Crim also looks back on the year in whichHarvard and Yale played that Game and considers itunique, but he says the contest itself may haveslipped past the time period.
"For a lot of us it was an unusual situation,"Crim says. "We were in school and we had to staythere or else we were dead.
"But above all it was a great football gamebetween two great teams. The game transcended whatwas going on at the time."
Time. No time left, but the Crimson stillhave to try a two-point conversion. The crowdstorms the field, surrounding a small area aroundthe endzone.
Champi snaps the ball and starts scrambling.He backs up to Yale's 15-yard line before tossingthe pigskin to monstrous tight end Peter Varney.Varney towers over Yale defensive end Ed Frankilnand snags the pass out of the air for Harvard'sversion of The Catch. The Stadium erupts; theCrimson has made the Elis' lead disappear. Harvardbeats Yale, 29-29.
"From the moment we recovered the onside kick,I had no doubt we'd score eight," Crim says."Everything was preordained. It was just one ofthose times when everything comes together."
Champi was the one player who broughteverything together. He was able to inject instantlife into a team that had not explicitly given upby the third period, but that had conceded thatYale would probably win on that day.
Crim says, however, that starting quarterbackGeorge Lalich was the inspirational force on theteam. Lalich may not have been able to move theHarvard offense effectively in The Game, but Crimsays that everybody forgets the situation withwhich Lalich had to deal.
"People don't remember that [Lalich] hadsuffered a concussion a week before and had doublevision," Crim says. "Champi came into a situationthat was tailor-made for him."
Since he faced a lead that the 40,000-plus inThe Stadium did not believe he or anyone couldovercome, Champi had no pressure with which todeal."
"Of course he had great athletic ability," Crimsays. "One thing that always impressed me was whenI would see him throw a fifty yard pass on a linewith his right arm, and then turn around andthrown the same pass with his left arm. He wascompletely ambidextrous."
Champi used every bit of his athletic abilityto secure the "win" for the Crimson, and afterVarney caught the pass for the final two points ofthe game, the scene on the field can only bedescribed as a carnival.
"I had 80-year-olds jumping all over me andkids grabbing on to me," Crim says.
"I can only remember the fantastic cheering andthe riotous emotion of the crowd," says TheReverend Canon Harold Bane Sedgewick `30, a loyalCrimson fan who will attend his 57th Game thisweekend in New Haven. "It was just extraordinary.I have a tape and when I get lonely I play it.There will never be another game like it."
"My parents had made the trip from Arkansas,"Wynne remembers, "And I remember seeing them afterthe game. They were stunned. They were crying."
For Cozza and the Elis, the tears were notjoyful, of course. The tie felt more like a loss,and Cozza says it was unbelievable how many thingswent wrong for Yale that day. Despite practicallyscoring at will for the entire game, Yale alsolost six fumbles that day and committedsignificant penalties at the worst possiblemoments.
"It's sad that year's [Yale] team had such agreat season and will be remembered for that onegame," Cozza says. "Everything went wrong for us.It was like the worst loss of your life."
The legend's thread has not run out. It willnever run out. The contest has generated its owntime capsule. The players have become mythicalheroes, the plays themselves have becomesupernatural actions, never to be repeated ormatched.
This Game has become more about superlativesthan anything else, and ironically, Harvard's mostmemorable win, Harvard's greatest victory overYale, was actually a 29-29 tie.