Word: balloonfuls
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Midway through the second quarter, a giant balloon began to grow out of the ground near mid-field, halting play and eventually capturing national headlines. At the time, WBZ-TV sportscaster Bob Lobel said it was perhaps the greatest college prank of all time. The Boston Globe’s Michael Madden agreed, calling it “the prank of pranks”, while footage of the event was broadcast nationally on CBS. This year’s Harvard-Yale game marks the twentieth anniversary of the MIT prank, an event burned in the memories of those who witnessed...
...Dekes of MIT, who replaced luck with planning, developing this “hack” for nearly two years. The device was constructed using various instruments donated by MIT laboratories, a vacuum motor, and Freon gas. All these ingredients were directed towards inflating a larger-than-life balloon emblazoned with the school’s initials and earmarked for the 1982 Harvard-Yale football game...
...their planned halftime ignition. So with 7:45 remaining in the first half, the ground began to shake. The field was clearing after Harvard’s second score when a nozzle burrowed its way out of the turf near midfield and began to inflate a large black balloon. The crowd stood in quiet awe while both teams retreated wearily from the minivan-sized globe...
...surface read “MIT”, and after a few minutes the balloon suddenly popped and as quickly as it appeared, it was gone...
...none of those efforts match the notoriety of the 1982 MIT balloon, which twenty years ago this month set a new standard for football tomfoolery and earned the headline, “MIT 1, Harvard-Yale...