Alumni

Seeking a Flag-Bearer!

March-April 2020 [1]

Alumnus Paul Lee ’46 carries the (replica) Little Red Flag at the 2012 Harvard-Yale game. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.

At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.
Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue

At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.

Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue

For more than 100 years, the Harvard College graduate who had attended the most Harvard-Yale football games carried to The Game a small red silk pennant as a talisman of luck. The Little Red Flag [5] was waved by nine men from 1884 through 2001. At that time the Varsity Club established new criteria for entitlement to carry the Little Red Flag, which did not incorporate the original premise of simply having seen the most H-Y games. In 2010, Spencer Ervin '54 and Steve Goodhue '51 revived the original spirit of the LRF by crafting a replica and continuing the tradition of entrusting it to the appropriate flagbearer. Richard Bennink '38 and Paul Lee '46 carried the LRF after its reincarnation.

Paul Lee, with 75 H-Y games to his credit, died in September 2018. Consequently a new flagbearer is sought. Candidates are strongly encouraged to present their credentials to the temporary custodians of the Little Red Flag, Spencer Ervin and Jeff Lee '74, at law [6]@ [6]spencerervin.com [6] or jeffpaullee [7]@ [7]gmail.com [7]. (A potential flagbearer waits in the wings with 60 H-Y games witnessed.) The transfer of the LRF to the new bearer will take place shortly before the start of the 137th playing of The Game, on November 21, 2020, at Harvard Stadium.