After basking in the traditions and celebration of Dartmout Night and Homecoming Weekend last week, the men and women of Dartmouth find themselves in the midst of another age-old historical landmark, Harvard Weekend.
If you ask students today what Harvard Weekend is, what it 'means' to them, one all encompassing answer always seems to eventually crop up.
"It's a day off," Kyle Teamey '98 said.
For others, however, and especially for Dartmouth alumni, this weekend is one of the biggest of the year.
"It was a massive exodus," explained Dartmouth's athletic director, Dick Jaeger '58, describing his Harvard Weekends when he was a student at Dartmouth.
Jaeger said the tradition of not having Friday classes extends far back.
"It used to be a time factor and distance factor situation," he said. "Rarely would they come up to play us, and so we would have to go down there. Back then, we also had required Saturday classes, so ... it was a holiday on Saturday [too]."
Senior Associate Director of Alumni Relations David Orr '57 said when he was a student Harvard Weekend was huge.
"This place really used to shut down and everybody used to get in their cars, or train, and head south," he said. "That was The Big Trip. There are still a lot of alumni who will come from all over the U.S. to attend that game. It was just a chance to get down in your car and drive down to Boston and take a break."
"You'd see trains packed with students going down from White River, and packed again on the way up on Sunday afternoon," Orr added.
While the tradition of Harvard weekend seems lost to some Dartmouth students of today, for the old faithful, it still is a big deal.
"There's that tradition of tailgating along the Charles for a lot of people," Orr said. "My class stakes out a claim on a certain patch of grass along the Charles and we all flock to meet there."
And how have these games gone historically for Dartmouth? The first game, in 1882, did not bode well for the Big Green, who fell 53-0 to the Crimson. After 17 straight loses, the Big Green broke through with an 11-0 victory at Harvard in 1903.
Overall, the Big Green are 42-51-5 against Harvard since 1882, with a number of memorable gems dotting Crimson vs. Big Green football history along the way.
