Super Fans Carry Flag for 133-Year Tradition

Harvard-Yale is the one game every fall that attracts enough fans to fill Harvard Stadium to the brim. Even the wooden bleachers, hidden under the overhang at the very top of the stadium, are sold out.

Temperatures usually plummet to the low 40s, and blustery New England fall winds make the experience a lot less comfortable for fans than a typical game in mid-September. But the Harvard faithful still show up in droves, driven not necessarily by the quality of the teams but instead by the ancient rivalry between these two Ivy League institutions.

It would take a miracle to pick out any one individual out of the teeming sea of Crimson and Blue. However, noticeable or not, the Little Red Flag waves on.

The legend goes that in 1884, Frederick Plummer, a freshman at the College, cobbled together a pennant adorned with a large “H.” Plummer traveled to New Haven to watch Harvard clobber Yale, 52-0, and the rest is now history. Out of this one fan’s remarkable dedication, a tradition was born.

Harvard has a rich history that stretches back to the 1600s, and its football team appropriately is steeped in tradition. It plays its home games in a Coliseum-like structure, and the Ivy League was one of the birthplaces of the sport. Appropriately, the flag had to be passed down to the next generation of loyal supporters.

The convention became that the flag would be awarded to the fan who had attended the most Harvard-Yale games in his lifetime, but it eventually became clear that it would be an impossible task to verify individuals’ attendance records. In 2001, the criterion was changed, and it was designated that Harvard’s No. 1 fan would carry the flag to avoid controversy.

The Friends of Harvard Football decided this fan was Pittsburgh native Bill Markus ‘60. For the last fifteen years, he has been the chosen flag bearer on the one day of the year it makes a public appearance.

“It’s kept in a secret location that even I do not know,” Markus noted. “I’m handed the flag that day, and I surrender it as soon as the game ends. I guess there’s a desire not to have any anti-Harvard forces capture the flag, whether it be MIT or Yale.”

In 2009, the “most games attended” tradition was resurrected in a campaign led by Spencer Ervin ‘54. A new flag was constructed, and now Paul Lee ‘46 proudly waves the replica.

Saturday marks Lee’s 74th appearance at the Game, breaking the record set by Allen Rice ‘02 and Dick Bennink ‘38. Lee’s dedication to his alma mater’s team is quite literally second-to-none.

Along with people like Lee and Markus, the flag is one of the constants for Harvard in an ever-changing football landscape, albeit a rather inconsequential constant.

“It’s the kind of arcane nonsense that people enjoy,” Ervin remarked. “But I will say this, it meant a great deal to both Paul Lee and Dick Bennink.”

A banner sewn in 1884, repurposed, and then replicated. It is clear that traditions are not taken lightly in Cambridge. The persistence of these flags is due almost entirely to the vested interest many long-since graduated alumni still have in the team.

Take Ervin, for example. Despite saying that the flag is not important in the grand scheme of things, he did take the time to write to Harvard Magazine to implore those in charge to reinstate the flag’s original purpose. Ervin had the interests of Lee and his constant dedication to the program foremost in his mind.

Lee has now attended 74 editions of the Harvard-Yale rivalry, and he may have set a mark that will never be equalled. From his days as an undergraduate to the present, he has been an unwavering supporter. One man, however, is on a quest to unseat him.

“I don’t think that I, by any stretch of the imagination, will ever hit 74 games, nor do I want to,” Ervin said. “But Paul has a son, Jeffrey, who said, ‘Someday I’m going to beat my father.’”

Markus’ dedication to the program is also indicative of the overall dedication of older fans to the team. The pervasive feeling among current students and recent graduates is that the game is a social event first and a football game second, but fans who are at Harvard Stadium or the Yale Bowl solely for football are still well-represented.

Markus says he attends each of Harvard’s 10 games each season. He even dealt with a broken-down car en route to New Haven one year. Markus eventually hailed a cab just south of Boston, and after the driver nearly took a wrong turn that would have sent him to Cape Cod, he arrived in New Haven just in time for the game. Along with Lee, Markus has a compelling case for the team’s most loyal supporter.

“It’s something that I really enjoy doing, and it’s a chance to inject a little Harvard spirit,” Markus said. “I just hope it continues long after I’m gone.”

Maybe this flag custom is only an afterthought among the grand spectacle that is Harvard-Yale. But perhaps it is not just a coincidence that Harvard is 14-1 in the fifteen years that Markus has dutifully waved the Little Red Flag.

—Staff writer Jack Stockless can be reached at jack.stockless@thecrimson.com.