Vuvuzelas To Blare at Harvard-Yale Game

Along with the typical Yale-bashing, tailgating, and general revelry, this year’s Harvard-Yale football game will also feature an army of vuvuzelas—a South African instrument whose loud buzzing monotone gained international attention at the 2010 FIFA World cup.

Last Wednesday, Eric M. Cervini ’14 and Johnathon H. Davis ’14 launched the Silence Yale Campaign, a campus-wide effort to distribute hundreds of vuvuzelas to fans before The Game.

“During the upcoming Game, Cambridge cannot afford to endure the noise pollution produced by so many whining Harvard rejects,” according to the Silence Yale Campaign’s website.

Cervini and Davis cited the need to avenge Yale’s 2004 prank at the Harvard-Yale Game—in which Yale students distributed pieces of colored paper to Harvard fans that, when raised together, spelled out “We suck”—as one of their primary motivations for their new vuvuzela campaign.  According to the pair, the special-edition horns will be used to overwhelm Yale fans during fight songs and kickoffs, and volunteers would be stationed in the stands to help coordinate vuvuzela calls.

“We will make our presence known,” Cervini said.

So far, students have latched on to the opportunity to brandish a Harvard-Yale vuvuzela, which is crimson-colored and emblazoned with “The Game 2010” on the bell.   Over 200 vuvuzela orders had already been placed as of noon yesterday.  And while the majority of vuvuzelas will go to freshmen, Davis and Cervini said they have received orders from all of Harvard’s twelve upperclassmen houses.

The vuvuzelas are slated to arrive beginning this coming weekend and continuing into early next week. Davis and Cervini are taking orders for the $8 horns on the Silence Yale Campaign’s Facebook page—www.facebook.com/silenceyale.

The vuvuzela is capable of 127 decibels at full volume, louder than a chainsaw, which clocks in at 100 decibels.  While extended exposure can lead to hearing loss, Cervini and Davis insisted that vuvuzela use at The Game would be very limited in both quantity and duration compared to the vuvuzela noise produced during World Cup matches this summer.

Yale students have already taken note of the new campaign to drown out their cheers at The Game.  “Harvard’s going to need something a lot stronger than $8 vuvuzelas to overpower Yale at the Game,” read a Yale Daily News blog post written on Saturday.

But with the Silence Yale Campaign in full swing, Harvard fans said they were skeptical of Yale’s ability to counteract the blare of the South African horns.

“I think that Yale doesn’t have anything legal that’s louder than a cacophony of vuvuzelas,” Kevin T. Wittenberg ’14 said.

When asked about the Yale Daily News article, Cervini and Davis said they were unfazed and unconcerned.

“We found it really entertaining,” Davis said.