We Can Have Harvard-Yale Every Weekend

I spent the last several weeks eagerly anticipating one of Harvard’s most iconic traditions: the Harvard-Yale football game. I was excited for a packed weekend of Crimson spirit and rivalrous football.

Now that the weekend is over, I’ll admit I was underwhelmed.

While the cold, rainy weather and Harvard’s eventual loss did my enjoyment no favors, the heart of the issue lay in Harvard’s dearth of school spirit or support for its student-athletes. Solving the problem will take efforts from all corners of campus — students and administrators alike.

Despite Harvard’s excellent football season — the team went 8-2 and earned a share of the the Ivy League title — students immediately turned to Sidechat, an anonymous campus social media app, to insult players and rip apart the team. One post with almost 500 upvotes read, “Kick the football players out literally their only reason they got into this school is to beat Yale.”

It goes without saying that Harvard-Yale wasn’t the team’s best showing. But Yale was a serious contender — they were 6-3 before The Game — and the match was no blowout. Despite the success of our squad throughout the season, I haven’t attended a single other tailgate, and I am sure many others can say the same.

Our peers who dedicate countless hours to balance academics and athletics do not deserve to be maligned. That and the conspicuous absence of tailgate culture points to a broader issue on Harvard’s campus — a lack of school spirit.

The reason for this lack of spirit seems simple. Harvard students and administrators alike have not built a campus culture that fosters school spirit or supports our players. This failure does more than disrespect our student-athletes — it deprives Harvard students of an opportunity for fun on a campus that is often described as chronically lacking it.

To remedy the situation, students and administrators each have a part to play.

First, Harvard should rely more on student groups like House Committees to take up the mantle of planning and facilitating gameday fun. By supporting student-athletes who live in their respective houses with student-hosted events, HoCos can convert House spirit into school spirit more broadly.

On the administrative side, the College must be willing to support more student-run gameday activities.

This past weekend, it seemed as though administrators were willing to turn the other cheek. Harvard administration claimed they would crack-down on tailgate activities but ultimately allowed the unsanctioned tailgate — hosted by the final clubs — to continue for hours. Ultimately, the Harvard University Police Department broke it up in an apparent attempt to usher students to the stadium.

While the University’s response was okay, if administrators want a more engaged student body, they need to support and encourage student-driven events rather than simply turn a blind eye to them. If students felt like there was a formal infrastructure for proper tailgates, they just might happen more often.

And for our part, we students need to make the time to go to them. Yes, it takes time away from a problem set to go to a game. Yes, you may have to plan around other activities to attend a race or a competition. But these athletic events are community-building social activities that bring life to campus where you will almost certainly meet new people and make new friends.

Taking pride in Harvard only benefits our community. It’s good for us to spend some time cheering for the same team.

Broader, better engagement with Harvard athletics can take on many forms beside just tailgates, including higher attendance at women’s sporting events — Why not cheer on our rugby team, which just won its second straight NIRA championship? — and new game-day activities, traditions, chants, and rituals. These ideas are easier to discuss than to implement, but the rewards for everyone on campus would be significant.

Harvard-Yale will always be a hallmark experience. But there’s no reason why it has to be the one time each year we decide to show any kind of school spirit. Students, show up and support your teams. Administrators, find ways to engage students and build community. Harvard may never be considered a first-rate sports school, but there’s no reason to let our school spirit follow suit.

Elizabeth R. Place ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint concentrator in Slavic Studies and English in Quincy House.