LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENT: Glory Days for Boston, Harvard

The same year I arrived at Harvard, Boston was transformed into a blessed city. The concept was, in some ways, challenging for a town so used to thinking of itself as cursed, but it happened nonetheless. First, the Red Sox won the World Series, the single most meaningful sports moment Boston will ever experience. A few months later, the Patriots claimed their third Super Bowl in four years, a victory that was so satisfying because it was so very meaningless after two prior championships. With these twin triumphs, a city steeped in a tradition of losing found itself immersed, uncomfortably but happily, in a culture of winning.

But those aren’t my only sports memories from freshman year. I also remember a spotless 10-0 Harvard football season, led by the truly unfair tandem of Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05 and Clifton Dawson ’07. And I remember my first exposure to The Game, a 35-3 demolition of the last obstacle between the Crimson and the Ivy title.

The truth is, Harvard had a culture of winning of its own my freshman year. And with both Boston and Harvard championships coming in such rapid succession, it was the perfect welcome to the University, both for local students like me, and for the many undergrads who adopt Boston teams as their own during their stay in Cambridge. It was hard, at the time, to shake the idea that the all of these athletic successes were somehow related, that on both the collegiate and citywide level we were being blessed with the perfect sports season.

Now, here we are in 2008, and it’s all happening again. After three-year championship droughts for all three teams, the magic of 2004 is creeping back into the Boston area, from Foxboro and Fenway to Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl. The Red Sox have already done their part, while the Patriots are working on nothing less than one of the greatest seasons in football history. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the Crimson emerged victorious in this year’s Game. All is right with the world, and that’s simply how things seem to work, as long as you hail from inside Route 93.

It is less of a stretch than you might think to draw a parallel between these Boston sports powerhouses and the Harvard squad that finally tamed the undefeated Bulldogs. Saturday’s victory, a 37-6 joyride past the hapless Elis, was downright Belichickian, from the defense’s ability to neutralize its opponent’s greatest threat (running back Mike McCleod), to the offense’s aerial proficiency. You’ll be forgiven if you mistook quarterback Chris Pizzotti’s passing totals (316 yards, four touchdowns) for Tom Brady’s. Any more, and he would have been accused of running up the score.

Neither Boston’s nor Harvard’s success, however, is limited to just one team. Just as the Patriots were soon joined by the Red Sox and now the long-dormant Celtics as symbols of dominance, other Harvard squads are following football’s lead as the college reestablishes its own culture of winning.

First, there’s men’s basketball, where head coach Tommy Amaker’s knack for recruiting has generated a great deal of enthusiasm for the coming seasons. In this regard, Amaker resembles not Belichick but Theo Epstein, who has also focused on developing young talent and boasts an impressive class of young recruits to show for it.

Then there’s the men’s hockey team, which beat archrival Cornell on Friday night in The Other Game to run its record at the time to 4-1. Crimson hockey had once been one of the most reliably strong Harvard programs, but it fell on hard times last year and only now seems to be regaining its place in the upper ranks of the ECAC. The same can be seen from the Celtics, who once ruled the Eastern Conference with an iron fist and are now making their return to the top.

The biggest similarity between Harvard and Boston athletics, however, is not the number of teams that have succeeded, but in the expectations that are generated when they do.

For better or for worse, winning has become so regular for Boston fans that it is now fully expected, and anything less than a championship is a disappointment.

This year, the same expectations are starting to creep into the mind of the Harvard fan—at least, this Harvard fan. After the hockey team beat Cornell on Friday, I somehow knew that a victory over the favored Bulldogs was forthcoming. Fully aware that Yale was 9-0 and still had McLeod, I hedged my bets by predicting a modest 31-28 victory.

With the Red Sox newly anointed as world champions, and the Patriots standing at 9-0, I should have known better.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Rubin-Wills can be reached at drubin@fas.harvard.edu.