The Game - 1882 Edition

Yale at Harvard for all the marbles

The Game - 1882 Edition

If you want to know when The Game really became The Game, look no further back than 1882.

Football was growing in popularity throughout the United States, slowly but surely. This article from a Maine newspaper gives an example of the feeling of the time:

The article then went on to play up the upcoming game between unbeaten Harvard and unbeaten Yale:

From The Saturday Journal (Lewiston, Maine), November 25, 1882, page 7

And The Game was really big in 1882. Harvard had beaten Princeton the week before by a 2-1 margin, marking the first time that Harvard had given up a goal all season:

Yale, meanwhile, had not given up a single point:

The game was a success at the gates — but, then again, it was always going to draw a large crowd. However, I’m not sure that the new “downs” system necessarily had the desired effect, since it wound up a very defensive affair:

From The Boston Globe, November 26, 1882, page 8

Harvard had a lot of difficulty advancing the ball and had to take several safeties. At least the only score this time came from an actual goal. Yale, meanwhile, had made three touchdowns but was only able to kick the ball through the goal once in its 1-0 victory.

As usual, The Game attracted a lot of attention from New York newspapers:

From The New York Times, November 26, 1882, page 9

From New-York Daily Tribune, November 26, 1882, page 2

From The Sun (New York), November 26, 1882, page 6

From Boston Evening Transcript, November 27, 1882, page 2

I haven’t been able to find any coverage outside New England and New York. I do know that word of the sport would eventually spread to other states in those days, but it seems that it took several weeks at least.