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For athletes and sports fans, rivalry games are the pinnacle test of their true allegiances. The cheers are the loudest, the wins mean the most, and the losses hit the hardest. The Yankees vs. Red Sox, Auburn vs. Alabama, the Lakers and the Celtics — the list goes on and on. These heated, passionate games are what keep sports fans returning to the stadium each season.

But the real test of an allegiance comes from a fan who has ties to two teams. What makes them choose one over the other? Can they express an affinity for both?

For those with ties to the Ancient Eight, the Harvard-Yale rivalry runs deep. The oldest football rivalry in the nation, it is divisive, and it bubbles over once a year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. What complicates the cheering section at The Game even more, though, and pushes its fans to sit along the 50-yard line, is that many spectators find themselves secretly cheering for both benches.

Though Ted Lasso wisely said that “if God wanted games to end in a tie, she wouldn’t have invented numbers,” there will be numerous fans in Harvard Stadium who will cheer just as loudly for touchdown catches from junior Cooper H. Barkate as sacks from the Bulldogs’ senior Tamatoa McDonough.

There are several categories that a fan with dual allegiance might fall into. A student who has attended both universities for undergrad and graduate programs, a student who has a sibling at the opposing school, or an alumni whose spouse or child chose to wear the opposing team’s colors.

It might seem as though undergraduate loyalties would reign supreme — those four years do tend to stand out the brightest and be marked by the most boisterous tailgates. But Irvin Yi ’23, a current student at Yale Medical School, said that he is bleeding blue this weekend.

“Some people say, obviously you want to go with your undergrad team,” Yi explained. “But now that I’m presently at Yale, it feels harder to do that.”

While Yi declared himself an honorary Eli, he did so from the comfort of New Haven. Perhaps it was the security of being surrounded by other Yalies, but Yi confessed that despite his gung ho answer, he still finds himself torn about which team to back on Saturday.

“I wore a Harvard crew neck under a Yale one,” said Yi about his attire for last year’s rendition of The Game. “And I think I’ll do something similar this year.”

On the Harvard side, Myron Zhang, a teaching fellow for the popular class Gen Ed 1200: “Justice,” gave a more diplomatic answer that revealed his split loyalties.

“I don’t have any favorites. I love both institutions I’ve been to. I’m a loyal partisan of both,” Zhang said. “And in this age of polarization, I think we need people who understand the other side.”

While he jokingly tried to evade declaring his allegiance, Zhang complicated his ties to The Game even further by revealing that he holds long-term affinity for comrades at both schools. While he proudly called himself an Eli for his four undergraduate years, he dedicated his freshman summer to studying at Harvard Beijing Academy, which was frequented by both Yalies and Harvard students — rendering him sympathetic to the Crimson’s plight each November while still an undergraduate.

To Zhang, The Game serves more as a reunion than a divisive sporting event pitting two student sections against one another.

Despite holding differing positions on their allegiances, both graduate students admitted that — although still serving as an exciting social event — the experience was more awe-inspiring while they were undergraduates at their particular colleges.

Zhang said that his peers who did not attend either university for their undergraduate degrees approach The Game with a unique excitement.

The Game is “sometimes a much bigger deal outside these walls than inside the walls,” he said. “We can see the real thing and realize it's not that big of a deal, but outside it takes up the imagination.”

Cole Cleary, a senior on the Harvard baseball team and a former member of the Harvard football team, provides a unique test case for the divided allegiance theory. The rivalry isn’t relegated to just one day of the year for Cleary and his family; it extends throughout the year beyond the football turf and to the baseball diamond.

Hailing from a family of six, Cole Cleary is the youngest of three brothers. Five of the Clearys attended Harvard, following in the footsteps of their father Bill J. Cleary ’85, a Crimson hockey legend.

But one of the four boys — Quinn Cleary, the second-youngest of the bunch — deviated from his family’s footsteps to join the Bulldogs’ baseball roster.

Cole Cleary revealed that his brother chose the Connecticut school over Harvard because he was extended an opportunity to play D-I baseball for the Elis out of high school. Cole Cleary was not recruited to the Crimson’s baseball team, but became a two-sport athlete for Harvard mid-way through his career, walking onto the baseball team and pitching in 16 games last season.

Despite the rivalry, Cole Cleary cites Quinn Cleary as one of the biggest influences in his life. Specifically, Quinn Cleary acted as a quasi-pitching coach for his brother, helping him earn a spot on Harvard’s baseball team – his true dream coming out of high school. In a culmination of the mentorship, Cole Cleary pitched against his Bulldog brother in a Mother’s Day showdown between Harvard and Yale earlier this year, showing the real depth of the Harvard-Yale bond.

While this is the first year that Cole Cleary will be able to attend The Game as a fan — he has only ever participated as an athlete — he looks forward to his brother joining him for the celebrations.

Personal division. Sibling rivalry. What could divide a person more? For Edward C. Forst ’82, having children attending both schools provides an answer.

Forst, a former Crimson editor and former executive vice president of the University, has to navigate that tricky terrain each fall.

While three of his children attended Harvard — including his daughter, Crimson Sports chair Katharine A. Forst ’25 — one of his sons attended Yale.

Despite seeing two of his sons compete against one another on the lacrosse field as members of the Yale and Harvard teams, Forst has never wavered from his Crimson loyalty in late November.

“I love all of my kids equally. But on the Saturday before Thanksgiving one of my sons is an orphan,” Forst joked.

Forst added that he sees The Game as about more than just the rivalry. For him, it’s about the tradition of families, friends, and more gathering annually for an event.

“Harvard-Yale is a special time for our family because it’s a day where we can come together and celebrate,” he said. “While we might sit along the 50-yard line for two hours in the stadium, the rest of the day and weekend is a reunion, and I look forward to the tradition year after year.”

In its core, the Harvard-Yale weekend serves as a beacon for a civil rivalry in which members from both sides come together to celebrate the time-honored tradition. Unlike other schools, where rivalry games are a week of hate and vitriol that bubble over in the stadium, Harvard-Yale is much closer to a week of unity between the two Ancient Eight schools — outside of the gridiron, that is.

—Staff writer Luke B. Lawson can be reached at luke.lawson@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Hugo Nunez can be reached at hugo.nunez@thecrimson.com.