Go Crimson!

[mabfan]

I'm not usually a big football booster, but gnomi heard on the radio something that shocked and delighted me.

Last week, Harvard beat Penn. Harvard never beats Penn, despite how well they're doing. In fact, the last time they beat Penn was 24 years ago.

Even better, Harvard has been undefeated this season. I remember the excitement my freshman year, when they were the Ivy League champions. I feel the same way today.

Tomorrow is the 121st playing of The Game, when Harvard plays against yale, and it's taking place in Cambridge. I'm hoping for a Crimson sweep.

I found a few articles of interest:

An article on Harvard beating Penn: http://gocrimson.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/111304aac.html

An article about tomorrow's Game: http://gocrimson.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/111604aab.html

A chart with Harvard's record for the season: http://gocrimson.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/sched/harv-m-footbl-sched.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled mabfan LiveJournal, which has nothing to do with college football -- unless Harvard wins tomorrow. :-)

Comments

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

holy crap, we beat Penn! that's glorious! thanks for the heads-up.

and in response, a modest little song:

"don't send my son to Princeton," the dying mother said,
"don't send my son to Syracuse, when i am cold and dead,"
"don't send my son to Dartmouth, or even to Cornell,"
"and as for Pennsylvania... i'll see him first in Hell!"

to Hell, to Hell with Pennsylvania,
to Hell, to Hell with Pennsylvania,
to Hell, to Hell with Pennsylvania,
to Hell with the U. of P. (P.U.!)


thank you very much.

-steve

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

Go Crimson is almost as good as "Roll Tide" so we can forgive your college football foray.

[crackboy.livejournal.com]

You'll never beat Cornell! You're going down, Cambridge-boy!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah. :-) May I point you back to that webpage of statistics, in which we see that Harvard already beat Cornell 34-24?

Bwa ha ha! :-)

[ckd]

<pedant>Is the game actually in Cambridge? The stadium isn't....</pedant>

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Um...right. I can't believe I made that mistake.

But we all know what I meant. I meant that the Harvard University Band, of which I was once a proud member, starts its march from Cambridge! Yes! That's what I meant!

member, heck, you were the mascot!

[-mozo-.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed, curious readers, for one glorious halftime show....

Michael was the "Crimson"


(Backstory: Harvard has no mascot, so an occasional band joke is to unveil an interpretation of what a "Crimson" is... In this case, it was an enthusiastic band member with a red sleeping bag over his head.)

On topic, I do recall a particularly rainy trip to UPenn which ended in an incomplete pass in the end zone in the pouring, cold rain for Harvard. We did manage to lift the Quaker band's halftime show in advance, so the day wasn't a total loss. Beautiful campus, too.

Re: member, heck, you were the mascot!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

If you're going to mention that I played the Crimson, you should note that you played the "cannons" for the 1812 Overture!

Yes, folks, John Reinert Nash, Chemistry major supreme, filled a lot of balloons with Hydrogen gas. As the band finished off its set with the 1812 Overture, John touched each balloon with a sparker and caused a rumble to fill the stadium!

That was the same game in which I played the Crimson. The Band played Also Sprach Zarathustra and walked a black monolith onto the field. Then they lifted the monolith, to reveal the jumping Crimson underneath -- me!

(I never made it to U Penn, as I recall.)

Re: member, heck, you were the mascot!

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

WOW. that halftime show is still legendary, btw.

Re: member, heck, you were the mascot!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was delighted to be a part of it.

Somewhere I think I even have it on videotape...

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

Ah, just what I thought. There's been a mass of people outside the Science Center all week, selling t-shirts and stuff. I figured it was before the Harvard-Yale game, but hadn't gotten around to confirming.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Go you Huskies! :-)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You said it! :-)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

So, guess what I'm gonna be doing tomorrow, given that I tend bar at the Harvard Club of Boston. . . for the record, I'm going to be in the Commonwealth Lounge, tending bar, where they've got the two big plasma-screen TVs which will be showing the game, and, well, it will be my job to check to make sure that the people in the bar are actually Harvard Club members, and if I happen to miss a couple people, oops, and, well, the TV would be on ANYWAY, and, since you're not members, you can't buy anything so there'd be no temptation to do so on Shabbat, and the club IS highly walkable-to. . .

I mean, just sayin'. . .

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I very much appreciate the offer, but gnomi and I already have shabbat lunch plans, and by the time we're done with those, the Game will be over.

But that's what TiVo is for...

(Anyway, I forget -- wouldn't they check me at the door, or something? I was only a member for a short time, and I don't recall procedures.)

[kradical.livejournal.com]

On occasions such as this, I can do aught but quote the great one himself, Tom Lehrer:

Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.

How we will celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team up for tea. (How jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field,
And fight, fight, fight!

Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellas, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and true.

Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard's glorious name!
Won't it be peachy if we win the game? (Oh, goody!)
Let's try not to injure them,
But fight, fight, fight!
Let's not be rough, though!
Fight, fight, fight!
And do fight fiercely!
Fight, fight, fight!

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Um, Boola Boola, go Yale, and most especially Go MIT!

[OK, so I was in the Yale Precision Marching Band the year I was there, and was the founder of the MIT Chapter of the YPMB aka the MIT hack group that did everything except the balloon at the '82 Game (So named since we snuck into the Stadium by disgusing everyone as a member of the YPMB and just marching in). Of course, I actually have a Master's degree from Penn, but I never liked the school that much and was always amused by the place's massive and obvious inferiority complex towards Yale and Harvard (their school colors are red and blue in the appropriate shades, their fight song mentioned Y&H by name, and when they reworked their dorm concept to be more in line with the Oxbridge model, they actually called them "College Houses", a combo of Yale's colleges and Harvard's houses.]

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

The '82 balloon was probably the best hack MIT ever did of The Game.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Well, if our rewiring the sound system hack had worked (turned out afterwards that at least three unrelated MIT groups had independently rewired it, and having all taken the same classes, picked the same rewiring point and cancelled each other out. In retrospect, it was surprising the sound system itself still functioned), us non-ballooners would've gotten a lot more publicity. Still, my stuff got ranked by Wired as the 7th best MIT hack ever. In addition to the sneaking in, we passed out 1,174 red and white placards to the Harvard alums (after changing into Harvard colors, of course), telling 'em it would spell out "Beat Yale" rather than "MIT". Also formed MIT on the field during halftime, although we had to stop due to a certain Harvard band coming at us en masse. :-))