What Champi didn’t have in experience, he made up for with arm strength. As a member of the Harvard track and field team, the junior would go on to be second-team All-Ivy for javelin throwing in his senior year. But Champi was still a junior playing among veterans, which showed in his lack of confidence.

“I thought Frank was going to die,” Jones said. “He had a hell of an arm, and I was very happy to see that arm prevail, but he wasn’t particularly inspirational until he brought that arm to that game and that moment.”

But Champi channeled his nerves into anger.

“When I first got into the game, I was very nervous and surprised, but that quickly evolved into something else,” Champi said. “Basically, I was a little pissed off. I felt like I was getting thrown to the wolves. But there are no expectations, so something has to kick in. Either you worry about it and you fret about it, or you say, ‘Ah, frick it. I’ll do what I can and not give a damn.’”

That emotion fueled a Crimson drive that finally got the home team on the board at the end of the half, when Champi hit Freeman for a 15-yard touchdown strike. But entering halftime, the home team was still trailing the Elis, 22-6.

“I was just embarrassed,” Harvard fullback Gus Crim ’70 said. “I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, we can’t play a whole lot worse than this, and they are kicking our tails all over this field.’”

Harvard cut the deficit to nine in the early minutes of the second half off a one-yard Crim touchdown run. But Dowling answered early in the fourth quarter, effortlessly moving the chains before running in a score himself. Yale led 29-13 with 10 minutes left.

COMEBACK CHAMPI

Bulldogs fans jeered from the sidelines, waving handkerchiefs tauntingly at the Harvard sidelines. After all, up by 16 with just four minutes to play, what could they possibly have to fear?

But then, disaster struck for Yale.

“We were driving down the field, and I threw a screen pass to the fullback, who cut back and got tackled at the 20-yard line,” Dowling remembered. “He tried to lateral it to Calvin and fumbled.”

The fumble was Yale’s sixth on the day.

“Six fumbles,” Goldsmith said. “When you have six fumbles lost, you usually lose 38 to nothing.”

The Crimson took over with two and a half minutes left. Facing a third and impossibly long situation near midfield, Champi coughed up the ball under pressure.

“The play I remember most was Mr. 75, Mr. Fritz Reed [’70],” Goldsmith recalled. “The longest run from scrimmage was when No. 75, the Harvard tackle, picked up a Champi fumble and lumbered for 25 yards.”