After the Crimson had won the Ivy League’s first ever triple-overtime contest, my mom had one thing to say.

“Yale deserved to win that game.”

Perhaps. But it didn’t.

Some might say the same about last year’s game, when a Bulldog victory seemed all but guaranteed heading into the fourth quarter.

In the post-game press conference after the Crimson’s surprising 2009 victory, one of Harvard’s receivers, Matt Luft ’10, appeared to be missing a glove.

It wasn’t long before I found out what happened to it: after the game, my brother stormed the field, and Luft had been kind enough to grant his request for a glove.

Just as I can’t imagine my family without Harvard-Yale, my perception of The Game wouldn’t be complete without an understanding of my family’s involvement in it.

It’s people like my grandparents—perennial tailgaters—who embody the true meaning of Harvard-Yale.

Even though it seems to be all about competition and winning, The Game is really a celebration of community, and I think that is why my family’s connection to it has never faded.

My cousins and I have grown and changed over the years, but there’s still nowhere we’d rather be on the Saturday before Thanksgiving than at Harvard-Yale watching the Crimson take on the Bulldogs.

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.