A few weeks ago I had my first experience with a New England fall classic, the Harvard-Yale football game. Having attended my first Harvard football game earlier in the season and finding the whole experience cool, I was more than game to return for the biggest game of the year at Soldier’s Field. Plus, it was nice chance to bond with the father-in-law a bit, who as a Harvard employee secured the tickets. Even though Harvard basically got slapped around the field, the game did not disappoint.

For one, Harvard’s stadium, Soldier’s Field, is really quite beautiful with its Romanesque colonnade construction. It looks even cooler when it is packed with people. Unfortunately, this is the only game that really draws such crowds. It is a bit of drag that it only happens every other year. Judge for yourself. Empty it looks a bit more like a tomb, packed it is quite a site.

Since we were sitting on the Yale side of the horseshoe, we were privy to a number of sightings. Senator John Kerry was standing in the aisle right next to our seats for quite a time. For a minute, I thought maybe he was working the crowd with his new comedy material with the safe crowd of fellow alumni. Later, I put two and two together and realized that we were sitting across the aisle from the university president. Recent failed gubernatorial candidate Chris Gabrielli made his way past us as well during the game, also seeking out the sanctity of fellow alumni. Considering all the people this game drags out and the beating Eli’s Bulldogs were putting on the Crimson, it was a pretty exciting place to sit.

However, the best part of the day had to have been the streaker! That’s right an event of this magnitude brings out all the attention seekers, and in the latter part of the blowout the game stopped while a guy ran all over the gridiron with nothing on but a smile and “MIT” written down his back! I am amazed that in all the sporting events that I have attended, this was the first streaker I have witnessed. It was quite amusing, and he covered a lot of ground before he was finally wrestled to the field turf. Surprisingly, it took a while, but I guess who wants to tackle the naked guy, right? Even more amusing was that most people missed the second streaker, who got nabbed before he could really get full exposure. You have to hnd it to those MIT guys though. They are quite the pranksters, and it stand to reason that they would not want to be outdone by their Cambridge neighbors.