And then I saw the blue seats--70,000 of them. All made out of wood. Then I made my own words to the Harvard fight song Veritas:
See how the bleachers blue turn blue with cold
Send the wind across to turn them less than bold.
After all, the wind was blowing. Hard. And I was near the top of the stadium, exposing myself to the elements all in the name of tradition.
I thought back to the 1981 AFC championship game between Cincinnati and San Diego, played in wind chill close to 50 below zero. San Diego, the warm weather team, lost its passing game. And the Bengals could run the football, and went to the Super Bowl as a result.
So, there were some things against Yale right there. It was cold, the Elis would throw the ball too much, we could stop the run, and we also could rush like nobody's business. And Yale was used to playing warm weather. And losing in warm weather. Like in Hawaii.
But then The Game started.
Soon, I started to hear chanting. But it wasn't the normal kind of chanting with clapping interspersed. The fans had tried that at the soccen game and it sounded like a large pillow fight.
I got into it, too. I was determined not to see a lost Harvard weekend.
My section loved the way the Harvard defense played. But I decided it lacked a name, like the No-Names, the Purple People Eaters, the Doghouse Defense, or the "46."
So I decided on the "Pit Bull" defense. Like pit bulls, the Harvard defenders gave it their all. Like pit bulls, they struck fear into the hearts of the Yale offense, making it burn timeouts. Like pit bulls, they beat up on the Bulldogs.
Some of us cheered "Pit Bull, Pit Bull" along with the "One in Four, One in Four" cheer.
It was great. We could move the ball and they couldn't. But when they did, it was deadly. It was getting to be crunch time, and the enemy was moving the ball again. And about the time Harvard's male cheerleaders did their last "caterpillar," Yale made a turnover, and The Game was ours.
I was so happy. And so lightheaded, thanks to my great-grandfather's rum. I ran onto the field and hugged everyone in sight.
I sang songs with the band and congratulated every white jersey I could find. It was a wild scene of music, grass, wind, love, cold, trumbones, joy, and the littlest sousaphone player turned drum major.
Ivy League champions. Wow. And it wasn't a lost weekend after all.