RSS
Leopards Eat Bulldogs
My daughter didn't get it when she saw me putting on my Lafayette College sweatshirt.
"But Dad," she said, "you left Lafayette. You didn't even like it."
It's true; I had transferred out of the place in 1970, in the middle of my junior year, because I could no longer stand living in Easton, Penna. and I wanted to live in Boston. Hence: hello, Boston University! And that's where I obtained my degree.
But I maintain some sentiment for the old place, as I informed my daughter. And so I was heading over to Yale Bowl a couple of Saturdays ago to root for my "alma mater" against Yale.
It was a rare event. Lafayette rarely plays Yale and hadn't made it to New Haven since 1990, when they lost by one point. I saw that game too.
Lafayette had never beaten Yale in football. Maybe this would be the time.
Only a couple of thousand people were in the huge Yale Bowl Oct. 3. It was drizzling and a non-Ivy League contest. When I settled in on the visitors' side, it seemed there were almost as many of us as there were Yale fans across the way.
When I arrived at Lafayette in 1968, it was all-male. Don't ask me why I ever went there, but there I was. Well, it being the '60s, we held demonstrations: "What do we want? Women! When do we want them? Now!"
And we got them, at the beginning of my junior year. But the 13:1 ratio wasn't much of an improvement. And so for that reason and the smalltown factor, I split for Boston.
And this is why I spent so much of that recent football game staring at the Lafayette cheerleaders. They were female, you see.
The Lafayette Marching Band didn't show up, which was upsetting. I played drums in that band and we marched all over various fields at halftimes. Where were they?
But the game was the thing. Lafayette fell behind in the early going but then they got it into gear and the passing game clicked (thanks to QB Rob Curley) and the 'Pards started pushing the Bulldogs all over the field. It was hard to believe it was so easy.
We made a lot of noise on our side and survived the rain and saw history happen: Lafayette 31, Yale 14!
It was the sweatshirt that did it.
"But Dad," she said, "you left Lafayette. You didn't even like it."
It's true; I had transferred out of the place in 1970, in the middle of my junior year, because I could no longer stand living in Easton, Penna. and I wanted to live in Boston. Hence: hello, Boston University! And that's where I obtained my degree.
But I maintain some sentiment for the old place, as I informed my daughter. And so I was heading over to Yale Bowl a couple of Saturdays ago to root for my "alma mater" against Yale.
It was a rare event. Lafayette rarely plays Yale and hadn't made it to New Haven since 1990, when they lost by one point. I saw that game too.
Lafayette had never beaten Yale in football. Maybe this would be the time.
Only a couple of thousand people were in the huge Yale Bowl Oct. 3. It was drizzling and a non-Ivy League contest. When I settled in on the visitors' side, it seemed there were almost as many of us as there were Yale fans across the way.
When I arrived at Lafayette in 1968, it was all-male. Don't ask me why I ever went there, but there I was. Well, it being the '60s, we held demonstrations: "What do we want? Women! When do we want them? Now!"
And we got them, at the beginning of my junior year. But the 13:1 ratio wasn't much of an improvement. And so for that reason and the smalltown factor, I split for Boston.
And this is why I spent so much of that recent football game staring at the Lafayette cheerleaders. They were female, you see.
The Lafayette Marching Band didn't show up, which was upsetting. I played drums in that band and we marched all over various fields at halftimes. Where were they?
But the game was the thing. Lafayette fell behind in the early going but then they got it into gear and the passing game clicked (thanks to QB Rob Curley) and the 'Pards started pushing the Bulldogs all over the field. It was hard to believe it was so easy.
We made a lot of noise on our side and survived the rain and saw history happen: Lafayette 31, Yale 14!
It was the sweatshirt that did it.
posted by Randall Beach at
3:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home