Testing Students on Harvard Athletics

The past few weeks I traveled campus noticing the lull, the quiet almost-ignorance that accompanied one of the worst spells of Harvard football in recent memory, two straight losses—one badly, one to an Ivy doormat—before the recent righting of the ship. Where was the dismay, the outrage, but mostly the surprise?

Besides the usual complaints over lack of student fan participation, it struck me as the symptom of either a disappointing lack of context, the assumption among many students that at such an elite academic institution, the team should be bad, blind to the fact that for the past five or so years, Harvard has been the co-class of the Ivy League and one of the most consistently competitive programs in Division 1-AA.

Or alternatively an overabundance of football insight, the shared realization that this year’s incarnation should suffer from the graduation of its superstar quarterback, several key starters on defense, and its top special-teamer. Plus the spate of injuries, the hyper-informed fan might deduce, on both sides of the ball and the unhealthy dependence on the tailback would hamper the Crimson’s chances in 2005.

In this confusion, I decided to poll a random sampling of the freshman class, the nubile, the predominantly uninitiated, presumably possessing a representative pre-arrival familiarity with the trivia. I e-mailed 32 first-years with 10 three-choice questions and got 14 responses.

You see, I’ve been going to The Game for about a decade now, since I was old enough to withstand the cold, missing only one or two in the interim. I was up at Baker Field every other year for the Columbia game while I still lived in New York, down at Princeton’s old stadium once in the late 90’s, at Penn for the heartbreaker in 2000, even to non-league Fordham one sunny afternoon. Therefore I carry the pride that I entered the Harvard ranks with an uncanny wealth of background knowledge, an unusual steeping in the history and lore of the team, an uncommon disposition to devotion.

I thought vainly that they’d fall on their faces. I should have known better. Didn’t we all get in here by near-acing a multiple-choice test?

Everyone knew the current season was halfway done and that the archrival we play in the year-ending Game is Yale. Furthermore, 12 answerers realized that the Crimson’s win total for the past four years was closer to 35 than 15 or 55, 11 that its main rival for Ivy League title during that time was Penn, and 10 that Harvard had zero losses a year ago.

Taking another tack, trying to purely test attendance, I asked about the seating in Harvard Stadium. Twelve respondents selected concrete Ls, while two went for metal benches, and no one was sucker for wooden seats.

All in all, pretty good.

The most interesting question turned out to be: “the most important player on the 2005 Harvard football team is...” No slight meant to team captain Erik Grimm or defensive anchor Matt Thomas but the choices I offered were Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tom Brady, and Clifton Dawson, seeking to avoid subjectivity by including, in fact, only one true member of the 2005 Harvard football team. However, I received almost as many votes for Fitzpatrick (6)—last year’s captain and current NFL quarterback—as Dawson (7), and a singular polemical: “This is a poor question. I think calling one person the most important would be a poor reflection of how much of a TEAM sport football is, no?”

Granted, it probably was a poor question, but the response, the familiarity with Fitzpatrick’s name, never a schoolmate of theirs, reveals an almost even level of pre-knowledge as knowledge.

In keeping with our liberal-arts pedigree, the questions that proved most problematic were those that dealt with specific players.

Which of the following is the name of a recent Harvard quarterback? Pete Rose, Dave Rose, or Neil Rose.

The plurality of respondents chose Pete Rose. He’s no Harvard man, though, but the gambling, slap-hitting, balls-out, uncouth pariah of professional baseball fame. The correct answer—Neil—got fewer votes than Dave.

Which of the following is not the name of a recent Harvard football standout? Kevin Rogus, Carl Morris, and Dante Balestracci.

A sharp-shooter for the basketball team, stud wide receiver, and fierce middle linebacker, respectively. All three athletes had four freshmen pick them out (two simply didn’t have a clue).

The budding statisticians and sociologists among the readership will surely be quick to point out the bias of self-selection present in this study: those most interested in Harvard athletics would be those who took the time to answer the e-mail. Because of this, the pathetically small sample size, and other experimental inefficiencies, the results are unfortunately inconclusive, if not just indicative of rapid uptake, then of some awareness of Harvard football brought to school with bed risers and lame dorm posters.

So when my father’s in town on Saturday for the Princeton game and the conversation inevitably drifts toward the old days, the cold days, the good days, I’ll know my inheritance, while still treasured, might not be unique.

Then again, who knows who Eion Hu is?