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The Game Keeps Them Coming Back Every Year

Things have changed since 1923, when Harold B. Sedgwick '30 attended his first Harvard-Yale game.

Back then, Harvard was still reveling in its recent Rose Bowl victory, football players were legends and spectators rushed the field after The Game and tore the goalposts from the ground.

As a high school student at Phillips Exeter, Sedgwick saw his first Harvard-Yale game. His cousin, R.M. "Duke" Sedgwick '21, was left tackle on the team that won the Rose Bowl.

"Duke was a famous Harvard football player," Sedgwick recalls. "I was seven years younger, [and] he was my hero."

That game began a tradition for the younger Sedgwick, who will attend his 60th Harvard-Yale game tomorrow. He's been to The Game every year except for 1948-57 when he was rector of a church in Washington, D.C.

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The Episcopal priest, who lives in Lexington, is 91 years old and still tailgates like an undergraduate.

Well, not exactly like an undergraduate.

Sedgwick's tailgates, which feature candlesticks and crystal glasses, have been written up inTown and Country, The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated.

Tomorrow, the radio station WBUR is profiling Sedgwick on its morning show.

"I'm 91 years old...and I've always hoped I've done something to make the world a little better," says the Crimson editor and former History and Literature concentrator. "But I never achieved fame until I began waving the little sentimental Harvard flag."

Sedgwick is the seventh custodian of "the little red Harvard flag," which has been waved at every one of the 115 Harvard-Yale games.

"It's like the Olympic torch," he says. "It never drops to the ground."

Sedgwick remembers classic Harvard-Yale matches like the one in 1968. Both teams were undefeated and Yale led the game 29-13 with 46 seconds left.

Suddenly, Harvard scored two touchdowns and two point conversions to tie the game.

"The '68 Game," Sedgwick recalls fondly. "Needless to say, that's ingrained in the memory of every Harvard man."

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