The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [217]
The way the men of Cambridge saw things, a victory here in New Haven in November would mean a successful 1955 season. Jack and Bobby sat in the stands at the Yale Bowl. So did Joe, who had brought along two railroad cars full of friends, associates, his New York staff, even the family cook. More than fifty-five thousand spectators sat in the open stands on this blustery day as the young men fought their way up and down the icy turf, sliding into the piles of snow on the sidelines. Several times the referees had to stop fistfights between opposing players.
As Joe watched Teddy running up and down the frozen field, the world below did not look that different from what it was four and a half decades earlier when Joe had first entered the gates of Harvard. Teddy had to prove his courage and his competitive zeal so that one day he would demonstrate those qualities on a larger field. Teddy may have shamed his family name by being caught cheating, but down on the field on this glorious afternoon he was the man Joe knew he must be.
The stadium trembled with cheering, and for three hours nothing mattered more in life than that the Harvard men should prove not wanting. It all may have been diminished from what it was in Joe’s day, but none there that afternoon could have imagined that within a few years the crowds would dwindle, the bands would play mocking airs, and those students who still bothered to come would for the most part watch from an ironical distance.
Joe had wanted few things in life as much as to see one of his sons on that field, not shuttled in for a play or two, but out there quarter after quarter. Even on the most splendidly exuberant of occasions, Joe’s thoughts were often haunted by memories of Joe Jr. On just such a day, Joe had watched as his oldest son sat on the bench, never getting into the Yale game for even a play to win the letter that he had struggled so to win.
Blasts of cold wind coursed across the field. In the third quarter, as Yale led 14–0, Harvard pushed up the field to within striking distance of the end zone. Teddy stood on the end of the line, waiting for the ball to be hiked. He was notoriously slow of foot, hardly the material for a great end. But at six feet two and 210 pounds, he had a beautifully proportioned athlete’s body and was fearless in the way he leaped after a ball. He also was so wondrously resilient, and of such good cheer, that even when he was viciously blocked, he jumped up and patted his opponent on the behind before trotting back to the huddle.
Teddy ran a few yards beyond the line of scrimmage, turned, caught a short pass, and ran into the end zone for Harvard’s first touchdown. The stadium erupted in applause, no one cheering louder than Teddy’s father and brothers. For all that the Kennedy men had tried for close to half a century, this was the first, last, and only great athletic moment in their history of playing football at Harvard. The Crimson scored no more, but when Joe, Bobby, and Jack entered the locker room after the game, they were not there to commiserate with a defeated team but to celebrate Teddy’s triumph. And when they shouted too loud and boasted too much, he shushed them as best he could, lest they bother his dispirited teammates. “My brothers and I were euphoric, and Harvard was depressed,” Teddy recalled. “It’s a great part of life, too … teaching you about the ups and downs and sort of coming back, and the irony of defeat and victory.”
Joe didn’t have to hide his high spirits on the train ride back to New York City. He replayed the touchdown