Harvard Stadium To Host H.S. Bowls

Harvard’s century-old stadium may soon be home to this year’s Super Bowl—a Super Bowl for high schoolers, that is.

The University’s Athletic Department is expected this week to agree to host two eastern Massachusetts high school Super Bowl games at Harvard Stadium. Directors of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA)—an organization of 365 high schools that sponsors 33 sport activities—hope that these championship games will find a permanent home at the University.

“Harvard’s stadium is a great choice because of the location, because of the credibility, and because of the quality facilities,” said Bill Gaine, deputy director of the MIAA.

But the stadium’s renovation is not yet complete, inhibiting it from hosting all of the MIAA Super Bowl games. Night games cannot be played on the stadium’s turf because new field lights have yet to be installed, according to Gaines.

“We don’t have a clean agreement yet, we’re still dealing with a couple of issues,” he said,

The agreement is a community service effort on the part of the University, said Chuck V. Sullivan, Harvard’s director of athletic communications.

“Since the stadium has been resurfaced, we’ve been trying to make more of an effort to make facilities available to the community. It’s a way to basically get large numbers of people onto our campus,” Sullivan said. “This negotiation has an intrinsic value for our University.”

The football games would attract more visitors to the campus, better exposing the University to the community, Sullivan added.

“It’s always good to have high school football players, athletes, and students on campus,” he said.

According to Gaines, the deliberation process should have been settled by yesterday, but Harvard has yet to release its final decision.

Past MIAA Super Bowls have been held at Sullivan Stadium, Nickerson Field, and Foxboro Stadium, but Gaines is urging the University to be the championships’ permanent host. Sullvian said that the two games to be held this year may lead to more in the future.

“It’s a reasonable starting point,” he said.