Late November is the time for many traditional football rivalries i.e. Penn-Cornell, Army-Navy, etc but for New Englanders, there is Harvard-Yale and particularly Boston College vs Holy Cross, two Jesuit institutions both in Massachusetts. I specifically recall their famous game in November 1940. Boston College was heavily favored and their team included an All-American halfback Mike Holovak. BC was so confident of winning that they had planned a victory dinner celebration at a local night club. But a football takes strange bounces and Holy Cross came out on top. There was so much disappointment in the BC camp that they cancelled their celebration at the Coconut Grove Night club that evening which was the night of the great fire that consumed the facility and caused hundreds to lose their lives. Sometimes you win by losing. It was seventy years ago this month. Many of those athletes soon went off to war to fight a more serious contest on a different field of battle.
teejay8232@aol.com
Next - Brevity with levity.
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