The Harvard–Yale football rivalry, also known as The Game, is an American college football match between the Crimson football team of Harvard University and the Bulldogs football team of Yale University.
Though the winner does not take possession of a physical prize, the matchup is usually considered the most important and anticipated game of the year for both teams, regardless of their season records. The Game is scheduled annually as the last contest of the year for both teams. As the Ivy League did not participate in postseason play for football until 2025, The Game used to be the final scheduled outing for both teams' graduating seniors. Some years, the rivalry carries the additional significance of deciding the Ivy League championship.
The weekend of The Game includes more than just the varsity matchup; the respective Yale residential college football teams compete against "sister" Harvard house teams the day before. The Game is third among most-played NCAA Division I football rivalries. Yale leads the series 72–61–8.
"Harvard and Yale generally duke it out in the academic arena",Flynn, Hannah (November 2016). "The Game by Numbers". Boston. but geographic proximity, the history of Yale's foundingYale Alumni Magazine, "Quarrels with Providence", March 2001 – Special Tercentennial Edition, by line Lewis H. Lapham and social competition between the respective student and alumni bodies animate the athletic rivalry.
Former Harvard football head coach Joe Restic, who held the position for 23 seasons, quipped regarding his relationship with former Yale football head coach and National Football Foundation/College Football Hall of Fame member Carm Cozza, who held the position for 32 seasons: "Each year, we're friends for 364 days and rivals for one."
The athletic rivalry is historically the second oldest in American intercollegiate athletics, with Rutgers vs Princeton being the oldest, having played the first ever college football game.
The signature Harvard fight song, "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard", names Yale in the famous final stanza. The song is sung in the Harvard football locker room after a victory regardless of the opponent. The song is among six Harvard fight songs that mention Yale. "Down the Field" is Yale's signature fight song and Harvard is the named foe. The song is among five that mention Harvard. Two of the songs, "Bingo, That's the Lingo" and "Goodnight, Harvard", have been sung substituting Princeton for Harvard when appropriate. Cole Porter composed the former and Douglas Moore the latter.
The football rivalry is among the most admired rivalries on the American athletic scene. The schools and the rivalry established the template for American college football. The Game is the most prominent athletic contest between the schools and has accounted for many of either rival's best-publicized athletic feats.RIVALS: The Ten Greatest American Sports Rivalries of the 20th Century, Richard O. Davis, Wiley – Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom, preface, pg. XI Sports Illustrated (College Edition) rated the athletic rivalry sixth-best among American athletic collegiate rivalries behind, in order, AlabamaAuburn, DukeNorth Carolina, UCLAUSC, ArmyNavy and CalStanford. The football rivalry was ranked 8th among Athlon Sports's top 25 rivalries in the history of college football.
Significance
"A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard" from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville exemplifies public fascination beyond athletics with both institutions.Moby-Dick, conclusion, chapter XXIV, The Advocate Twelve past presidents of the United States have earned an undergraduate or professional degree from one of the universities. The list includes: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Walker Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Rutherford B. Hayes, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
Theodore Roosevelt, a fan of football, is considered often the savior of football in the early 20th century. Roosevelt, who attended the second Harvard–Yale game as a first year student at Harvard College in 1876, has been quoted, "In life as in football, the principle to follow is hit the line hard". Roosevelt suggested turn-of-the-century "manly virtues" were taught and reinforced on the gridiron.
Walter Camp, captain of the 1878 and 1879 Yale football teams, is considered often "the father" of American football and its most ardent popularizer. Camp attended almost every important rule committee meeting for the sport to his death in 1925 while napping between sessions of the Intercollegiate Football Rule Committee. Camp attended a rules meeting for the sport when he was a student at Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut. Camp wrote professionally about the sport, popularizing All-American teams with Caspar Whitney for This Week's Sports magazine. Eventually Collier's magazine featured the annual selections.
The rivalry has been noted in American athletic and popular culture. The University of Mississippi's first football team, organized by Alexander Bondurant, adopted Yale blue and crimson for team colors in 1893. Newspapers printed Bull Tales, Garry Trudeau's collegiate precursor to Doonesbury published in the Yale Daily News, often featuring Brian Dowling and Calvin Hill, in the run-up to the 1968 Yale vs. Harvard football game.Chicago Tribune Sunday Special, November 21, 1993, "Harvard's Spiritual Triumph Over Yale Never Dies". by line Phil Hersh. "Burns, Baby Burns", the fourth episode in the eighth season of The Simpsons, depicts Mr. Burns returning to Springfield, Massachusetts after attending The Game.
Thomas G. Bergin, better known for commentary on The Divine Comedy and longtime Sterling Professor of Romance languages at Yale University, authored The Game: The Harvard Yale Football Rivalry 1875 – 1983, published in 1984.
Owen Johnson's Dink Stover, Gilbert Patten's Frank Merriwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tom Buchanan played football for Yale.
Historical significance
The first contest was held in 1875, two years after the inaugural Princeton – Yale football contest. Harvard athlete Nathaniel Curtis challenged Yale's captain, William Arnold to a rugby-style game. The next season Curtis was captain. He took one look at Walter Camp, then only 156 pounds, and told Yale captain Gene Baker "You don't mean to let that child play, do you? ... He will get hurt."
The Harvard-Yale series is the third most played rivalry in collegiate football history, including 139 games since 1875. In the series, Yale has 70 wins, Harvard has 61 wins, and the teams have tied eight times.Harvard Football News 2016, The Game, pg., 39 Only two collegiate rivalries have played more often than Harvard-Yale. Princeton and Yale have played 143 times since 1873, and Lafayette College and Lehigh University (known simply as "The Rivalry"), have played the most, 157 games, dating back to 1884.
Yale and Harvard have played major roles in advancing and shaping intercollegiate athletics. The first American intercollegiate sporting event took place August 3, 1852 after Yale invited Harvard to a race of crews. The first intercollegiate contests in ice hockey, soccer or five-on-five basketball contests featured teams from Harvard and Yale. Many now century-old aspects of American football were introduced by Harvard or Yale students or athletes. Yale introduced cheerleading at athletic events in 1890. Harvard introduced spring practice to collegiate football March 14, 1889. Yalies sang "Hold the Fort" during the 1892 Harvard game, considered the first public performance of a collegiate "fight song".
Reform and Roosevelt
Years later, representatives from Harvard, Yale and Princeton were summoned to the White House October 9, 1905, by Theodore Roosevelt to discuss reforms to mitigate unnecessarily violent, unsportsmanlike play and minimize resultant fatalities and injuries in football. Roosevelt sought reform of rules to quell misgivings about the sport he admired. The New York Times, Harper's, McClure's and The Nation advocated reform if not abolishment of the sport. The era's progressives, muckrakers, university faculties and presidents—particularly at Harvard, led by its president, Charles W. Eliot and NYU, led by its president Henry MacCracken—and the general public had misgivings about the sport's safety and place in higher and secondary school education. Walter Camp, Bill Reid, and Arthur T. Hillebrand attended the meeting, representing respectively Yale, Harvard and Princeton.Washington Post, October 10, 1905. "Football Men, Coaches in Conference with President Roosevelt, Would Put an End to Brutality, Believing Radical Gridiron Reform Necessary, Mr. Roosevelt Calls College Athletic Advisors".
The "Grim Reaper Smiles on the Goalposts" cartoon, published December 3, 1905, in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune depicting the Grim Reaper sitting on the crossbar of a goalpost overlooking a mound of uniformed dead bodies exhibited how the press presented the problem. November 25 Union College halfback Harold Moore was knocked unconscious in a game versus NYU. Moore, age 19, died of a cerebral hemorrhage six hours later. MacCracken called a meeting of university leaders to suggest protective gear be worn by the athletes. Reformers requested deemphasis or suspension of the sport. The press reported that 18 athletes, 15 of whom were high school students, died from football-related injuries during the 1905 season. The era has been described as the "first concussion crisis" for the sport."The First Concussion Crisis: Head Injury and Evidence in Early American Football", Emily A. Harrison, American Journal of Public Health, Volume 104, Issue 5, May 2014, pages 822–833
A meeting convened December 28, 1905, with 62 schools represented to appoint a rules committee. January 12 the American Football Rules Committee met. March 31 the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was established, the corporate forerunner to the NCAA.The Gridiron Crisis of 1905: Was It Really A Crisis? John S. Walters, Department of History, James Madison University
Rules were changed: the flying wedge was banned, the neutral zone was created, and the distance increased to ten yards from five yards for a first down.
Council of Ivy Group Presidents Decades later the eight universities that administer athletic programs and competition under the auspices of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, better known as the Ivy League, reiterated reforms rooted in requests made during the series of meetings.Ivy Manual, 2011–12, "The Ivy Spirit", p. 53 Agreements among the athletics departments at Harvard, Yale and Princeton in 1906, 1916 (the "Three Presidents Agreements" on eligibility), and a revision of that agreement in 1923 have been considered precursors to the Ivy Group Agreement, each agreement addressing amateurism and college football.
The Ivy Group Agreement, adopted in 1945, states for football, "the players be truly representative of the student body and not a group of special recruited and trained athletes".Proposed Intercollegiate Agreement draft, dated 10/1/45, University of Pennsylvania archives, pg. 1 Harvard president Nathan Pusey and Yale president A. Whitney Griswold collaborated closely toward the eventual implementation of the Ivy League in 1954 with the "Agreement" extended to all sports.Bergin, pg. 200 Round-robin play started in 1956 for football among programs representing Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Game results
† The 1881 game is recognized by both teams as a Yale victory due to four fewer safeties.
‡ Hosted ESPN's College Gameday.