When it comes to “The Game,” precedent has no say. The annual Yale-Harvard ritual evokes a rivalry that transcends the ages, as well as the win-loss record of the season’s previous games. So it was in 1979 when the heavily favored undefeated Yale Bulldogs fell to the Harvard Crimson in the season’s ultimate game by the score of 22-7.
Even the final score means nothing. In 1968, when Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to earn a tie, the Harvard Crimson headline read: “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.”
This year, the 136th edition of The Game was much anticipated. ESPN had it moved up an hour to a noon start since the Yale Bowl has no lights. Yale, with a record of 8-1, scoring an average of 37.4 points-per-game and fighting for the Ivy League title, was the odds-on favorite to defeat Harvard, losers of four straight. Was anyone surprised, then, that the first half ended with Harvard beating the Bulldogs by a solid 15-3 margin?
The halftime show changed everything.Continue Reading “Should Yale (and Other Elite Colleges) Require Students Take a Kobayashi Maru Test?”
OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…
What day is it?
Maybe it was the Holidays. Maybe it was non-stop football. Whatever it was, my internal chronometer, once an adept timepiece, can’t tell whether Monday, or Thursday, Tuesday or Saturday, Wednesday or Friday.
And Sundays? Isn’t every day Sunday now?
Lest you think this represents a sudden onset of temporal disorder, bear in mind that, for a few years now, my question has been “What week is it?”
You see, when you write for publication, you write for a deadline. That deadline rarely is Continue Reading “OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…”