Blue Power: Brian Dowling, Calvin Hill, and Greatness at Yale (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798218742867)

Led by the remarkable Kingman Brewster Jr., the only university president in history to appear on the cover of Time and Newsweek, Yale was an interesting place amidst the changing cultural mores of the 1960s. As America grappled with an unpopular land war in southeast Asia, strident demands for Civil Rights, and an emerging counterculture roiling with rebellion, Yale had something students and faculty --political differences aside could agree upon and rally around every Saturday: an exciting, championship football team with a 16-game winning streak, the nation's longest, spanning 1967-1968. USC, the defending national champions, and its (eventual) 1968 Heisman Trophy winner, Orenthal James Simpson, could not match that.

Yale's iconic duo of quarterback Brian Dowling --who never lost a game he finished after the 7th grade-- and halfback Calvin Hill (voted 1969 NFL offensive rookie of the year over Simpson), were the Bulldogs' brightest stars. In 1968, head coach Carmen Cozza's Ivy League powerhouse averaged 36 points per game through eight games. Their average winning margin was an astounding three touchdowns.

Blue Power is the story --a very human story-- of a team filled with superb athletes (one of whom was dating a Vassar undergraduate named Meryl Streep), and their two-season "Date with Destiny." Despite their dominance, and a Top Twenty national ranking, they remained humble. Only one obstacle stood between the 8-0 Bulldogs and their first Perfect Season since 1960: their arch-rivals, Harvard University, who were also 8-0. When Cozza's team took the field at Harvard Stadium on November 23, 1968, for the 85th renewal of THE GAME, no one could possibly have imagined what lay in store, for both teams. And that when they walked off the field at game's end, Yale epic streak would be forgotten almost instantly. Even though they did not lose.