Significance
For many students and alumni of Harvard and Yale, The Game is an important event. The schools are located only a few hours' travel from one another; and, perhaps because they are among the nation's most prestigious and oldest universities, the rivalry is intense. Beating the rival is often considered more important than the team's season record. Since 1900, the Game has been the final game of the season for both teams, since Ivy League schools do not participate in post-season football games (the one exception occurring in 1919, when Harvard beat Yale 3-0 and then went on to the Rose Bowl, where they defeated Oregon 7-6).
The Game is significant for historical reasons as it was the first game of the rivalry (in November 1875) was the second American football game played between U.S. colleges featuring a ball-carrying form of the game (the first being a Harvard-Tufts football match that occurred in June 1875). The rules of that game soon were adopted by other schools, such as Rutgers and Princeton, which had been playing soccer (i.e. Association Football) since 1869, and American football quickly became the archetypal college sport. The schools that would become the Ivy League played the leading role in the development of American football in the late 19th century; football's rules, conventions, and equipment, as well as elements of "atmosphere" such as the mascot and fight song, include many elements pioneered or nurtured at Harvard and Yale. For many years, The Game was also likely to determine the Ivy League championship. The Game receives less national attention today; most college football fans are more interested in games between larger institutions whose teams are made up of scholarship athletes, many of them bound for professional careers. The high attendance at Harvard Stadium or the Yale Bowl for the contest testify that The Game still generates interest beyond the respective campuses and alumni bodies; tickets for The Game generally sell out even in modern times when The Game is played at Harvard, as Harvard Stadium's seating capacity is less than half that of the Yale Bowl.
In 2003, Sports Illustrated magazine ("On Campus" edition) rated the Harvard–Yale rivalry as the sixth-best in college athletics.
Read more about this topic: Harvard–Yale Football Rivalry
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)