Next Saturday, Harvard students will make the trek to dirty New Haven for a long day of drinking, eating, and trash-talking. Oh, right, and something about a football game. Our intrinsic distaste for Yalies goes unquestioned, but this long-standing rivalry had to begin somewhere. Seriously, why do we hate them so much?
Back in 1869, Princeton and Rutgers played the first intercollegiate game of “football,” which bore a striking resemblance to soccer. Meanwhile, Harvard had been playing their own version, based roughly on the rules of rugby. Ever the football snobs, Harvard declined an invitation to hash out official rules for the game alongside Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers and Yale. It wasn’t until 1874, when Harvard played against McGill University, that the birth of intercollegiate football was officially recognized.
Harvard’s elitism won out in 1875 in the first Harvard-Yale match-up. Yale was forced to concede to Harvard’s superior athletic authority and have been paying ever since. That inaugural game resulted in the first of many humiliating defeats for Yale...on and off the field. Over at the first ever tailgate, seven Harvard students were arrested for public drunkenness. Hell yeah.
A few years later, the traditional game took a violent turn. This game, held in Springfield, Massachusetts, prior to the construction of Harvard Stadium, resulted in more than one casualty. Dubbed “The Springfield Massacre,” the game resulted in a broken leg, a broken collarbone and...a possible death. Don’t worry: it was just a brain contusion. After this bloody battle, the Game was suspended for a couple years. And we thought losing our Party Grants was bad.
Hopefully there won’t be quite as many broken bones this year. But sorry, Yale, we make no guarantees.
