For high school football players, Thanksgiving means the rivalry game. Last week, I attended the ultimate rivalry game, one that has witnessed 125 meetings between the combatants.

For the first time since 1984, when I caught a preliminary soccer match for that year's Olympic Games, I returned to Harvard Stadium this past Saturday. The occasion was The Game, but the game was merely the occasion. The Harvard-Yale football game provides sober WASPs the opportunity to act like drunken white trash--even if just for just one day. For a sober Bostonian (a noon kickoff is no time to kickoff inebriation) of the Paddy rather than Brahmin variety, the sight of students bedecked in Mexican wrestling masks, alumni donning gaudy racoon coats allowing old money to play nouveau rich, and revelers announcing their Ivy-League quirkiness by wrapping themselves in smoking jackets provided for interesting anthopological observation. A role reversal, no? The spectacle was something between Halloween and New Year's Eve, which, given The Game's calendrical position, seems about right.

Harvard Stadium, a century-old relic that resembles the Roman coliseum with an end missing, bans alcohol sales but not, seemingly, alcohol. No $12-an-hour, neon-jacketed security guard groped me upon entry. That's just not the Ivy League way. I don't mean paying a guy low wages--that's certainly the Ivy League way--but allowing the great unwashed to bodily frisk you. Do you know who I am! Do you know who I am! I would write that one Harvard man sitting in my section smuggled a twelve-pack of Budweiser into the game, but I don't think there was any pretense or subterfuge about it. I didn't know that Ivy Leaguers knew about Budweiser, let alone cans. But they do. And a few drank Jack Daniels, too. This is their idea of slumming, I suppose.

The game, 125th playing of this ancient rivalry, was sold out. Yet, seats--I use the term loosely since fans really sit on concrete stairs--did not disappear behind fans until the end of the first quarter. And by halftime, many had returned to the parking lot whence they had come. Heated tents with fully-stocked bars, it seemed, were the more attractive than the actual game. I couldn't blame them. With the mercury never escaping the twenties, and a harsh Arctic wind eroding my youthful face, I had lost feeling in my toes. Yet, I soldiered on, watching the entire game, which was won 10-0 by Harvard.

In a half-time skit, Harvard noted one of the benefits of erasing Yale from history would be no George W. Bush presidency. That, and the presence of a healthy-looking Senator Ted Kennedy '54 at the coin toss, elicited the loudest cheers. I digress, but how inconvenient it must be for Kennedy that Harvard, instead of listing the year one graduates, assigns students a class year based on four years whence they matriculated. Knowing that Kennedy '54 caught a touchdown pass in the 1955 Harvard-Yale contest leads to all sorts of embarrassing conversations speculating on how the senator could have played after his class graduated. Damn Spanish tests!

It''s not USC-UCLA, Alabama-Auburn, Ohio State-Michigan, or even Army-Navy. Harvard and Yale squads are far more likely to produce U.S. senators than All-Pro quarterbacks. You'll be hearing from these players down the road, just not in the National Football League. Yale leads the series 65-52-8, and Harvard boasts the most famous victory, which inspired the memorable headline "Harvard beats Yale 29-29." But in this rivalry, who remembers such trivialities as who won?

When the Crimson clash with the Elis, pranks rather thanfistfights rule the day. Yes, this is the natural consequence of institutions that value brains over brawn. But it's also the result of pride in school not translating into contempt for the opposition. One gets the impression that Ivy Leaguers view themselves as part of the same team, with athletic contests between them being of the intramural variety. After the game, they all merrily go about their business ruling the world. I walked across the bridge from Allston into Harvard Square wishing I had been a Harvard Man. Alas, instead of ruling the world I was destined to rule a barstool--until I regained feeling in my toes.

"they all merrily go about their business ruling the world."

Yes, and how's that worked out for us?

I think the old saying applies "you can always tell a Harvard Man. But you can't tell him much."

BTW: in another life, I rowed crew and used to frequent the Harvard Boat House which was fully stocked with PBR, the drink of choice for those particular Harvard athletes.

That's a lie asdf. They don't allow people from Dorchester in Harvard Square.

When you wash and wear your Sunday go-to-meetin' clothes they do! ;-)~

Quoting the great philosopher Randy Moss. LOL.