While not in a stadium packed with 31,398 football fans this weekend, the Crimson polo players had their own face off with their Eli rivals.



“Don’t beat them by just a little bit,” Tommy Lee Jones ’69 told the polo team before the game, held yesterday afternoon at the Canter Brook Equestrian Center in Hamilton, Mass.



“What he said definitely fueled us for the match,” said captain Nicholas B. Snow ’09. “He really wanted to see what the Harvard polo team could do if we put our foot on the gas.”



Jones has been one of the team’s strongest supporters and invited the team to his Texas ranch in early September. A polo player himself, Jones said he was impressed with the team’s overall performance.



“The players have a variety of talent, but they are all highly motivated,” he said. “I can see that their thinking is improving, and I am very happy with the progress the polo club is making.”



Before attending yesterday’s game, Jones visited the team’s stable at the equestrian center for the first time.



“The horses are well taken care of, and the facility is perfectly suitable for intercollegiate polo,” he said about the stables that house the three horses he donated to the team earlier this season.



After the game, Jones emphasized his confidence in the club’s ability to increase its visibility as a financially viable sports team.



“I am optimistic about the polo club’s longevity, and I am going to show my consistent support,” he said. “If we can maintain a place to play and a place to keep the horses, then support from the Harvard community at large will come.”



As a former offensive lineman who played in the historic 1968 game against Yale that ended with a score of 29-29, this weekend’s visit was especially memorable on a personal level.



“I enjoyed seeing my old friends and teammates, and I particularly enjoyed the outcome of the football game,” he said. “I was happy to see the football team win the final game of the year.”



Jones was also happy with the outcome of the polo match. They won by “more than just a little bit,” defeating Yale 23-8.



After the match, Jones presented the team with a trophy and talked about continuing the tradition of pre-season training in Texas to develop a new crop of Harvard players.



“He was happy with everything that he saw,” Snow said. “He was talking about the future of the polo club, which is a positive sign.”