THE HARVARD CRIMSON: We're Coming Just as a Favor

Harvard’s season is basically already over. The champagne has been enjoyed, the Powerade spilled, the riots subdued.

Really, the Crimson is only playing tomorrow as a favor to Yale.

It’s a little bit like that one party that kid threw back in high school. He was sort of weird, but you told him that you were going to come anyway even though you really didn’t want to. A few hours beforehand, you gave the kid a call.

“Hey dude, listen. Something’s come up, and I can’t come tonight.”

“Really?!?” the friend said sadly. “I told everyone you were going to be here.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, everyone is expecting you. We’re all so excited to get together!”

Begrudgingly, you consent, even though it’s probably going to be a waste of your time, and you could have just as easily stayed at home.

This is how we see The Game tomorrow. Yale, we’re coming down as a favor to you so you don’t disappoint all of your friends in New Haven.

The Game isn’t even going to be a game. Harvard has won nine of the last 10 meetings. What’s the most notable thing you guys have done in that stretch? Some students got tazed at a nightclub, your alumnus left the White House, and you guys managed to get a bunch of Harvard fans to hold up colored cardboard signs that looked more like a Microsoft Paint editing job than “We Suck.” Your admissions office made a music video that probably did more for Harvard recruiting than anything Dean Fitzsimmons ever could.

Personally, we’re not particularly thrilled about having to go to Yale. Any school that merges its secret societies with its a cappella groups—Skull and Tones, anyone?—probably isn’t worth our time. Word on the street is that Harvard running back Treavor Scales thought about Yale until he realized that his last name would force him into New Haven’s dark netherworld of musical puns.

But as we think about it, why would anyone choose Yale? We don’t know either. In fact, we can give you a long list of reasons why Harvard is empirically better than that school down south.

1. Food: New England clam chowder vs. New Haven-style pizza. Honestly, we don’t really buy that changing around the crust a little bit really means that you’ve created a whole new “style.” When back home we leave a Pop Tart in the toaster for an extra 45 seconds, no one calls it a Pasadena-style pastry.

2. Airports: Logan vs. Tweed. Boston’s Logan Airport is a bustling hub for travel all over the world, a gateway to America, Europe, and even Asia. Your airport is called Tweed. You can only fly to Philadelphia. Need we say more?

3. Landmarks: We have Fenway Park, Boston Common, the Old North Church, and pretty much everything on the Harvard campus. You have a nightclub called Toad’s.

4. Occupy movements: Okay, this sucks for both of us. We know all of them should have gone to Brown anyway.

5. IKEA proximity: Congrats, Yale, you got us on that one.

6. Safety: Look, Boston’s no gated Florida golf community. But we’re no New Haven, either. You know your city is bad when it’s on Pakistan’s travel advisory list. And that part of town where your mother told you never to go? That’s all of New Haven.

But in all seriousness, we’re very excited for the game. Rumor has it that Yale’s football team has a fantastic rendition of “Brotherhood of Man” from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” ready for halftime. No word yet as to how it will impact the Bulldogs’ play at the start of the third quarter.

And indeed, there’s an allure to New Haven as well. We’ve read that you guys have just unveiled a new statue of Handsome Dan, your beloved bulldog.

At Harvard, we know how to treat our iconic statues, and we’re happy to take that tradition down south with us. Clorox, anyone?

—Staff writer E. Benjamin Samuels can be reached at samuels@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.