Harvard Has 16-11 Edge in Army Rivalry

On a rainy October afternoon in 1895, the Harvard football team engaged the United States Military Academy on the West Point Plains, beat the Cadets, 4 to 0, and thereby initiated one of the longest and most colorful series in Crimson gridiron history.

The two schools have met almost every year since then (there were moratoriums from 1910-28 and from 1942-48) and Harvard has won 16 of the 29 contests. There have been two ties.

However the Crimson's showing over this period is deceptive. As is the case in many of Harvard's traditional rivalries, the Crimson holds the edge now because it piled up a large number of victories way back when--long before the other team got wind of the finer points of football.

One day, for instance, the locals showed in spang new leather suits which thoroughly surprised everyone. And one year they showed up with Percy Haughton, a great punter and an even greater coach.

Anyway, Harvard won every Army game up until 1910, which gave the Crimson a 13 to 0 lead. Army, incidentally, was held to a single touchdown in all this time while Harvard rolled up 144 points.

After the 18-year lapse, the two teams resumed relations. West Point now had for a superintendent one Douglas MacArthur, whose theory that "wars are won on the fields of friendly rivairy" won one war and 11 Army-Harvard football games.

The cause of the break-off after 1910 was a tragic accident in the game that year. The Army coach refused to remove his left tackle, Eugene Byrne, despite the fact that he was so obviously exhausted that Haughton sent a request to the West Point bench asking that he he taken out.

"You run your team, I'll run mine," was the reply. The next play went over Byrne, who was carried off the field, dead.