The Game. Two capitalized words and one period concisely represent what is arguably college football’s greatest rivalry, because The Game, at its foundations, really is that simple.

Twenty-two men, one stitched leather ball, and a big patch of grass are all that’s needed for The Game, and have been since it was first played over 100 years ago.

After eight mostly gut-wrenching victories, the 2001 Harvard squad is now one victory away from the its first undefeated season since 1913—one win from writing itself into the record books.

“It’s great to be part of a game like [Harvard-Yale],” says senior defensive end Marc Laborsky, who remembers following the series as a high school student. “It’s one of the best rivalries in the country.”

At the End of an Era

Though The Game has been played 117 times, one particular four quarters of football is recalled most often by alumni.

The year was 1968, and The Game was bigger than ever.

Harvard and Yale both entered The Game undefeated and untied at a time when America was taut with tension.

While this year’s Game comes in a time when America is pulling together, 1968 was a year in which America was coming apart at the seams.

In January the North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive, taking the war from the country to the cities. Tet changed American attitudes towards the war that would continue to deteriorate.

On April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed at a Memphis Hotel. Bobby Kennedy, who gave an impomptu eulogy for King on hearing of his death before an speech in Indianapolis, was shot to death at the beginning of June.

In August, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia with 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops, ending the Prague Spring.

Later in the month, police in Chicago took action against protestors at the Democratic National Convention, sending some 100 people to the emergency room.

On October 11, Apollo 7 was launched and circles the Earth 163 times over 11 days. A week later at the Mexico City Olympics, U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos rasied their fists on the medal stand in a black power salute.