Last weekend afforded me the opportunity to take a peak into one of Yale’s great traditions: The Harvard-Yale-GAME.
Which sport am I referring to? Rumor has it that the two teams were trying to play American Football, but there was no means of confirming this claim. If scoring first downs every now and then is a viable criterion for determining whether it’s football that’s being played, it must have been another sport. Both teams kept punting the ball back and forth, apparently trying to trace the sport that they were allegedly playing back to it’s name and etymological origins (foot-ball). It must be Yale’s ORIGINALISM that made our team excel at this discipline even more than Harvard, leaving us with a final score of 19-38.
(At this point in the game some misguided hope was still left.)
(This was the band trying to pull off its version of a choreography.)
But enough of pathetic high school-level football! The GAME is not about sports. It’s about reveling in a century-old rivalry of two great universities. It’s about excessive tailgating, all the more direly necessary in order to keep up your spirits when watching two clumsy teams punting the ball. It’s about cheering for Yale while standing not too far away from Secretary of State, John Kerry.
It’s about half of Harvard’s student body being bused to New Haven, finding refuge at some of their friends’ places or in one of the twelve undergraduate dorms. It’s about New Haven’s streets bustling with groups of merrily drunk students in bright daylight, fusing with nostalgic alumni as well as uncles, aunts, parents and grandparents visiting their Yalie offspring or relatives. So far, I have not seen New Haven in quite as swinging and lively a mood. Even the angriest angry bird could not have helped having a smile on his or her face.
For those of you who have been struggling to gather the necessary motivation to carry yourself through the application process: The two days of rivalry-revelry should by no means be missed. Having the GAME at home is certainly a premium. Therefore, if you haven’t applied this year, or if you don’t get in: Apply for 2017, when Yale will again be hosting the GAME!
For more on the LL.M. programs at Yale Law, please see the school’s profile on LLM GUIDE.