Blue and White and Crimson all over

I own a Yale t-shirt. I have cheered for them at The Game, known as Yale-Harvard in New Haven. I have attended the greater part of Yale’s freshman orientation and even rushed a Yale frat. My high school sent ten students to Yale and only two to Harvard. My best friend’s parents are the masters of Yale’s Morse College. Since sophomore year in high school, I have decked myself out in blue and white every other November and paraded around tailgates taunting Cantabrigians and finding refuge among the sea of Yale U-Haul trucks. So why will I don crimson this year as opposed to the traditional blue and white?

First of all, the two schools are mirror images of each other, with the exception of some colloquialisms. At Yale, I pretended to be a freshman from New Haven, living in Morse College, majoring in physics, rushing SAE and joining The Herald. Two weeks later I did it all over again in Cambridge, a freshman from New Haven, living in Holworthy Hall, concentrating in physics, not punching anything and comping the Crimson.

Regardless of the similarities, New Haven does foster a certain anti-Harvard attitude. Countless Yalies, friends and one particularly ferocious Yale tour-guide trying to convince me that Harvard was not fun, cut-throat competitive, very nerdy, snobbishly intellectual and would probably make me suicidal, depressed, bipolar and schizophrenic by the end of first semester.

In spite of the Yale pride, fostered by my school, friends and New Haven, I will wear Crimson at the game this year. Only two months at Harvard changed three years of cheering for Yale at The Game, longer than most Yale juniors. Some might say I have betrayed my loyalties. Sure, I am a poser. I jumped on the bandwagon, but it is better than rooting for a losing team year after year in the opposition’s home.

Even now that I’m here I still receive the occasional scowl when I mention my hometown or go for a run along the Charles in blue and white. In the end, at least I chose Harvard—I could never go to a second rate institution.