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The Poetry of The Game

Eleven years ago, a now-chubby Boston sport-scaster, Mike Lynch, booted a late field goal to give Harvard a 10-7 win and its only outright Ivy crown.

Some MIT pranksters punctuated a 45-7 Harvard victory in The 1982 Game by expanding a huge balloon at midfield of the Stadium.

Last year, Yale burst the Harvard balloon by taking a 17-6 victory and knocking Harvard out of the Ivy League championship.

And, of course, there was The 1968 Game. No comment needed.

The football field is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide, bounded by the inside edge of end lines and sidelines, and surrounded by a six-foot wide white border. Goal lines, eight inches wide, are marked in white 10 yards inside and parallel to the end lines.

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The Game is played on a field much larger than this.

The field extends beyond the Stadium, past the hordes of tailgaters, and toward the oceans on either side.

The Game is a truly national collegiate rivalry. Alumni in every state stake a claim to the outcome of The Game.

Loyalties are not decided on the basis of geography. Cantabrigians and Somervillians do not, as a rule, care who wins.

But there are pockets of Wisconsonians and Marylanders who are part of The Game. Some are Eli and some are Crimson. All, in a sense, are players.

The football is a spheroid, measuring 11 to 11-1/4 inches long, with a short circumference of 21 to 21-1/4 inches and a long circumference of 28 to 26-1/2 inches. It is constructed of a rubber bladder inflated 12-1/2 to 13-1/2 pounds per square inch, and it weights 14 to 15 ounces.

The shape of a football is unique. Have you ever seen anything except a football that is shaped exactly like a football?

The rationale behind the shape is simple. The bounce of the ball is absolutely unpredictable.

So goes the 1986 Crimson football season. The ball, so to speak, has bounced every which way away from Harvard. Or, more accurately, the ball has consistently bounced through Harvard's slippery hands.

Those kinds of bounces can change directions in unfathomable ways. Physics controls the bounce of the ball.

But Harvard's job today is to grab the ball. It cannot rely on science, cannot wait for a favorable Harvard bounce.

Harvard seniors know it is their turn to grasp the pigskin and run with it. They have never beaten Yale. This is their last chance.

This is The Season.

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