Word: spoiler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HARVARD, if you will remember, was supposed to have a rotten season this year. There would be losses to Dartmouth and Princeton, and perhaps to Cornell too. The Ivy League title would be fought over by Princeton and Yale, and Harvard would only play the role of the spoiler--the spoiling coming at the Yale game simply because to one can predict who will win the Yale game no matter how good either team is. That was the scenario that everyone believed in--until Harvard beat Princeton and Dartmouth and Cornell and all the rest. And now it is time...
This makes me rather disappointed in a way, for it seems that the most fulfilling role a football team can play is that of the spoiler, the destroyer. No matter what anyone tells you, do not let on that the Harvard-Yale game will be close. It must be kept firmly in mind, at least for the glory of it, that Yale is one of the greatest teams in the nation, in history, in the universe, in the mind of God, and that Harvard, albeit nice and good and undefeated, is no match for Brian Dowling, that wonderful hero...
...other words, the way to approach this game is with the same scenario in mind that you thought there would be at the beginning of the season. Harvard goes into the Stadium as the underdog spoiler. Let me tell you all the great things that Harvard can spoil...
...odds do not favor Harvard. Brown, Ivy League champion for five consecutive years and New England champion for three consecutive years, has lost only one game this season. Again it was Penn which was the spoiler as the Quakers snapped the Bruins' 26-game winning streak in Ivy play. That was six weeks ago and they have resumed their winning ways, rolling over all their Ivy opponents...
Princeton's football team, rated earlier this season as a strong contender for league honors, must settle for the role of spoiler as it travels to New Haven Saturday to battle undefeated Yale...