THE MALCOM X-FACTOR: New Jersey Trip Leads to Reversal of Fortunes

I should have gone to Princeton. Well, not really, but I’m not exactly thinking straight right now.

Why? There was something fishy going down on the fields of New Jersey this weekend.

I know what you’re probably thinking: things are always fishy in Jersey. Fishy, smelly, and generally of a lower overall quality than the other states.

To that, I’d say you’re right, but things seemed especially out of whack on Saturday. On my way to Princeton to check out some football action, I noticed that the traffic into the state was surprisingly sparse, while cars were backed up for miles trying to get out.

People knew something was up. Unfortunately, somebody forgot to tell us here at Harvard until it was too late.

You see, the good old boys at Princeton had something prepared for us when four of our athletic teams showed up on their campus to do battle: a good, old-fashioned beatdown.

Again, I can probably guess what you’re thinking: Princeton? The same Princeton whose most famous alumni is a fictional TV uncle with a fresh nephew from West Philadelphia? And all I can tell you is that if I hadn’t been there to see some of it myself, I’d be in denial, too.

But it really happened. Four Princeton-Harvard games on Saturday, all hosted by the Tigers, with three resulting in losses.

We’re Harvard. We’re not supposed to lose to Princeton. Maybe on isolated incidents, sure. But all on the same day, within a few hours, within a few miles of one another? That’s not right.

And it’s not just that it happened, it’s how it happened.

A Tigers women’s soccer team with an 0-4 record in the Ivy League is not supposed to beat a 5-0 Harvard squad, especially considering that the Crimson’s last non-overtime loss came in September. And it’s definitely not supposed to happen just a few hours after the Princeton field hockey team beat Harvard 3-1, clinching a share of the league title in the process. And you know the planets aren’t properly aligned when Harvard football loses two in a row to the Tigers. The last time that happened? Well, let’s just say that I was eight years old, Seinfeld was just hitting its prime, and Michael Jordan was a minor league baseball player.

If it wasn’t for the men’s soccer team, the single Crimson squad able to quiet at least a few of the thousands of Tigers fans that came out on Saturday, we’d be in real trouble. Thankfully, though, the team’s 3-1 victory provided for a bit of satisfaction to take away from the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad weekend.

Little, but not much.

I thought that maybe I’d be able to return to Cambridge, dejected like my athletic peers, and find solace in the company of my Harvard classmates. But what did I encounter instead? A locked gate to the courtyard of my house and a hoard of Princeton rowers taking away space from good, clean, honest Head of the Charles fans.

It’s just not right.

Is it not enough that they’ve taken over our spot at the top of the college universe? You have U.S. News and World Report’s number one ranking; isn’t that good enough?

Apparently not. Granted, the Tigers were just looking out for themselves. In the words of former New York Jets coach Herm Edwards (a team which, incidentally, plays its games in New Jersey, and not New York. Coincidence? I don’t think so.): “You play to win the game.” Herm is right, but I’m sure that if he’d been in a better mood at that infamous press conference a few years back, he’d have also said: “You try to space out your wins against a single team so as to not make it too tough on them.”

I guess things aren’t all bad, though. We don’t have to wake up in Jersey every morning, and it’ll be two years before Princeton has another chance to do what they did this weekend. Plus, if they fought, our former football player-turned-prominent-actor (Tommy Lee Jones) would so beat theirs (Dean Cane).

And as a last resort, if you’re still feeling down about the weekend’s events, do as Princetonians would do: act like children. After all, it’s a well-known children’s rhyme that always helps me keep things in perspective: “First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the treasure chest.”

In that case, maybe I should have gone to Yale.

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.