Going for 10!
By HUNTER RICHARDS
The 133rd annual Harvard-Yale Game is this Saturday and regardless of what type of fan you may be, it is something that brings excitement and anticipation to all students. For some, it might be the excitement of selling your ticket for an outrageous amount to one of the alumni lurking outside of the dining halls after tickets get distributed. For others, it might be being surrounded by hundreds of people who have decided to come together and pretend that Harvard is the happiest place on earth and hasn’t broken them even a little bit. It won’t matter whether you spent the first half of the semester sharing Drew Faust memes about how disagreeable you find Harvard administration! This is the one day of the year where you are free to be off of your face on school pride (and likely other substances, too).
- The Kid Screaming “Goal”
This is usually the kid who only went to a handful of football games in their life but it was during their year in marching band, so it’s effectively been blocked out. You can find them excusing themselves every 15 minutes or so to Google different terms they hear the announcer yelling throughout the game.
- The Yale Reject
This kid takes it very personally, which is saying a lot compared to the rest of the Harvard population. The shear satisfaction at beating Yale makes up for the $500 in Yale sweaters, pennants, stickers, posters, and mugs they forced their parents to burn after getting their rejection letter. While they’ve had time to reflect and realize that Harvard is pretty great if you’re into guaranteed employment and being your grandma’s favorite, the Harvard-Yale win is just the cherry on top.
- Hungover Harvardian
This kid just woke up at 2pm and isn’t even sure exactly how to get to the stadium, but they’re running in the general direction of the bridge to Allston. Yeah, maybe that third tequila shot was entirely unnecessary but it’s HARVARD-FCKN-YALE!!! So what if you pre-gamed so hard that you missed the game?? There’s nothing like a stadium of screaming coeds and alumni reliving their glory days to cure that hangover.
- Kid With State-School Friends
You’ve overheard them countless times muttering, “I should’ve gone to a state school” in Lamont basement. You know they’ve been keeping tabs on the parties and events their friends at Arizona State are up to through Instagram and Facebook. It may only be one weekend out of the year, but Harvard-Yale is essentially every holiday wrapped into one for this kid. No other time will the average blood-alcohol content edge towards resembling the drop in their GPA from high school to college so well.
- Blocking Groupie
This kid’s only there to be in all the photos their blocking group takes during the game because the FOMO is too real. Yeah, they might’ve bought the H tattoo for their cheek and showed up early for the tailgate, but all that dedication is really just to get a really good profile picture to prove to their mom that they’re having fun in college.
- Excited Freshman
You have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but at least you know where the stadium is now. You still have no idea where the nearest post office or grocery store is, but you’ve got Yelp for that. If Harvard-Yale had an online review, it’s be a lot of trolling from Yale students followed by a lot of references to how many of our presidents and leaders probably got as sh*t-faced as everyone else is about to get this weekend for the same reason.
Here’s to a tenth win for Harvard, marking a full decade of adding football to the list of ways Harvard is better than Yale. We all look forward to Harvard’s chance to “dec” Yale.
Hunter Richards (hrichards@college.harvard.edu) has been pretty proud of the Dime Ivy she attends even before it pulls off a perfect 10!