Games people play

If you ask the right people in Cambridge, they'll tell you who really won The Game last year. Although the scoreboard read Harvard 45 Yale 7, the real celebration was across the Charles River, down the street.

That's where the boys from Delta Kappa Epsilon were basking in the glory of the prank that interrupted the action on the field, grabbed national attention and took four years to plan.

A huge black weather balloon marked "MIT" blossomed on the 45-yard line mid-way through the second quarter, and Techies disguised as Yale band members flung themselves onto the field during halftime and spelled out their school's name.

The implicated MIT fraternity did not come forward and take blame or credit for the balloon until later in the week. Although the responsibility was originally secret, says frat Vice President Victor J. Cook III. "They felt good about it and wanted to tell people, so they did.

The "hack," as MIT frats call pranks, landed Deke House on national television and New Year's Day highlight shows. "We were surprised and very pleased to get as much coverage as we did," he added.

The frat has attempted aborted mayhem in the past, as in 1948, when dynamite detonator was found sunk into the field spelling out "MIT" "They got really uptight about that," says Cook.

As to whether they will be laughing it up in New Haven this year. "If I told you that. I'd give it away, wouldn't I?" the spokesman responded.

But even if some Engineers do come through today with their rumored follow-up to last year's antics, they will only be continuing a tradition established long before fashionable architecture included cinderblocks.

Juvenile behavior is only the mildest manifestation of the ingrained belief on both sides of the Blue-Crimson line that the other side is the incarnation of Evil. And the fact remains that the most recent evidence of genuinely evil inspiration came in 1978, when electrical wires were discovered in Soldiers Field the week before the Game.

The wires led to fire extinguishers--stolen from MIT, incidentally--filled with yellow paint. They were triggered by mousetraps that the wires connected to some benches and an endzone. Had it not been for some alert groundskeepers and the Cambridge bomb squad, the paint, when released, would have resulted in a huge, jaundiced "Y" appearing on the turf.

Paint is not an unfamiliar accompaniment for Pre-Game festivities. The long-suffering John Harvard has doubtless turned blue at least once this week, and crimson spray paint has also been known to get a workout at this time of year.

In 1963, for example, a band of rampant Yale students got nabbed after painting a six-foot blue "BEAT HARVARD" along the front of Widener Library. The cost of water-blasting the paint off was more than $1000. When asked to comment on the incident a year later. Harvard Police Chief Robert Tonis said. "That was a very sick thing to do."

And the year before, the Harvard Band, bent on allowing the Elis as little sleep as possible, marched throught he streets of the City of Elms playing at full volume. The concert took place at 3 a.m. on the day of the Game, which apparently violated some city ordinance, landing the entire ensemble in the New Haven jail.

Semi-legal activities over the years have included a 1908 incident in which Harvard Coach Percy Haughton reputedly strangled a bulldog in the locker room. The scene later proved to have been slightly amplified from Haughton's tying a papiermache canine to his car and dragging it.

The real Yale bulldog--Handsome Dan, by name-- has also gone through some unpleasant experiences. In 1933, the Elis found the son of a bitch gone. Handsome Dan had been kidnapped by a bunch of Harvard marauders, who drugged him, brought him back to Cambridge, and did not feed him.

The ultimate Bulldog was later photographed trying to lick up the remains of chopped meat that had been rubbed across metal--the metal boots of John Harvard.

John Harvard is something of a cult figure for the Yale band as well. The tradition dictates, according to one member, that when the Bulldogs win in Cambridge, the band marches through the streets into the Yard, and the band major sits on John Harvard's face.

In 1980, the drum major, Jennifer Roberts, attained her perch and promptly became the focus of a rain of snowballs. The Yalies, bent on protecting her, tore down screens from some of the dorms and protected her. They still think they won that one.