Five Types of Students at Harvard Football Games

Before coming to Harvard, you may have heard about the athletics-oriented nature of the school, aka the only time you might not be able to get a game ticket is to Harvard-Yale. Now that The Game is finally upon us, it’s time to dust off that football knowledge buried deep within you. If you expect to find great food, a packed crowd, and an exciting game, you might not be entirely in the right place, but hey — you can still have fun! For instance, try to see if you can spot these five types of Harvard students in the game crowd this weekend…

The Obnoxious Ultra Fan

You know that kid that’s standing in front of everyone else, cheering as loud as possible, and making it known that they love football? The obnoxious ultra fan might block your view of the game for 55 of the 60 minutes, but they’re there to watch (unlike you), so why shouldn’t they be able to? As annoying as it might be to sit behind an obnoxious ultra fan, it’s likely equally annoying to sit beside them. You will know way more about football than when you did before, whether you want to or not. Hence, the correlation with the mansplainer (see below).

The Student Who’s Only There for Pictures

There’s always that one person that you see at tailgate and hope to catch a glimpse of during the game but never end up doing so. It’s likely because they didn’t even attend the actual game. As long as they got a couple pictures, it happened. If they do make it to the game, you can always spot them by their fit vlog camera and perfect outfit. These people are often the opposite of the ultra fans: they don’t care about the game, nor do they care about learning. They look good and the pics came out cute. They came, they saw, they conquered. Slay.

The Mansplainer

The mansplainer is often in correlation with the ultra fan, but there are a few key differences. The first is that they come to the game not to show that they love football, but that they know football. You can find them intentionally hunting down poor clueless spectators who just want to enjoy themselves, forcing lingo, rules, and league-happenings down their throats. If you try to talk football with them because you do know the sport, you’ll definitely hear “Well, who’s your favorite team?” followed by “Oh, you like them? Name five players.” They need to prove that even if you are familiar with football, you don’t know it like they do.

The International Student That Finds It Ridiculous

The international students are always the first to point out the faults of the game. If you find them at the game, you might hear the term “American football” thrown around frequently. They will constantly be at odds with the ultra fan, pointing out that the obsession with football is in some way or another way worse than any form of obsession with soccer (real football?).

The Student Who Isn’t There

You really thought that there would be five students at a Harvard athletic event? While Brown’s section at the first Harvard home game was packed, the Harvard student section emptied out pretty quickly. Where is everyone, might you ask? Probably in Cabot, crying about an essay due next Sunday, or maybe about the upcoming midterms. There is always some kind of work to be done, and Harvard students are set on doing it, even if that means sacrificing a fun night of football for a slightly less fun night of psetting.

Harvard football games are not something that the school promotes as a high point of its offerings, but it can be fun if you put in the work. Enjoying the game is all about surrounding yourself with people who make any situation fun, cheering whenever something happens, even if you don’t know exactly whether it was good or bad, and making sure to avoid some of the less appealing people on this list. We challenge you to try to spot each of these people at Harvard-Yale! Go Crimson!