How to Go to the Harvard-Yale Game

Next Saturday begins College Football Rivalry Week, and it includes the original rivalry: Harvard vs. Yale. Or, as they call it, The Game.

Not "The Big Game.""The Game."

*

Before You Go. While New Haven weather is practically identical to New York City weather, Boston weather is a little different, being a little bit further north. Mark Twain, who lived the last few years of his life in nearby Hartford, said, "If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute."

You should check the websites of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald -- or the New Haven Register -- before you leave. For the moment, they're predicting mid-40s by day and the high 30s by night for Saturday, with a chance of rain.

Wind is sometimes an issue inside Fenway Park, and it might be one if this game were being played in Harvard Stadium, which is just inland from the Charles River. But it shouldn't be one if it's played in the Yale Bowl in New Haven.

The Berkeley Building, a.k.a. the Old John Hancock Building, has a spire that lights up, and is a weather beacon, complete with poem:

Steady blue, clear view.
Flashing blue, clouds due.
Steady red, rain ahead.
Flashing red, snow instead.

If it flashes red during the baseball season, that doesn't mean snow. It means the game has been called off. Or, as one wag added to the poem:

But if it's baseball time and Boston
and the weather is to blame
if you see the light is flashing red
that means there'll be no game.

If the game is at Harvard, leave any New York sports team gear you may have at home. Boston is the easternmost city in Major League Baseball (and in the other North American sports leagues, too, and will remain so even if Quebec City returns to the NHL), but it is still in the Eastern Time Zone, so adjusting your watch and your smartphone clock is not necessary. And, of course, despite the silliness of the concept of "Red Sox Nation," you do not need a passport to cross the New Haven City Line, or to change your money.

Tickets. This is "The Game," so tickets are in short supply. But, when available, all seats at Harvard home games are $25. For Yale, all tickets are $20. This is the Ivy League, which has not been "major college football" for a long time.

Getting There. It's 81 miles by road from Times Square to the New Haven Green, and 214 miles to Boston's Downtown Crossing. Getting to either city is fairly easy. However, I do not recommend driving in or around Boston, including Cambridge, especially if you have Yankee paraphernalia on your car (bumper sticker, license-plate holder, decals, etc.). Chances are, it won't get vandalized... but you never know.

To Yale, it's fairly easy: Just take Interstate 95 North into Connecticut, to Exit 48 in New Haven. That should take about 2 hours. From the Green, take Chapel Street 2 miles west, and the Yale Bowl will be on your left.

Union Station, a mile south of the Green at 50 Union Avenue, serves Amtrak, Metro-North and Greyhound. Amtrak out of Penn Station is a lot more expensive than Metro-North, and doesn't save that much time, so take Metro-North's New Haven Line out of Grand Central Terminal. It takes 2 hours and 23 minutes, and is $47 round-trip. Greyhound from Port Authority to New Haven is $46 round-trip, but it can drop to $28 with advanced purchase.

To Harvard: When you get to New Haven, take Interstate 91 North toward Hartford. When you reach Hartford, take Exit 29 to Interstate 84, which you will take into Massachusetts and all the way to its end, where it merges with Interstate 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike. (And the locals call it "the Mass Pike"– never "the Turnpike" like we do in New Jersey.)

Theoretically, you could take I-95 all the way to Boston as well, but that will take you through downtown Providence, Rhode Island, up to the Boston suburbs. I like Providence as a city, but that route is longer by both miles and time than the route described above.

Although you will see Fenway Park, or at least its light towers, from the Mass Pike a couple of minutes before you reach the exit for the park, you'll take Exit 22 for "Prudential Center"– not to be confused with the Newark arena that is home to the New Jersey Devils. This is a skyscraper with a major area mall on its 1st 2 levels. You will end up on Huntington Avenue, and make a right on Belvidere Street, then a left on Boylston Street, and then a right on Ipswich Street, which will take you to Fenway's parking deck.

If all goes well, and you make one rest stop (preferably around Hartford, roughly the halfway point), and you don't get seriously delayed by traffic within the city limits of either New York or Boston (either of which is very possible), you should be able to make the trip in under 5 hours.

But, please, do yourself a favor and get a hotel outside the city. It's not just that hotels in Boston proper are expensive, unless you want to try one of the thousands of bed-and-breakfasts with their communal bathrooms. It's also that Boston drivers are said to come in 2 classes, depending on how big their car is: Homicidal and suicidal.

So my recommendation is that, whenever a Yankee series in Boston approaches on the schedule, whatever your plans are for going, bag them, and make your game ticket and lodging plans for the next series.

For any lodging in Cambridge rather than in Boston proper, take Exit 18 off the Mass Pike and follow the signs for Cambridge, across the Charles River to the north. For lodging in Newton, Exit 15, 16 or 17. For lodging south of the city -- in, for example, Quincy -- take Exit 15 off the Mass Pike, for I-95/495 South (Boston's "beltway," in which case, it might be more convenient to take I-95 all the way up), to Exits 12 to 15; or, if going further, where it flows into Interstate 93, Exits 1 through 12.

Boston, like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, is too close to fly from New York, and once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, it doesn't really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train. It certainly won't save you any money.

The train is a very good option. Boston's South Station is at 700 Atlantic Avenue, corner of Summer Street, at Dewey Square. (Named for Admiral George Dewey, naval hero of the Spanish-American War, not New York Governor and 1944 & '48 Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey, and not for former Red Sox right fielder Dwight "Dewey" Evans, either.) It'll be $154 round-trip from New York’s Penn Station to South Station, and it will take roughly 4½ hours. The Acela Express (the new name for the Metroliner, a more expensive option) will take about 3½ hours.
South Station also has a bus terminal attached, and it may be the best bus station in the country – even better than New York's Port Authority. If you take Greyhound, you'll leave from Port Authority's Gate 84, and it will take about 4½ hours, most likely making one stop, at Hartford's Union Station complex, or in the Boston suburbs of Framingham, Worcester or Newton. New York to Boston and back is tremendously cheaper on the bus than on the train, usually around $114 round-trip, and it could drop to as little as $62 with advanced purchase), and is probably Greyhound's best run. On the way back, you’ll board at South Station's Gate 3.

Once In the City: Cambridge. Although their athletic facilities are on the south, Boston bank of the Charles River, Harvard University is on the north bank, in Cambridge. It was named for the University of Cambridge in England, as the founders of Harvard were Puritans, some of whom had gone to that school, founded in 1209. That city was named for a bridge over the River Cam.

One of those Cambridge graduates was John Harvard, a minister known in his time (1607-1638) as "a godly gentleman and a lover of learning." Unfortunately, he was only 31 when he died of tuberculosis. Upon his death, he left money for The New College, founded in 1636 as the 1st college in America. So he's not quite the founder of what was subsequently renamed Harvard University. He's more the benefactor, as Colonel Henry Rutgers would be of Queens College in New Jersey, 189 years later.

Radcliffe College, a women's school, was founded in Cambridge in 1889. It was integrated into Harvard in 1977, making America's oldest college co-ed at last.

The city grew around the University, with Harvard Square being the centerpoint, for town activity, though not for street addresses. It is formed by the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street (formerly Harvard Street).

Since 1912, the Square has been served by the Harvard station on the Boston subway, now part of the MBTA Red Line, and I suspect the color was chosen to match Harvard's color, crimson, which is also the name of the school newspaper (The Harvard Crimson) and the name of its sports teams. Harvard Square is also a major bus service hub.

Also is Cambridge is the Kendall station on the Red Line, mentioned in the song "M.T.A.": "Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square Station... " Today, a ride costs $2.75 with cash, the same as New York's subway, and if you're there for the entire series, it may be cheaper to get a 7-day pass for $21.25. The MBTA 1-day pass is $12, so the 7-day pass is a better option.

But the Harvard Square Kiosk, in place since 1928, and home to the newspaper and magazine store known as Out of Town News since 1955, is no more. Out of Town News closed this past October 31, and the Kiosk is being renovated, expected to reopen sometime next year.

Harvard Yard is bounded by Broadway on the north, Quincy Street on the east, Massachusetts Avenue on the south and Peabody Street on the west. There are signs stating that motorized vehicles are banned. So the phrase designed to show off the Boston accent is pointless: Legally, you cannot "Pahk yuh cah in Hahvahd Yahd."

In the Yard, in front of University Hall, is a statue of John Harvard, dedicated in 1884. His left shoe is shiny, because people rub it for good luck. In 1934, some Harvard students kidnapped Handsome Dan, the Yale Bulldog mascot, and let him loose at the statue. Sacrilege? No: They'd smeared the shoes with hamburger grease, and got a photograph of "Yale licking Harvard's boots." The dog was not otherwise harmed, and was soon returned.
Cambridge is also the location of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The city is home to 120,000 people, but it's as much "town" as "gown," and the "town" is very blue-collar, home to Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1986; and actors Matt Damon and Ben and Casey Affleck.

The Area Code is 617, with 857 overlaid; and the ZIP Codes run from 02138 to 02142. The sales tax in Massachusetts is 6.25 percent, less than New Jersey's 7 percent and New York City's 8.875 percent. The Boston area's electric companies have been unified under a company called Eversource Energy. Cambridge was 91 percent white as recently as 1970, but is now 63 percent white, 16 percent Asian, 13 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic.

As America's oldest college, a list of Harvard's (and Radcliffe's) notable graduates would be either extensive or short-changing. Let me thus list the biggest of the big names:

* Presidents: John Adams (Class of) 1755, John Quincy Adams 1767, Rutherford B. Hayes 1845 (Law School), Theodore Roosevelt 1880, Franklin D. Roosevelt 1904, John F. Kennedy '40, George W. Bush '73 (Business School), Barack Obama '91 (Law School).

Also, Vice President Al Gore '69; President Syngman Rhee 1909 of South Korea, and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf '71 of Liberia; and Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau '45 of Canada, and Benazir Bhutto '73 of Pakistan.

First Lady Michelle Obama got her law degree at Harvard in '88. First Daughter Caroline Kennedy graduated in '80, and Malia Obama is on schedule to graduate in 2021. Masako Owada '85 is now Empress Masako of Japan,

* Cabinet members: Many, including Secretaries of State Edward Everett 1814, Richard Olney 1858, Dean Acheson 1918 (Law) and Mike Pompeo '94; Secretaries of Defense Robert Todd Lincoln 1864, Henry Stimson 1889, Caspar Weinberger '38, Robert McNamara '39, James Schlesinger '50; Secretaries of the Treasury Donald Regan '40 and Robert Rubin '60; Attorneys General Robert F. Kennedy 1948, Janet Reno '63, Loretta Lynch '81; Secretaries of Labor Willard Wirtz '37, Elizabeth Dole '65 (also a Senator) and Elaine Chao '79; Secretaries of Housing & Urban Development Robert C. Weaver '34, Henry Cisneros '73 and Julian Castro 2000; and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross '61.

Castro's twin brother Joaquin Castro, currently a Congressman from Texas and a candidate for President, also graduated in 2000.

* U.S. Supreme Court: 23 Justices, including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1861, Louis Brandeis 1877, Felix Frankfurter 1906, Harry Blackmun '29, William J. Brennan '31, Lewis Powell '32, William Rehnquist '50, Antonin Scalia '60, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter '61, and current Justices Stephen Breyer '64. Neil Gorsuch '67 and Elena Kagan '86. This means that, from 1990 to 2005, 4 of the 9 Justices, nearly a majority, were Harvard graduates, either undergraduate or Law School. In addition, Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox '34.

* Governors: Among others, Samuel Adams 1740 of Massachusetts, John Hancock 1754 of Massachusetts, Leverett Saltonstall 1914 of Massachusetts, Christian Herter 1915 of Massachusetts, John Davis Lodge '25 of Connecticut, Alfred E. Driscoll '28 of New Jersey, John Chafee '50 of Rhode Island, Michael Dukakis '60 of Massachusetts, Jay Rockefeller '61 of West Virginia, Bob Graham '62 of Florida, Pete du Pont '63 of Delaware, William Weld '66 of Massachusetts, Jim Doyle '72 of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney '75 of Massachusetts, Ned Lamont '76 of Connecticut, Deval Patrick '78 of Massachusetts, Phil Murphy '79 of New Jersey, Mark Warner '80 of Virginia, Bruce Rauner '81 of Illinois, Jim McGreevey '82 of New Jersey, Tim Kaine '83 of Virginia, Eliot Spitzer '84 of New York, and Jennifer Granholm '87 of Michigan.

Saltonstall, Chafee, Rockefeller, Graham, Warner and Kaine were also U.S. Senators.

* U.S. Senators: Among others, not including those previously mentioned: Rufus King 1777 of Massachusetts, Charles Sumner 1830 of Massachusetts, Henry Cabot Lodge 1871 of Massachusetts, Robert Taft 1913 of Ohio (Law), Sam Ervin of North Carolina '22, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. '24 of Massachusetts (grandson of the earlier Senator), Claude Pepper '24 of Florida, William Proxmire '40 of Wisconsin, Robert Taft Jr. '42 of Ohio (Law), Thomas Eagleton of Missouri '53, Ted Kennedy '56 of Massachusetts, Paul Sarbanes '60 of Maryland, Pat Toomey '61 of Pennsylvania, John Heinz '63 of Pennsylvania, Harrison Schmitt '64 of New Mexico (also astronaut who walked on the Moon), Richard Blumenthal '67 of Connecticut, Chuck Schumer '71 of New York, Al Franken '73 of Minnesota, Jack Reed '73 of Rhode Island, Paul Tsongas '74 of Massachusetts, Mike Crapo '77 of Idaho, Bill Frist '78 of Tennessee, Russ Feingold '79 of Wisconsin, Bob Torricelli '80 of New Jersey, David Vitter '83 of Louisiana, Martha McSally '90 of Arizona, Ben Sasse '94 of Nebraska, Ted Cruz '95 of Texas, and Tom Cotton '98 of Arkansas.

* Others: Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine 1749, civil rights icon W.E.B. Du Bois 1890, State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss '29, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly '45, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker '51, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg '52, Mayor Kevin White '57 of Boston, Presidential speechwriter Richard Goodwin '58 and his wife historian Doris Kearns Goodwin '68, consumer advocate and 2000 3rd party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader '58, Mayor Michael Bloomberg '66 of New York, Presidential advisor David Gergen '67, physician and 3rd party Presidential candidate Jill Stein '73, conservative economic guru Grover Norquist '78, and Mayor Eric Johnson '98 of Dallas.

* Science: Psychologist William James 1869, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey 1919, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer '25, astronomer Neil de Grasse Tyson '80. Alas, also "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski '62.

* Business: Banker David Rockefeller '36, Levi Strauss CEO and former Oakland Athletics owner Walter Haas '39, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone '44, New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman '62, Microsoft CEO and Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer '77, Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling '79, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon '82.

* Journalism: Ben Bradlee '44, George Plimpton '48, Lou Dobbs '67, Thomas Oliphant '67, James Fallows '70, Frank Rich '71, Michael Kinsley '72, E.J. Dionne '73, Evan Thomas '73, William Kristol '73, Walter Isaacson '74, Jill Abramson '76, Jim Cramer '77, Jonathan Alter '79, Nicholas Kristof '81, Andrew Sullivan '86, Soledad O'Brien '87, Suzanne Malveaux '87, Joy-Ann Reid '90. If you count sports journalism: James Brown '73, Pablo S. Torre 2007.

* Literature: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1821, Oliver Wendell Holmes 1836 (grandfather of the Justice), Henry David Thoreau 1837, James Russell Lowell 1838, Horatio Alger 1852, Ernest Thayer 1885 (wrote "Casey At the Bat"), George Santayana 1886, Gertrude Stein 1897, Helen Keller 1904, Robert Benchley 1912, E.E. Cummings 1915, John Dos Passos 1916, Thomas Wolfe '22, William S. Burroughs '36, Norman Mailer '43, Richard Wilbur '47, Edward Gorey '50, Robert Bly '50, Donald Hall '51, Ursula K. Le Guin '51, John Updike '54, Susan Sontag '57, Erich Segal '58, Peter Benchley '61 (Robert's grandson), Margaret Atwood '62, Michael Crichton '64, Scott Turow '78, Elizabeth Wurtzel '89.

* Actors: Jack Lemmon '47, Fred Gwynne '51, Wallace Shawn '65, Stockard Channing '65, John Lithgow '67, Tommy Lee Jones '69 (also a football player and roommate of Al Gore), Fred Grandy '70, Courtney B. Vance '82, Amy Brenneman '87, Donal Logue '89, Mira Sorvino '90, Nestor Carbonell '90, Matt Damon '92, Rashida Jones '97, Elisabeth Shue 2000, Natalie Portman '03, Jonathan Taylor Thomas '04, Scottie Thompson '05.

* Comedians: Andy Borowitz '80, Conan O'Brien '85, Greg Giraldo '88, Mo Rocca '91.

* Directors: Terrence Malick '66, James Toback '66, Edward Zwick '74, Jeff Zucker '86, Darren Aronofsky '91.

* Music: Composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein '39, musical satirist Tom Lehrer '47, Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison '71, cellist Yo-Yo Ma '76, Rage Against the Machine leader Tom Morello '86, jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman '91, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo '06.

* Architecture: Charles Bulfinch 1781, Philip Johnson '30, I.M. Pei '46.

You were wondering when I was going to get around to sports? Non-football athletes from Harvard include: Early tennis star Richard Sears 1883, baseball player and war hero Eddie Grant 1905, figure skater Dick Button '52, soccer goalie Shep Messing '73, rowing Olympic Gold Medalist Esther Lofgren '09, basketball player Jeremy Lin '10. Also, hockey general managers Robert Ridder '40 and Brian Burke '81, and Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred '83. If you count golf as a sport (I don't), Bobby Jones '24.

Once In the City: New Haven. Settled in 1638, and named as a "haven" for Puritans fleeing England, "the Elm City" is now home to about 130,000 people, making it about the same size as Cambridge.
* Science: Cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney 1792, painter and telegraph inventor Samuel Morse 1810, child psychologist Benjamin Spock '25, computer pioneer Grace Hopper '30, and neurosurgeons Harvey Williams Cushing 1891 and Ben Carson '73.

To the south, across Derby Avenue, is Yale Field. Baseball has been played at the site since 1885, and in the current 6,200-seat stadium since 1928. It also hosted the New Haven Ravens of the Class AA Eastern League from 1994 to 2003, and the New Haven County Cutters of the Can-Am League from 2004 to 2007.
Food. Honestly, in both Cambridge and New Haven, you're better off eating before and after the game. Harvard does not have a stadium concession map on their website, only mentioning that "Several concessions stands which offer a variety of food and drink options are available." Yale's website doesn't even say that much, although there are concessions stands.

Team History Displays. There is no display in the fan-viewable areas of either stadium for titles, which is probably just as well, given how long ago their big achievements were. Nor does either school retire numbers.

Harvard has won 12 National Championships, but all of them were retroactively awarded before the 1st Associated Press poll in 1936: 1874, 1875, 1890, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1908, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1919 and 1920.

The term "Ivy League" had been in use since 1934, but it wasn't until 1956 that a formal league -- encompassing Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell -- began awarding sports championships. Harvard has won or shared it 17 times: 1961, 1966, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. (Dartmouth is going to win it this season.)

There are 18 Harvard players, and 3 coaches, in the College Football Hall of Fame, and all but 1 of those played before World War II:

* From the 1890s: Center William H. Lewis, tackle Marshall Newell, fullbacks Charley Brewer and Bill Reid. Lewis (1868-1949), playing from 1888 to 1893 while he was at Harvard Law School (the NCAA didn't have a rule against that at the time, because there was no NCAA at the time), had previously played across Massachusetts at Amherst College, where he became the 1st black American football player. He later served as an Assistant Attorney General under President Taft.
* From the 1900s: Quarterback Charles Daly, end Dave Campbell and tackle Hamilton Fish III.

* From the 1910s: Coach Percy Haughton, guard Bob Fisher, halfback Percy Wendell, end Huntington Hardwick, guard Stan Pennock, and fullbacks Eddie Mahan and Eddie Casey.

* From the 1920s: Halfback George Owen.

* From the 1930s: Coach Dick Harlow, center Ben Ticknor, quarterback Barry Wood.

* From the 1940s: Harlow, guard Endicott Peabody.

* From the 1950s: Coach Lloyd Jordan.

* Since the 1950s: Receiver and punter Pat McNinally, 1972-74, later to play on the Cincinnati Bengals' 1981 AFC Champions.

In addition to McInally, Harvard players in the NFL include guard Earl Evans of the 1925 NFL Champion Chicago Cardinals, cornerback John Dockery of the Super Bowl III-winning Jets, guard Joe Pellegrini of the nearly AFC Champion 1982 Jets, and Matt Birk of the Super Bowl XLVII-winning Baltimore Ravens. There are 8 current Harvardians in the NFL: Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Miami Dolphins; running back Kyle Juszczyk of the San Francisco 49ers, centers Tyler Ott of the Seattle Seahawks, Nick Easton of the Minnesota Vikings and Adam Redmond of the Dallas Cowboys; defensive tackle Desmond Bryant of the Cleveland Browns, and tight ends Cameron Brate of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Anthony Firkser of the Jets.

Harvard also invented American football. What's that, you say? Rutgers and Princeton played the 1st game in 1869? Officially, yes. But that was a soccer game, albeit 25-a-side. Harvard turned it into football as we know it.

In 1874, the football team at McGill University in Montreal challenged Harvard to a "football" game. Seeing themselves as sporting gentlemen, the Harvard team accepted. But when the McGill men got to Cambridge, they realized there was a misunderstanding. They thought they were going to be playing what's now called rugby union, while the Harvard men thought they were going to be playing association football, or soccer.

Seeing themselves as sporting gentlemen, the captains of each side agreed to play a game under each side's rules. On May 14, 1874, under "Boston rules," Harvard won, 3-0. The next day, under "McGill rules," they played to a 0-0 tie.

The Harvard men decided they liked the McGill rules, even though they hadn't won. Later in the year, they went to Montreal to play McGill under home rules again, and won. And they got the captains of the other football-playing schools in America together, and all agreed to play by the new rules, and American football was born.

Yale, of course, was one of those schools. Yale has won more National Championships than any other college football team, 27 -- but, like Harvard, all of theirs were retroactively awarded before the 1st Associated Press poll in 1936: 1872, 1874, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909 and 1927. Indeed, from 1879 to 1884, 6 seasons, Yale went 37-0-5. And from 1891 to 1895, 5 seasons, they went 65-1-2.

Yale has won or shared 15 Ivy League titles: 1956, 1960, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1989, 1999, 2006 and 2017. In 1960, they shared the Lambert Trophy, given to "the best college football team in the East," with the Naval Academy.

Yale has had 28 figures in the College Football Hall of Fame. As with Harvard, only 1 has played for them since World War II:

* From the 1880s: Coach Walter Camp, end Amos Alonzo Stagg (later one of the great coaches, but not at Yale), guard Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger (who became the 1st man openly paid to play football, in 1892), and halfback Lee McClung.

* From the 1890s: Camp, end Frank Hinkey, halfback Sam Thorne and guard Gordon Brown.

* From the 1900s: Tackle James Hogan, end Tom Shevlin, fullback Ted Coy and end John Kilpatrick (who later ran Madison Square Garden, and is thus in the Hockey Hall of Fame). Howard Jones, later to be the founder of the USC football dynasty, coached Yale in the 1909 and 1913 seasons.

* From the 1910s: Coach Thomas "Tad" Jones, quarterback Art Howe (not related to the later Mets manager), end Doug Bomeisler and center Hank Ketcham (not related to the later Dennis the Menace cartoonist).

* From the 1920s: Coach Tad Jones, halfback Mal Stevens, tackle Century Milstead, fullback Bill Mallory (not related to the later Indiana coach, who was once an assistant at Yale) and guard Herbert Sturhahn.

* From the 1930s: Halfback Albie Booth, end Larry Kelley and halfback Clint Frank. Kelley won the Heisman Trophy in 1936, Frank in 1937.

* Since the 1930s: 1965-96 head coach Carmen Cozza and early 1970s running back Dick Jauron (later head coach of the Chicago Bears).

Not in the College Hall, but with notable pro careers are: Tackle Century Milstead, of the 1927 NFL Champion Giants; tackle John Prchlik, of the 1952 and '53 NFL Champion Detroit Lions; center Mike Pyle, of the 1963 NFL Champion Bears; running back Chuck Mercein, of the Super Bowl II-winning Green Bay Packers, having played for the Giants before that and the Jets afterward; running back Calvin Hill, of the Super Bowl VI-winning Dallas Cowboys, and father of Basketball Hall-of-Famer Grant Hill; tight end John Spagnola, of the 1980 NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles; and safety Gary Fencik, of the Super Bowl XX-winning Bears. There is 1 current NFL player who went to Yale, Atlanta Falcons linebacker Foyesade Oluokun.

Probably the most famous Yale football player of all was Brian Dowling, a quarterback from Cleveland, who led Yale to a share of the 1968 Ivy League title. (More about that shortly.) That year, the Yale Daily News published a comic strip titled Bull Tales, whose lead character was "B.D.," a parody of Dowling.

In 1970, the strip's writer, Garry Trudeau, got to nationally syndicate the strip, which he renamed for another character, Doonesbury. Over the years, B.D. was shown as the quarterback and later the head coach for fictional Walden College, a backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, a California Highway Patrol officer (a "CHiP"), and a soldier who loses a leg in Iraq. The character remains in the strip today, still more conservative than most of the main characters.

The real Dowling played for the Patriots from 1970 to 1973, the World Football League version of the Charlotte Hornets in 1974 and '75, and the Packes in 1977, before becoming a stockbroker and a venture capitalist, which you would tend to expect from a Yalie.

Walter Camp -- halfback 1876-1881, head coach 1888-1892, and writer about the game from then until his death in 1925 -- is known as "The Father of American Football." He invented the center snap, the seven-linemen-and-four-back system, the four-down system, and the current scoring system including the invention of the safety. He also named the 1st All-America Team, starting a tradition that continues to this day.
The night before the game, the Glee Clubs of each schools have a joint concert. Among the songs they sing is "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard." New players are required to memorize it in both English and Latin. Here's the English chorus:
Boola boola, boola boola
Boola boola, boola boola
When we rough house poor old Hahvahd
They will holler, “Boola boo”
Oh Yale, Eli Yale!  Oh Yale, Eli Yale!