The Gridgraph

The sensations experienced by a person watching the gridgraph operate for the first time are many and varied. One is conscious of an appearance of reality and unreality. The crowd files in in a normal way and you pick your seat hoping that the pair of knees pushed against your spinal vertebrae will not get sharper as the game progresses. There are the usual number of small boys, passing and kicking a football and affording an opportunity to say "Sit Down!" when the game starts. There are plenty of dogs too but they seemed cowed and discouraged.

Then the music (if that's the right term) starts, reminding one of an old player piano in a cheap Chinese restaurant. Soon the board is enlivened by a small circular disk, flashing on and off as if someone were playing the mirror game from a near-by window. An invisible announcer from some well protected station proclaims the weather, the size of the crowd and who won the toss.

Now we are off. Lights mysteriously glow, now here, now there, indicating the play, the ball receiver and then the little globe in the center starts to travel. It isn't a bit courageous or determined. It recedes, advances, pauses and when you think the darn thing is at rest, it squirms another five yards contrary to the rule of not advancing when motion forward is stopped. Not having the eyes of a lynx you ask your neighbor what the play was and who carried the ball. After about six inquiries answered with decreasing impatience you give it up and wait in suspense as the devilish glow creeps nearer and nearer your goal line.

It goes over but it doesn't seem real even when you are supposed to add up several illuminated figures to determine whether the goal was kicked or not. You feel you have just seen a small ter- restrial body mow down a row of stars somewhere in limitless space. Forward passes and blocked kicks are hopeless, just mad meteors appearing suddenly from nowhere and disappearing. Yet there is a distinct feeling of reality too, when Dartmouth starts down the field, making gain on steady gain. The cheering is excellent "Go Dartmouth, Go Dartmouth, Go! Go! Go!" just as if you were seeing eleven fighting green warriors forcing their opponents back to their goal line. There is a fumble and the crowd groans. Our opponents get the ball and take fully five minutes to run the first play. "Penalize them five years" someone yells, and the cheer changes to "Hold Dartmouth, Hold Dartmouth" or "Block that kick!" And when a fast linesman does that very thing, pandemonium breaks loose.

The glow ball suddenly fades into space, the game is over but was it a game you saw? The newspapers next day will tell. It seemed more like a carefully conceived effort to muddle your brain, double cross your eyes, and leave you weak and exhausted. For Dartmouth lost another Yale game.