The Middlewestern delegation to Harvard is composed of a queer lot. They are notorious for their adoption of Eastern manners, mores, and accents, and for their desertion of the rough, rude, vigorous, semi-savage tradition of their native central plains. And for 357 days in the year, their rep is well deserved. The sons of the Middle Border eschew the "r"s and the multi-colored clothing with which they have been born and bred and lean toward tweeds and martinis.

But on about eight days every year, the football Saturdays of the fall, the whole tribe of them give up this Eastern tomfoolery and revert to their true Middlewestern background. For deep in the heart of every honest product of the states between the western Pennsylvania border and the eastern Colorado line lies a loyalty to his own local football aggregation, a loyalty that transcends any artificial enthusiasm he may have worked up for Harvard during his undergraduate career.

Where? Cleveland?

Take me, for instance. I'm not exactly a Middlewesterner in the true sense of the word. I come from Cleveland, which, for the benefit of Bostonians, is located in the state of Ohio some 700 miles west of Beacon Hill. Easterners claim that Cleveland is part of the West and Middlewesterners claim that Cleveland is part of the East, and all in all, no one seems to want the city except for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Committee.

But to return to the athletic situation, in which I have a good midwestern phychology. I am a product of generations of graduates of the University of Michigan (loud fanfares of trumpets at this point). Thanks to a couple of grandparents, a host of aunts, and a pair of parents, I was brought up in the belief that Fielding II. Yost was the Almighty's special right hand man and that the Holy Trinity had something to do with the punt, the pass, and the prayer. Even if I were to do years of graduate work around Harvard I would never be able to efface from my memory the happy thrill I received long years ago when Henry Wood dropped a crucial pass in the Michigan end zone, giving the victory to the maize and blue.

Harvard Ain't Got Nothin' on Minnesota

When Harvard wins a game I am very happy. But it is a purely superficial type of happiness, compared with the ecstasy I feel when the Wolverines trounce a highly favored Northwestern eleven, or send the Illinois back to Champaign with nothing to talk about but their band.

When Harvard loses I am sad, but it is as nothing compared with the depths of despair into which I am plunged when some accident halts the Ann Arbor juggernaut and Minnesota comes out ahead. That Minnesota game for the past four years has been the bane of my existence, spiritual and financial. My credo states as a fundamental premise that The Little Brown Jug belongs on a shelf in the Perry Field Athletic Building and that it is only a streak of bad luck that has allowed it to stray up to Little Sweden. I have a number of Minnesota acquaintances here in Cambridge, and they all take pleasure in taunting me and betting money on the big game with me. Naturally, I cannot admit that I believe the Gophers have even a prayer of a chance, so I always give even odds. Four times my efforts to supplement Fritz Crisler's prayers have been unavailing, and I have been rendered unto paupery.

The Minnesota Harvard men are the worst offenders of the lot of us. There're millions of them scattered around the House system and the Yard, and Wellesley and Pine Manor are teeming with Gopheresses.

And After The Game . . . .

The whole lot of them go to the Harvard games for lack of anything better to do, but the minute they're over, they congregate in huge Minnesota parties in Leverett or Lowell. They serve themselves drinks which taste like a cross between Minneapolis grain whiskey and Swedish aquavit. They turn the radio on to the Minnesota game and raise the volume to the limit. Then the whole bunch of them sit around yelling "ski-yu-mah" and singing "Minnesota, Hats Off to Thee" until the Golden Horde has trounced another poor opponent. Woe to the hapless Nebraskan or Indianan who stumbles on their festivities and refuses to raise his voice in praise of the Gophers.

While as a group the Minnesota delegation tops all, there is one Wisconsin Harvardian of my acquaintance who sets the individual record. This sterling product of the great butter-and-egg state condescends to go to the Soldiers Field games, but he never neglects to take along his own private portable radio, which he tunes in on the Badgers, only looking up every now and again just to see what his Second Love is doing down on the field below him.