That is, a “typical Dante game” in every way but one: for the second straight week, Dante looked across the field and saw one of his brothers wearing the other team’s uniform. The first time it was Mark, a sophomore defensive back for Holy Cross. Saturday, it was Thomas, a freshman receiver for Brown.

To put this in perspective, think of how many football players you knew from high school who went on to play Division I football. Now ask yourself if that person had a brother, and if that brother also played Division I football. And do that again.

On top of that, imagine them playing against one another—in consecutive weeks.

This is, to say the least, uncommon.

With all three Balestracci children playing Division I football in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, you might call their home in New Bedford, Mass., the Cradle of New England Football. And though their father won’t gloat over it, it’s easy to see that he’s bursting with pride.

“We’re really fortunate,” said Dad Dante, himself a 1975 Brown graduate. “They’re great kids, and it’s easy to be a parent when you have great kids.”

The elder Dante—named after his father, Guido Dante, who went by Dante—is a humble man and raised his three boys the same way. But he had to smile when two of his college buddies, Nino Moscardi and Dave Duhaine, found him at the Stadium and began the refrain, “Man, this is every dad’s dream.”

“It’s amazing,” said Moscardi, a former Brown quarterback. “He has to be one of the few dads in America like that.”

The Balestraccis plan to follow the Crimson, home and away, for most of the season. It is, after all, Dante’s last year. He is Harvard’s captain, has a good chance to become the first player in Ivy League history to be a first-team all-conference pick for four straight seasons, and is on the watch list for the Buchanan Award as the nation’s top defensive player.

So most of the 25 members of the Balestracci/New Bedford following sat in Section 33 on Saturday. Except for Thomas.

“It was weird at first,” he admitted. “The past three years, I’ve been coming here, rooting for him, rooting Harvard on, and now I’m on the other side of the field, wanting to beat them more than anything.”

Thomas didn’t play in the game, though he would have if Harvard hadn’t eaten up more than seven minutes of the fourth quarter with an 11-play drive that killed the clock.

“It was nice to see him after the game, but it would’ve been even nicer if he would’ve gotten on the field,” his brother Dante said. “But the goal for him is to make the travel squad as a freshman, and that’s what he’s done.”

Still, the Balestraccis reflected on what would’ve happened if Thomas had gotten in and, say, ran a slant route in front of his big brother.

Their father shuddered at the parental equivalent of matter meeting anti-matter. “My heart would stop,” he said.