s nothing quiet about this kicker.

Kingston, whose older brother Ben was a fullback at the University of Nebraska, took the traditional motivational speech the Cornhuskers use and brought it to Cambridge, reciting it for the first time this season prior to the Crimson’s first game against Holy Cross.

“The past three years, the point where we’re about to run onto the field, everyone just jumped up and down, barking,” Kingston says. “That didn’t really build towards anything.”

As the team huddles round, Kingston shouts his message about success, tradition and hard work, his teammates echoing every line right back.

“He just comments on why we do this, why we come out every day and work so hard,” Dawson says. “And it’s for the opportunities we’re about to have. And it’s just about winning and losing and why we will be victorious.”

“I don’t know where he got it from,” Dawson continues. “It does seem to be a traditional thing. If we haven’t said that in the past, it would definitely be worthwhile to continue doing that particular chant in the future.”

And in a college steeped in tradition, a new legacy is born.