The Best Football Movie You’ve Never Seen
Tommy Lee Jones played for Harvard, a Yale fullback dated Meryl Streep, and the home team scored 16 points in 42 seconds in a legendary game
Imagine a college football team that scored an astounding 16 points in the last 42 seconds of the season’s final game against its archrival.
Then imagine that Tommy Lee Jones played for that team and that the opposing players included a fullback who was dating Meryl Streep.
Finally, imagine that both teams went onto the field undefeated — and that the contest was called “the most famous football game in Ivy League history.”
All of this might sound like sound like something dreamed up by a desperate Hollywood producer hoping to pack theaters with exciting yet family-friendly fare during the holiday season.
But that scenario unfolded when Harvard and Yale, both undefeated and with 8–0 records, met at Harvard Stadium on November 23, 1968.
As remarkable as the game was, it might have been forgotten by all but Ivy League football trivia buffs had not the filmmaker Kevin Rafferty rounded up graying players from both teams for the widely praised 2008 documentary Harvard Beats Yale, 29–29. Among those he interviewed: the…
