Hope Springs Eternal for Yale

It’s that time of the year again, ladies and gentlemen: The Game.

And not just any Game, kids, it’s my final Game.

That’s right, four years at Yale have finally brought me to this point.

A lot’s happened in four years: I no longer want to save the world (hello, Wall Street!), I’ve actually successfully managed to get into those fabled places called seminars (1400 pages of reading per week FTW!), and I have continued to have zero luck with the ladies (ughhh).

However, the most important thing I’ve picked up from my twenty-one years (besides blissful alcoholic legality) is to know to stay the heck away from that freezing hellhole some call Cambridge.

Yale has been 0–3 at in my tenure as resident drunk fan in the stands, and I don’t know if I want to suffer another nutmeg-grounding loss at the hands of the Cantabs while contracting hypothermia and gluteal frostbite.

A couple weekends ago, my mom called to find out when I should book tickets to fly home for our glorious, week-long Thanksgiving break (suck it, Harvard). “Are you going to The Game?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “In this fall—and this is very tough…I’m going to take my talents to Cambridge and watch the Harvard-Yale game.”

Why? For one, I’m doing the gameday radio color commentary on wybcx.com (your home for Yale sports), so I kinda sorta have to be there.

But even if I weren’t, I would make the trip because—for the first time in my four years of lackluster academic performance and sporadically habitual inebriation—Yale is going to WIN.

That’s right, Mr. Walsh of The Harvard Crimson, Yale is going to WIN.

Now, I know you’ve got the same “huh?” expression on your face as the time you watched Snooki hook up with Vinny on “Jersey Shore,” but trust me, I’ve got my reasons for that bold prediction,

1) The Luck of the Lin is gone.

Over the course of my lengthy research for The Game, one statistical anomaly in Harvard’s wins kept popping up: the presence of Jeremy Lin on the Cantab campus.

For those of you who don’t go to Harvard (a.k.a., you have lives), Jeremy Lin was a starting guard for the Cantab basketball team. After four years of destroying Ivy League opponents, he became the first Asian-American shorter than a skyscraper to make it to the NBA. In other words, he was a resolute middle finger to every stereotype out there. Besides being an inspiration to all vertically-challenged Asian basketballers (like yours truly), Jeremy provided the mythical “Luck of the Lin” for the last three years (he had not yet acquired it in his freshman year).

However, with the Golden State Warriors playing the Lakers the next day, Lin will not be in attendance for this year’s biennial Boston crackdown on collegiate drinking. With no Luck of the Lin to stop an otherwise successful fourth-and-22 conversion from their own 28-yard line, the Bulldogs will clearly rumble to victory.

2) We have celebrity on our side.

Have you heard of “Spider-Man”? Or “Spider-Man 2”? How about “Spider-Man 3”? If you try real hard, you’ll find the one commonality between those three movie titles: that’s right, James Franco. Now, I don’t know about you Cantabs, but my homepage happens to be Perez Hilton—and a while back, he and the screaming horde of girls outside my window told me that James “OMGZ he’s SOOOO HOT” Franco was going to be a Yalie in the English department.

Armed with one of GQ’s 2010 Men of the Year and resident Yale graduate-school hottie, the Bulldogs offer more than enough star power to take it to the house over and over again. Plus, if you squint real hard, legendary Bulldog receiver Chris Smith ’13 could easily pass off as Channing Tatum of “Step Up,” “Step Up 2: The Streets,” and “Dear John” fame (yeah, I watch chick flicks—so what?). Smith recently set an all-time Ivy League record by returning two kickoffs back for touchdowns (in a row). Clearly, he was channeling his inner Channing.

3) 2010 has been a change-inducing year.

Think about it. The Republicans defenestrated the Democrats in the House. LeBron James went from the most beloved basketball player to the most hated one faster than you can yell “Don’t tase me, bro” at Club Elevate. Brett Favre is still playing football (okay, bad example).

The point is, something is in the water, and it’s changing the status quo. With Harvard winning eight of the last nine Games, it’s time for a change we can believe in. This is year two of the Tom Williams regime, and already, we’re starting to see changes. The Bulldogs rebounded from 2-5 in the Ivy League last year to 5-1 so far. Senior safety Adam Money ’11, besides having an awesome name, is on track to set all kinds of Yale records with eight career interceptions (and counting). There is a changing atmosphere of success around the team, and they’re ready to turn this thing around.

In conclusion, Harvard sucks, and Mr. Walsh, if you manage to stay until the end of this Game, I’ll buy you a pizza from the mean streets of CT.

Besides, it’s not like we’re gonna go for it on fourth-and-22 again, right? RIGHT?!?!

—John Song is a senior in Berkeley College. Contact him at john.song@yale.edu.