BOOKS: ‘Harvard Beats Yale 29-29’

HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29
By Kevin Rafferty
Overlook Press, $35, 175 pages, illus.
REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN

This book not only tells the story of one of the most historic and exciting college football games in the Ivy League, but also provides a marvelous snapshot of a particular time. The game took place on a cold Saturday (I can attest to that I was one the many thousands of spectators freezing in the stands as the wind blew in off the River Charles), Nov. 23, 1968. Not everything that happened in the Sixties was about drugs or protesting the Vietnam War, although that comes into it, and some of the peripheral figures would loom large in other spheres decades later.

The contest itself was keenly anticipated: It had been more than half a century since both the Yale and Harvard teams had gone into this final game of the season undefeated. And, as far as the Yale side was concerned, this was the team made famous on campus by Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury,” then still running in the “Yale Daily News.” The quarterback, made famous for decades after the strip became a national phenomenon, was the legendary Brian Dowling, the iconic “B.D.” of “Doonesbury.” To say that Dowling was a big man on campus would be an understatement: Not only was he famous for never having lost a game since seventh grade, but his good looks were probably as admired around Yale as his prowess on the field.

Yale’s team was heavily favored, and not just by us Yalies. Ranked 16 in the nation, it was widely regarded as a powerhouse and a breeding ground for future professional players. For most of the afternoon, the game proceeded as expected: at the end of the first half, the score was Yale 22, Harvard 0. As the end neared, Harvard had managed to score, but with 42 seconds left on the clock, Yale led 29-13. Then, the unthinkable happened: From Yale’s point of view, everything that could go wrong did so, and from Harvard’s, it was nothing short of a miracle, culminating in that tie. Even after 41 years, I can still remember the sense of shock and disbelief on the Yale side of the stadium. As Yale tackle Tom Peacock put it in the book:

“You just got the feeling that the universe had shifted somehow and that something was portentous … significant … weird … was taking place.”

Harvard’s come-from-behind performance led to the headline in their campus newspaper “The Crimson” which gives the book its title. There was such a widespread perception that Yale had suffered a disaster that the question hurled at Dowling by the press after game was: “What does it feel like to finally lose a game?” “I thought it was a tie” was his accurate but somehow inadequate rejoinder. The book’s author, Kevin Rafferty, is a Harvard man himself but comes from a staunchly Yale family, so he is well qualified to give a good sense of the emotions on both sides. Harvard center Ted Skowronski captured the utter sense of disbelief, albeit of a different order from that which ruled on the Yale side: “You had the sense it wasn’t real … it was happening … but … yet …”

All the details of what actually happened on the field are in the book, excruciating for Yalies and joyful for the Crimson supporters. But even if you aren’t that into football, there’s such an amazing supporting cast. One of the Harvard lineman was none other than Tommy Lee Jones, and his roommate was Al Gore. Yale tackle Ted Livingston was George W. Bush’s roommate for three years and linebacker Mike Bousacaren played rugby with him. Given their public images, it probably won’t surprise many that a rowdy Bush was once arrested on a tailgating expedition to a Yale Princeton game, but Al Gore seems to have been much looser and more fun back in those days from his erstwhile roommate’s view. Yale fullback Bob Levin was dating Meryl Streep, then a student at Vassar:

“Meryl and I were out on the old campus. We were putting up “We Won’t Go (to Vietnam) posters, nailing them onto trees, and Brian [Dowling] and his roommates started throwing things at us. They didn’t like the idea that we were doing that … a little bit of a shock, because he was pretty apolitical at the time.”

Well, it was the Sixties after all: culture clash was inevitable.

One of the interesting features of “Yale Beats Harvard 29-29” is seeing how the players look today and whether B.D. has kept his looks. He went on to play for various professional teams, but his career in the pros was nothing like his phenomenal school and college playing. Unlike his partner on the field at Yale, Calvin Hill, who went on to a spectacular career with the Dallas Cowboys. One of the disappointments to the author of this book (and of the documentary movie of the same title) is Mr. Hill’s refusal to participate, but even with the considerable gap left by his absence there is plenty to fascinate. Yale defensive tackle and future captain Tom Neville tells us:

“I got drafted by the Colts … but I wasn’t thrilled by some of the experiences I had heard about from some of the older guys. I got a Rhodes Scholarship and elected to go to England. I read politics and economics at Oxford for two years. I was fortunate enough to play rugby, which I had never done, for Oxford and was in two of the varsity matches against Cambridge including the centenary match where I had the interesting privilege to shake hands with Queen Elizabeth in her steel-gloved hand and Prince Philip, who wanted to know why my hair was so long and whether they pulled it in the scrum. I said, ’They wouldn’t dare.’”

Yes, there were all sorts of culture clashes back then, and this surprising glimpse of royalty is just one of the many unexpected pleasures in this book. It’s definitely not just for football fans, although they’ll certainly relish it.

• Martin Rubin is a writer and critic in Pasadena, Calif.