ESPN To Feature Harvard Football

Every Saturday morning, millions of American homes tune in to ESPN’s College GameDay to see football powerhouses battle at famed venues such as the University of Florida’s “Swamp” and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

But this week the program will be live from Philadelphia’s Franklin Field as Harvard battles Penn for the Ivy Championship.

Not only will this be the Crimson’s first appearance on GameDay. It is the first time its 10-year history that the show will profile a Division I-AA contest.

Every week the comprehensive studio show picks one of the most high-profile match-ups in the country to highlight—every game has the national title on the line.

In fact, this weekend will be just the second time ever that GameDay has broadcast from a game without title implications (the only other time was last season, when GameDay covered an Army-Air Force showdown).

The show features the country’s leading experts and the featured match-up gets royal treatment—host Chris Fowler and analysts Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit offer previews, interviews and predictions before a live crowd.

Rumors of ESPN coming to the game began swirling around Harvard’s athletic department early last week after Ivy League sports information director Bret Hoover contacted ESPN inviting the show to the game.

“On Monday ESPN told me it was unlikely. On Tuesday they said we were on the radar,” Hoover said. “But Wednesday ESPN told me that if both Harvard and Penn won they would be in Pennsylvania on the 16th of November.”

And on Saturday, the terms were met. The Crimson defeated Columbia 28-7 and Princeton fell to Penn 44-13, each preserving perfect Ivy-League record.

That afternoon, ESPN made its final decision—they called Hoover from their set-up at the Tennessee-Miami game to deliver the confirmation.

Harvard football coach Tim Murphy broke the news to the team on Sunday.

“It’s not everyday the Ivy League gets ESPN to cover its games,” said kicker Anders Blewett ’03. “The team is really psyched to play in front of Chris, Lee and Kirk.”

College GameDay executive producer Mark Gross said he initially discarded the idea of an Ivy-League telecast, since the show gets offers from so many college football programs across the country—most of them more high-profile than the Crimson.

But he said the program’s producers became more and more intrigued as last week passed.

“We started thinking about it more,” Gross said. “The idea started picking up momentum. We’re trying to do things more...outside the box. So we decided to give it a whirl.”

He called the game “a playoff of the academic powerhouses.”

ESPN will run a question and answer feature on the players toughest and easiest classes, a feature on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler Chris “Harvard” Nowitski ’00 and a feature on star wide-out Carl Morris ’03.

ESPN crews will visit Harvard in the coming week to work on these pieces.

Assistant athletic director John Veneziano said Harvard’s athletic department is thrilled with the added attention.

“Everyone in the office is pumped,” he said. “It’s all we’ve been talking about for about a week now.”

Veneziano hopes that national exposure will “incite greater interest in the Crimson football.”

“We’re hopeful both students and alums will head down to Penn this weekend,” he said. “ESPN and the Ivy Championship, what more can you ask for?”