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In the tie of the beholder
Harvard rally in 1968 version of ‘The Game’ was a tie for some, a loss for others
Harvard rally in 1968 version of ‘The Game’ was a tie for some, a loss for others
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By Josh Centor
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
During his 12-year career in the National Football League, Calvin Hill played in two Super Bowls and four Pro Bowls. He gained nearly 9,000 yards, scored 65 touchdowns and played 156 games with Dallas, Washington and Cleveland. None of those games, including the two Super Bowls, was as important to Hill as “The Game.”
In 1875, the football teams at Harvard and Yale Universities began what has evolved into one of the country’s storied rivalries. Each November, the programs finish their season in Cambridge or New Haven, and without exception, “The Game” always plays to a packed house.
“Tad Jones (former Yale coach) once said, ‘Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard, Nothing you do for the rest of your life will be as important,’ ” Hill said. “It didn’t matter what your records were or how well you had played — beating the other school made your season.”
Although the significance of “The Game” is huge every year, perhaps the stakes were highest in 1968.
That year, Hill and the Yale Bulldogs entered the game as one of the top teams in the nation, having won 16 in a row dating back to the previous season. Harvard had been picked to finish last in the Ivy Group preseason poll, but had overcome the odds to enter the finale with a 7-0 record. For the first time in their illustrious football history, Harvard and Yale would play “The Game” with perfect records and the Ivy title on the line.
The first 58 minutes were fairly predictable. Not only was Yale nationally ranked, but quarterback Brian Dowling hadn’t lost a game since he was in grade school. Less-touted Harvard quarterback Frank Lalich had led the Crimson all season, but he struggled in the first half against Yale, completing just two passes before being pulled for reserve Frank Champi.
Known more for his skills tossing the javelin than for his prowess on the gridiron, Champi had attempted just 12 passes during his career before stepping on the field against Yale.
The Bulldogs led at halftime, 22-6, but Champi led the Crimson down the field in the third quarter and fullback Gus Crim scored from the 1-yard line to make it a two-possession game. Dowling and the Bulldogs answered in the fourth and Yale had the ball with a 29-13 lead and less than two minutes remaining.
“We were on their side of the field and we fumbled the football,” Hill said. “They scored with 42 seconds left and went for the two-point conversion and made it.”
Yale was set to receive the ensuing kickoff and run out the clock, but then Hill and his teammates saw something they weren’t prepared for — an onside kick.
“Harvard’s special-teams coach told me they worked on the onside kick every day. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before. We didn’t practice it at all,” Hill said. “Luck is the convergence of preparation and opportunity. They had an opportunity and they were prepared for it.”
Indeed, Harvard executed its onside kick perfectly and got the ball back with seconds to go. The good fortune continued for the Crimson, as Champi led his troops to a touchdown as time expired. With the score 29-27 and no time left on the clock, only one play remained in the historic season.
Champi took the snap for the team’s second two-point conversion attempt in less than a minute and fired toward sophomore tight end Pete Varney. The pass dropped in the end zone, and the Bulldogs began celebrating a perfect season and another Ivy championship.
The game wasn’t over, though, as the referees signaled pass interference on a Yale cornerback, and the Crimson had one more try. Champi went right back to the well, this time finding Varney for the conversion and a 29-29 tie.
“It was a simple play. We’d probably run it 80 times during the course of the season,” Varney said. “I was a big wideout and was going against a cornerback who was a little bit smaller. I tried to use my size to screen him out. The quarterback hit me right in the chest.”
Varney, who was a sophomore at the time, has experienced about as many thrills in sports as possible. Also a member of Harvard’s 1971 baseball team that played in the College World Series, Varney went on to play parts of five seasons in the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves. He has spent the last 26 years as the head baseball coach at Brandeis University, where he led the Judges to a berth in the 1999 Division III Baseball Championship. The Game in 1968, however, was perhaps his greatest thrill.
“You have a lot of personal moments that you cherish — your first hit and home run in the big leagues, for example. But in terms of team accomplishments, this was probably the greatest,” Varney said.
Hill, who almost 40 years later is still devastated by the tie, said it was harder to take than a last-second loss to the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V.
“The feeling of frustration in that game was the same as when Jim O’Brien kicked the field goal (with five seconds left) to beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. I think I was even more frustrated by the Harvard game,” Hill said. “It was a bitter pill to swallow.”
Although Harvard and Yale no longer rule the college football landscape as they did 100 years ago, “The Game” has not lost its luster. In fact, Hill thinks people would be surprised if they came out to watch.
“If you go back to Cambridge or New Haven, you see people from age 90 to young kids, all of whom are drawn by the tradition of the game,” Hill said. “We competed athletically and academically, and there was always competition about which school was better. It all plays out when the two teams meet on the athletics field.”
One day after Harvard’s miraculous comeback, the school newspaper published the headline: “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29.” While both teams actually finished the season 7-0-1 and as Ivy co-champions, Hill thought the headline was true.
“I didn’t even realize until Monday that they had tied the game. I thought we had lost by one point,” Hill said. “The sky caved in, and I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.”
Varney, who caught a lot of balls during his time as a Major League catcher, admits that the grab against Yale might be his most famous. But he said isn’t the best one he ever made.
“The greatest catch I ever made was my wife,” Varney said.
In 1875, the football teams at Harvard and Yale Universities began what has evolved into one of the country’s storied rivalries. Each November, the programs finish their season in Cambridge or New Haven, and without exception, “The Game” always plays to a packed house.
“Tad Jones (former Yale coach) once said, ‘Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard, Nothing you do for the rest of your life will be as important,’ ” Hill said. “It didn’t matter what your records were or how well you had played — beating the other school made your season.”
Although the significance of “The Game” is huge every year, perhaps the stakes were highest in 1968.
That year, Hill and the Yale Bulldogs entered the game as one of the top teams in the nation, having won 16 in a row dating back to the previous season. Harvard had been picked to finish last in the Ivy Group preseason poll, but had overcome the odds to enter the finale with a 7-0 record. For the first time in their illustrious football history, Harvard and Yale would play “The Game” with perfect records and the Ivy title on the line.
The first 58 minutes were fairly predictable. Not only was Yale nationally ranked, but quarterback Brian Dowling hadn’t lost a game since he was in grade school. Less-touted Harvard quarterback Frank Lalich had led the Crimson all season, but he struggled in the first half against Yale, completing just two passes before being pulled for reserve Frank Champi.
Known more for his skills tossing the javelin than for his prowess on the gridiron, Champi had attempted just 12 passes during his career before stepping on the field against Yale.
The Bulldogs led at halftime, 22-6, but Champi led the Crimson down the field in the third quarter and fullback Gus Crim scored from the 1-yard line to make it a two-possession game. Dowling and the Bulldogs answered in the fourth and Yale had the ball with a 29-13 lead and less than two minutes remaining.
“We were on their side of the field and we fumbled the football,” Hill said. “They scored with 42 seconds left and went for the two-point conversion and made it.”Yale was set to receive the ensuing kickoff and run out the clock, but then Hill and his teammates saw something they weren’t prepared for — an onside kick.
“Harvard’s special-teams coach told me they worked on the onside kick every day. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before. We didn’t practice it at all,” Hill said. “Luck is the convergence of preparation and opportunity. They had an opportunity and they were prepared for it.”
Indeed, Harvard executed its onside kick perfectly and got the ball back with seconds to go. The good fortune continued for the Crimson, as Champi led his troops to a touchdown as time expired. With the score 29-27 and no time left on the clock, only one play remained in the historic season.
Champi took the snap for the team’s second two-point conversion attempt in less than a minute and fired toward sophomore tight end Pete Varney. The pass dropped in the end zone, and the Bulldogs began celebrating a perfect season and another Ivy championship.
The game wasn’t over, though, as the referees signaled pass interference on a Yale cornerback, and the Crimson had one more try. Champi went right back to the well, this time finding Varney for the conversion and a 29-29 tie.
“It was a simple play. We’d probably run it 80 times during the course of the season,” Varney said. “I was a big wideout and was going against a cornerback who was a little bit smaller. I tried to use my size to screen him out. The quarterback hit me right in the chest.”
Varney, who was a sophomore at the time, has experienced about as many thrills in sports as possible. Also a member of Harvard’s 1971 baseball team that played in the College World Series, Varney went on to play parts of five seasons in the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves. He has spent the last 26 years as the head baseball coach at Brandeis University, where he led the Judges to a berth in the 1999 Division III Baseball Championship. The Game in 1968, however, was perhaps his greatest thrill.
“You have a lot of personal moments that you cherish — your first hit and home run in the big leagues, for example. But in terms of team accomplishments, this was probably the greatest,” Varney said.
Hill, who almost 40 years later is still devastated by the tie, said it was harder to take than a last-second loss to the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V.
“The feeling of frustration in that game was the same as when Jim O’Brien kicked the field goal (with five seconds left) to beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. I think I was even more frustrated by the Harvard game,” Hill said. “It was a bitter pill to swallow.”
Although Harvard and Yale no longer rule the college football landscape as they did 100 years ago, “The Game” has not lost its luster. In fact, Hill thinks people would be surprised if they came out to watch.
“If you go back to Cambridge or New Haven, you see people from age 90 to young kids, all of whom are drawn by the tradition of the game,” Hill said. “We competed athletically and academically, and there was always competition about which school was better. It all plays out when the two teams meet on the athletics field.”
One day after Harvard’s miraculous comeback, the school newspaper published the headline: “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29.” While both teams actually finished the season 7-0-1 and as Ivy co-champions, Hill thought the headline was true.
“I didn’t even realize until Monday that they had tied the game. I thought we had lost by one point,” Hill said. “The sky caved in, and I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.”
Varney, who caught a lot of balls during his time as a Major League catcher, admits that the grab against Yale might be his most famous. But he said isn’t the best one he ever made.
“The greatest catch I ever made was my wife,” Varney said.
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