This is not the kind of post I usually do and I hope it's not offensive to anyone. But, being a sports fan in general and a football fan in particular, I get a kick out of all the trash talking and stuff like that which goes on before a game. I know that we preacher's aren't supposed to like trash talk, but it's usually all in good fun.
So, this week's Sports Illustrated just came out and it has a sidebar that talks about some of the greatest student body pranks of all time. You know, the one's where one team goes and steals the other team's mascot, or paints the their tiger or lion statue pink.
SI listed a few of the better ones they know of, but the best one happened at the 2004 Harvard-Yale game on November 20, 2004. At the game 20 Yale students donned custom made "Harvard Pep Squad" t-shirts and went into the Harvard stands and passed out 1800 sheets of red and white construction paper. They told the Harvard fans that, on a predetermined signal, they were to raise their piece of paper over their heads and it would spell out "Go Harvard." However, when they did it, here's what the Harvard fans actually spelled out.
Not exactly what the Harvard folks were expecting.
If it's any consolation to the Harvard folks, at least one Yale fan had about two minutes of remorse over this:
It was almost sad," said [prankster Dylan] Davey. "There were all these grandfather and grandmother types -- and they all had big smiles, saying, 'Oh you're so cute, I'm so glad you're doing this.' I felt bad for about two minutes. Then I got over it.
Gotta hand it to those smart people - that's one of the best pranks I have ever heard of.
HA! That's pretty darn funny I must say!
Posted by: Jacob Allee | December 08, 2005 at 09:23 AM
No doubt about it. It is a classic!
Posted by: Michael | December 08, 2005 at 10:14 AM
Actually, this has been done, in more spectacular fashion, by my Alma Mater over 40 years ago.
Posted by: SomeGuyNamedScott | December 08, 2005 at 11:21 AM
Actually, it's a knockoff of what Caltech did to Washington State in the 1962(?) Rose Bowl.
Except Caltech's prank was much more elaborate (3-4 flash-card stunts instead of one) and the prep-work for it (including fake press-passes and midnight "switcharoo" burglaries) reads like a Mission: Impossible script.
Posted by: Ken | December 08, 2005 at 11:57 AM
OK Ken and SomeGuyNamedScott - you gotta give us some links!!
Posted by: David Wayne | December 08, 2005 at 11:59 AM
I did. Click on "done."
or, more obvious
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/pranks/rosebowl.html
Posted by: SomeGuyNamedScott | December 08, 2005 at 12:22 PM
Watch a video of the set-up for the prank!
http://harvardsucks.org/
Posted by: dml | December 08, 2005 at 03:18 PM
The Rose Bowl incident is now immortalized in The Jargon File, but an even better prank that MIT pulled at a Harvard-Yale game involving a weather balloon and a vacuum cleaner. Curious? http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html
Posted by: Kenny Pearce | December 09, 2005 at 01:23 AM
Brilliant.
Posted by: Kilby | December 09, 2005 at 02:25 PM
Nice.
Posted by: gid | December 12, 2005 at 04:13 PM