When I rolled up to the crowded and freezing tailgate at the Yale Bowl last year, my immediate reaction was: this ain’t college football. I came to Yale knowing it’s not a “football school,” but I expected the Harvard-Yale game to feel at least a little bit like the college football fanfare I was raised on as the child of a Lifelong-Louisiana-State-University-Geaux-Fighting-Tigers-Frat-Boy-I-Bleed-Purple-And-Gold-Football-Season-Ticket-Holder. I couldn’t help but compare my experience at The Game with LSU football, and everything about the Yale-Harvard Game fell short: I got lost at the overcrowded tailgate, drank a forgotten hard cider that was left on the ground, and stood in the half-empty stadium amongst the tired and cold crowd, explaining football to my suitemates as they literally fell asleep. I saw Yale win, but I never felt the euphoric pride I hoped to feel in the student section of a league-winning team. To me, Harvard-Yale felt more like a tired rivalry between two elitist institutions than an energized college football game, and I felt lost in the midst of the old ivy.

This Ain’t Football was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.