Harvard’s starting quarterback George Lalick was benched in favor of little-used reserve Frank Champi by Harvard Coach John Yovicsin. Champi, a star javelin thrower on the Harvard track team, had only completed five passes all season.
Harvard pulled to within 29-13 late in the fourth quarter, but Yale still stood firmly in control and seemed destined to complete the first back-to-back perfect league seasons in Ivy history.
With 3:31 remaining in The Game, Harvard recovered the Bulldogs’ sixth fumble of the afternoon to take control on its own 14-yard line. At that point, Champi engineered the most famous comeback in Harvard history.
Harvard drove the length of the field in dramatic fashion. The Crimson converted on a third-and-18 when Champi bobbled the ball, eluded two Eli defenders in the backfield and lateraled to lineman Fritz Reed who rumbled for 23 yards and the game-saving first down.
With 42 seconds remaining, tight end Bruce Freeman and Champi hooked up for the score, and Gus Crim ran in the two-point conversion to bring the score to 29-21.
On the ensuing play, Harvard recovered its onside kick and took control at the Yale 49. Champi scrambled to the 35, and a 15-yard face mask penalty gave the Crimson first and ten on the 20-yard line. After two incomplete passes, Crim picked up 14 yards on a draw.
The Elis sacked Champi on the next play, but with three seconds remaining and eight yards between Harvard and history, Champi floated the ball to tailback Vic Gatto in the left corner of the endzone for the score.
The yellow bulbs of the clock clock at the top of the giant old-fashioned scoreboard read 0:00.
Champi connected with wide receiver Pete Varney on a slant pattern to pick up the final two points, and the game ended 29-29, prompting the now infamous Crimson headline, “Harvard beats Yale, 29-29.”
Harvard students who just one year later would storm University Hall, rushed the field on this day.
On a cloudy day in that turbulent autumn, the Harvard student body was allowed a little piece of innocence that was long ago ripped away.
Making History
The Game of 1968 is the gold standard, and there won’t be another like it. However, The Game is about more than just that one fall afternoon three and a half decades ago.
The athletes that play in The Game today come from Hawaii and New York. They speak with southern drawls and Boston twangs. They are all colors and follow all creeds.
But The Game, for them, is the same—exhilarating.
“I’d always gone to the game when I was young and seen the rivalry,” says freshman tight end Adam Jenkins, a native of Burlington, Mass. “I saw how much the student bodies of both schools got into it. To get to play in the game now is almost surreal. It’s really special.”
It’s special for Jenkins, who has been there as a fan and will be on the field Saturday as the team’s second tight end. But It’s special to all of the players because even if they didn’t know all of the history, now they have the opportunity to write it.
In the Yale Bowl this Saturday amid the ghosts of Dowling, Yovicsin and the thousands of others who have taken the field for both squads in the past 12 decades, the game played will be the same: 22 men trying to get a piece of leather across a line.
What’s remarkable is that this 2001 team has the opportunity to put its name alongside the likes of this 1968 squad.