On Saturday, the Brown football team will travel to Harvard
Stadium, seeking their first road win against Harvard this
century. As Brunonians head north on the commuter rail or I-95
to follow the Bears to Boston, they might wonder how Brown has
historically performed in this storied matchup.
The answer? Poorly.
Last year, the Bears stunned the Crimson, stealing a
game-winning touchdown in the final 30 seconds of the game to
clinch their first victory against Harvard in 14 years. This
Saturday, they’ll attempt to secure their first back-to-back win
in 26 years, and after last weekend’s massacre against
Georgetown, there’s reason for hope. During the Bears’
season-opening 46-0 shutout against the Hoyas, Brown flexed an
electric offense and suffocating defense. It was the Bears’
largest margin of victory since 1949, and the 18th-largest
margin of victory in the history of Bruno football.
So after a historically strong first game of the season, the
Bears will try to turn the page to a new age of competitive
football this Saturday at 6 p.m. But with decades of dominance
in their back pocket, the Crimson have other plans. Will Brown
keep the momentum going, or was last year’s win just a fluke? It
all relies on Head Coach James Perry ’00 and his seemingly
revamped football squad.
The storied Brown-Harvard rivalry is, admittedly, one-sided. As
Perry told The Herald, Harvard’s “rival is Yale.”
But this unilateral dynamic opens up an opportunity for Brown to
“play this game on our terms,” Perry said. “We love it. And if
they don’t view it the exact same way, that’s fine.”
Below is an in-depth breakdown of the entire history of the
Brown–Harvard rivalry, from 1893 to the present.
In 1893, in their first-ever game against
Harvard,
the Brown football team lost by a
historic margin of 58 points
while failing to put up any points of their own.
The Bears’ first rival was not Harvard, but Dartmouth, according
to Brown Athletics Archivist Peter Mackie ’59. “Brown and
Dartmouth were not big enough or powerful enough to compete with
Harvard and Yale, so they created their own rivalry which was
really, really intense,” Mackie said.
But at the same time, the games between Harvard and Brown
continued in 1894 with two face-offs that year — the only time
the two teams have faced off twice in one regular season. The
first game that year saw Bruno’s first touchdown against the
Crimson after a 60-yard run by quarterback William Hopkins,
class of 1897. But Brown still lost the game 4-18. At the time,
touchdowns had different point allowances.
The second game of the year was highly anticipated by students.
“All the team are anxious to meet Harvard again and will
undoubtedly play a game which will not in any way lower Brown’s
reputation on the football field,” The Herald wrote prior to the
game.
Despite high hopes, Brown lost to the Crimson yet again.
A
Herald contributor complained of the referee’s
decisions,
writing that “his most conspicuous unfair decisions were made
when Harvard was most in need of them” and “even the most
enthusiastic Harvard supporters exchanged knowing looks.”
From 1893 to 1913, Bruno suffered 21 consecutive losses to the
Crimson. No game was played between the two schools in 1904,
when
Harvard’s manager said Brown’s team was too
strong to “play
late in the season,” The Herald reported. Bruno had suffered a
harrowing 0-29 loss to the Crimson the year before.
In 1914, Bruno finally broke their losing
streak — albeit with a tie. But the game was dirty, and The
Herald wrote that Harvard could “claim the moral victory.”
To celebrate ending the losing streak, first-year students were
sent to gather wood for a bonfire. The Crimson gifted the Bears
the game ball, which was presented in a ceremony with then-Brown
President William Faunce, class of 1880.
Two years later, the Bears finally had their first
victory. Running back Fritz Pollard, class of 1919 and later the
first Black head coach in the NFL, helped lead Brown to its
first triumph over Harvard. Pollard “changed the trajectory of
Brown football,” Mackie said.
At that 1916 game, the stadium was “just packed with people,”
Mackie said. “Pollard ran wild in that game.”
“From every point of view, Fritz Pollard was the feature player
of the game,” The Herald wrote at the time. “His spectacular
work on offence and defense brought the 32,000 people in the
stands to their feet time and again, and it may be said with
truth that without Pollard the final score would have been
decidedly different.”
According to Mackie, Harvard used to claim that they played
their second string against Brown in the early 1900s games.
“That was an issue that really rankled Brown because it had
signaled they really didn’t respect us,” Mackie said.
In 1917, World War I began to impact Brown football, Mackie
said. No game was played that year, since Harvard did not have a
formal team. Bruno got their second-ever win in 1918 against a
weakened Crimson.
In 1925, Brown vs. Harvard was held in
Providence for the first time, following the completion of Brown
Stadium. Brown lost that game, breaking a three-year win streak.
The stadium celebrates its 100th anniversary this season.
A 30-acre athletic complex was constructed in addition to the
stadium, Mackie noted. These improved facilities “put Brown on
the athletic map.”
In 1926, Brown had its only undefeated season —
led by the “Brown Iron Men,” a group that earned its name by
playing consecutive games against Yale and Dartmouth without any
substitutions, Mackie said. The group was subbed out in the last
few minutes of the next game against Harvard, he added.
Games against Harvard continued through 1942,
with an exception in 1939. After not playing in 1943 and 1944
due to World War II, the rivalry was renewed in 1945 with
another Brown loss.
Brown pulled off a surprise victory in 1952. A
last-minute tie against the Crimson in the 1954 game marked the
start of Brown’s most successful decade of the rivalry. Bruno
went on a five-game win streak from 1955 to 1959, finishing the
decade 6-3-1.
A student at the time, Mackie remembers that era well — Brown
bested Harvard in all four games played during his time as an
undergraduate. The team saw a lot of support: “Everybody went to
the games on Saturdays,” he recalled.
But soon after, the Bears encountered “a lot of problems,” he
added.
In the 1960s, Brown football was at a low point. “It was so
embarrassing for me as a recent” alum, Mackie said. At that
time, Brown had no real rival. Any victory would’ve been a good
victory, Mackie explained.
In an email to The Herald, Dewey Moser ’64 P’90 wrote that
Brown’s only victory over Harvard during his football career was
at a separate first-year-only game in the fall of 1960.
Moser recalled teammate Anthony Matteo’s ’64 mother attending
the game. “After showering and changing we got on the bus and
Matteo’s mom showed up with boxes of Italian sandwiches and
goodies. That made the ride back to Providence even more
satisfying.”
At that 1976 Harvard-Brown game, ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman
’77 — a former Herald writer and then-radio announcer for
Brown’s team — got into a blow-up argument in the press box at
Harvard Stadium, Mackie said.
“I remember how psyched I was after we won. Then I overheard
their radio guys saying how ‘lucky’ Brown was,” Berman said in
an interview with GoLocalProv. “So, I reached my boiling point
and pinned the two of them up against the wall and made them
admit that we weren’t lucky. They did, and that was that.”
In the 1980s, Steve Harrison ’90 came to Brown from West
Virginia to play varsity football. The rivalry against Harvard
was fierce during Harrison’s time at Brown, especially with
Bruno’s head coach John Rosenberg being a Harvard alum.
“When I was there, that was probably the game we most wanted to
win,” he said. The crowd at Harvard-Brown games tended to be
bigger, according to Harrison, likely because of the two
schools’ proximity.
While Brown did not take home a victory against the Crimson
during Harrison’s time on the team, he looks back fondly on the
1989 game. Bruno’s kicker was injured, so Harrison went to his
coach and asked to sub in. “That was the first game I kicked in
college,” he said. “I was two-for-two on my extra points.”
Quarterback James Perry ’00 — now Brown’s head
coach — led Brown to victory at Harvard Stadium in 1998. It
remains the last time Brown won on the road.
To Mackie, this is when the Harvard-Brown rivalry finally felt
mutual. “They really respected and feared us,” Mackie said.
“Fear is an important ingredient in football.”
Brown won again in 1999, capping off a six-win
decade. This was the last time Brown won back-to-back matchups —
though the Bears have another shot to do so on Saturday
evening.
In 2000, scheduling changes made the Harvard-Brown game both
teams’ Ivy League opener. Before that, Brown had been sandwiched
between other Ivies on Harvard’s schedule, Mackie said.
“The place in the schedule has a big impact on that tradition,”
Mackie said.
Perry agrees. In addition to kicking off the season, the game
tends to occur before the bone-deep cold of fall sinks in.
“There’s kind of a hoopla around it being good weather,” Perry
said.
And, at the end of the day, Harvard is just a “fun place to
hate,” Mackie added. “There’s that aura around Harvard that
draws people.”
Brown’s first 21st-century win came in 2008,
followed by a second in 2010. That 2010 win was the last before
the infamous 12-year losing streak that Brown snapped last
year.
In December 2018,
Brown hired Perry as head
coach. It remained to be seen if he could recapture the magic of
the late ’90s and end the losing streak. But Brown lost again in
2019. In 2020, the game was cancelled due to the COVID-19
pandemic.
In Brown’s most recent trip to Boston the Bears
came excruciatingly close to a win, but a fourth-quarter
comeback came up short.
But a year later, the comeback dream came true.
Brown recovered Harvard’s fumbled field goal snap and scored the
winning touchdown in the final seconds, to the delight of over
10,000 viewers.
Perry said the stadium was “the most energetic and loudest I’ve
ever seen.”
Ahead of Saturday’s game, “there is no motivation speech
necessary,” Perry said. In fact, the biggest challenge is not
becoming too emotional before heading out onto the field, Perry
added. “Tap into the emotions in a positive way and don’t get
carried away.”
“That game will be a
war,” Mackie said. On the heels of Brown’s 2024 victory, he
added, the Crimson “will respect us anew.”
