Some Harvard Students Will Skip The Game, Stay in Cambridge

Last year, hundreds of students watched as the Harvard football team battled Yale to a close 14-21 loss in the final quarter, marking Harvard’s first loss in the annual showdown in nine years.

But Stephanie Dufresne ’20 was not among the disappointed fans.

Dufresne had lost interest and left the game at halftime. And this year, she said she does not plan to even bother attending the 2017 iteration of the game, which will take place in New Haven.

While The Game is a social and athletic event that hundreds of students at both schools spend weeks anticipating, it is also a far more quotidian time for many students more concerned with grades than the gridiron.

Dufresne—who said she will be working in a lab and spending time with a friend in Boston instead—is one of many Harvard students who will not make the trek out to New Haven this year.

Some students, like Evelyn Mo ’20, said they will be taking advantage of the weekend to extend their Thanksgiving break.

“I’m also going home on Sunday, so I thought that traveling to Yale and going home right before would be a little hectic,” Mo said.

Others—pointing to Harvard’s 14-21 loss to Yale at last year’s game—said they are not sufficiently interested in football to make the trip to Yale.

Catarina T. M. Do ’20 said that despite her upbringing in Texas, where the landscape is dotted with multimillion-dollar high school football stadiums, she does not enjoy watching the game.

“Last year, when I went, I had to make someone explain to me the rules of football,” Do said.

Other students have yet another reason. Instead of sitting in the stands this weekend, Kiera E. O’Brien ’20 said she will be participating in an athletic event herself.

“I am running the Cambridge half marathon on Sunday, so I will not be going to the game because of that,” O’Brien said.