Blitz and Glitz Mark Night Game

When the lights went up for the first time at Harvard Stadium, quarterback Liam W. O’Hagan ’08 felt like he was back in high school.

“I got chills,” said Hagan, Harvard’s starting quarterback. “I think it just elevated everyone’s games on both sides.”

A rowdy crowd of mostly students packed the stadium for Saturday night’s season opener—the first night game in the Crimson’s 133-year history.

The turnout at Saturday night’s 24-17 Crimson victory over Brown hit 18,898—an increase of 60 percent over the 11,134 in attendance at the 2005 home game against Brown. It was the largest attendance for a home game in more than a decade, excluding the yearly Harvard-Yale match-up, which routinely draws more than 30,000 fans.

“It was electric. It was amazing,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said after the game. “We were really appreciative of the response that the student body and the alumni gave for this game.”

Some football lovers, however, said that the crowd at the storied colosseum was weaker than they anticipated.

“I expected a little bit more, that people would come out for the novelty,” said David C. Hawkins ’60, who has attended hundreds of games at the stadium as a season ticket holder.

“It’s pretty empty,” said Boris M. Beady, a 17-year-old senior at Framingham High School. “Our fans are crazier.”

The late kick-off also prevented some fans from bringing along their families.

James B. Keegan ’63 said he traditionally goes to Harvard football games to spend a relaxing afternoon with his grandchild. He said he was surprised by some of the more vulgar student cheers, including “Brown is poop, poop is brown.”

“It is stupid,” Keegan said. “We have to leave at halftime. It makes no sense.”

For Australia native Yoo Kyeung “Anna” Kim ’11, the unusually boisterous arena marked her first college football experience.

“The only football coverage that I get is from movies, so it’s kind of like that,” she said.

Despite some of the complaints, Nichols Family Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise said that he would like to consider making Harvard night games a regular part of the season.

“We have to work with the community to make sure they’re agreeable to it,” Scalise said. “It would be great to be able to at least play one night game a year.”

The game was originally scheduled for Friday night, but an outcry from Jewish fans and alums last month prompted the Department of Athletics to move the game so it would not conflict with Yom Kippur.

—Brad Hinshelwood contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.