Think about the number of really enchanted days you spend each year. Sit down, now, think about it: there's Thanksgiving, maybe, and Christmas if you're gentile, there's the first warm day of spring, and of course, the last day of exams. And then there is the Harvard-Yale game.

Allow me to correct myself for verbosity: it's simply The Game. You can have Oklahoma-Nebraska, USC-UCLA, Army-Navy, Michigan-Ohio State and Arkansas-Texas.

I'll take mine served up right here, thank you, down home in the good ol' Ivy League.

The Crimson eleven takes on a Yale squad at the Stadium this afternoon in a contest full of more history than Robinson Library. It's Massachusetts versus Connecticut, Cambridge versus New Haven (ugh), but most of all it's Harvard against venomous Yale. And for the members of the Class of '79 on Harvard's team, it's pride versus humiliation--a loss today would mean three straight shutouts by their '79 varsity counterparts in blue.

Pride

The word "pride," to my memory, has never appeared in many Crimsonstories, but this is one case where it applies--there is a hell of a lot of pride on the line today. For the first time in the memory of any undergrad, The Game leaves no chance at tying or winning the Ivy title.

So you bet pride's on the line--there's really not too much else.

It will take a good deal of talent, as well, to beat this year's Yale team.

The 4-2-2 Elis have recovered from the devastating Rutgers wounds that knocked them from the Ivy League vanguard--the defense has allowed eight points per Ivy game, the offense has a run-pass quarterback (Pat O'Brien), a tough inside fullback attack and a fast outside double-halfback attack, along with a shoo-in All-Ivy split end in John Spagnola.

And a Yale victory, coupled with a Dartmouth loss, would mean a share of the league title.

Crowin'

Harvard (4-3-1) has some names to crow itself. QB Larry Brown needs 183 yards passing to set the single-season school mark (he owns the career record with 2403). Halfback Ralph Polillio needs just over 100 yards to surpass the 1000-yd. total offense mark.

The much-criticized defense remains much-injured, so you can expect to see a lot of unfamiliar numbers in there today.

The Harvard season began, of course, with lots of unfamiliar numbers in there, but strong title hopes nonetheless. The Crimson had supercool Larry Brown back at quarterback, a stable of runners led by RalphPolillio and Wayne Moore, a dependable offensive line (without which no football team--anywhere--does anything of note) despite the essentially virgin defense.

Oh, yes, there was one more thing there: the usual all-out optimism that permeates all mediocre-or-better football teams in the pre-season. The optimism led at least one columnist for this newspaper (guess who?) to go out on a limb and say the Crimson would win the Ivy title easily.