Harvard/Yale! SUCH an exciting game if you’re here and you care anything about football. Or school spirit. Or tailgating grilled food deliciousness. I have to say, I had low expectations for Ivy League tailgating skills since I’m from Iowa, part of the land of Big Ten school tailgate extravaganzas. Ivy Leaguers are good at smart people stuff, not the finer points of turning the back of a pickup truck into a buffet, right?
It turns out, I underestimated the Ivies—they definitely held their own. People were organized. Getting down to New Haven was pretty easy—people sent out carpooling emails, caravan details, and the College and most of the grad schools got buses to take people down. HLCentral is the student organization at the law school that handles a lot of the large-scale social stuff, and they took a big bus and had their own tailgate, too. Basically, if you want to go, you’re there. Open-backed U-Hauls galore, grilling, music, dancing, blowup sumo wrestling, free burgers and hotdogs, older alum with some fancy shmancy crystal stemware and shrimp platters—you name it, we’ve got it.
We had to leave the tailgate early, and by early I mean when the game started, because I had an official duty during the game! It’s always been a kind of secret desire of mine to stand on the field during a football game. It wasn’t at the top of my must-do-before-I-die list or anything, I’ve just always wanted to do it. Well, law school opens all kinds of doors you might not expect—I got a press pass from the Harvard Athletic Department to take photos for them, so I got to stand right next to the team! Man, it was awesome! What a great game to be down on the field!
If you didn’t watch the game on the Versus channel (which is essentially ESPN 8: The Ocho), Yale scored in the first few minutes and held us at 10-0 for three and a half quarters. We inexplicably gave up two opportunities for field goals in the first half (have you ever noticed that there is no middle ground with trick plays? If it works, the coach is a genius, and if not, he’s an idiot for not taking the field goal). Then all of a sudden in the middle of the fourth quarter, touchdown Harvard! Tremendous excitement! 10-7 Yale. Play, play, play, then, wait for it. . . touchdown Harvard again! Pandemonium!! I was standing with my giant camera right next to the Harvard players on the sidelines, and at that second touchdown they went berserk. Everyone was jumping up and down and hugging and chest bumping each other. I couldn’t resist—I jump-chestbumped one of them myself. He held up his side of the bump, but when we landed he gave me kind of a funny look, like “Wait, who are you?” but I didn’t care, it was super fun. 14-10 Harvard wins! If you’re coming here, get your hosting shoes on, because Harvard/Yale is home next year. Go Harvard!
- Erin
