Lehigh University football player Matthew Cohen of Plainview will take part in the historic 150th football game between Lehigh University and Lafayette College in New York’s iconic Yankee Stadium on Nov. 22. The game, known simply as “The Rivalry,” is the most-played game in NCAA college history.
The Rivalry has continued unabated since 1897 for these two Patriot League schools well known for academic excellence and post-graduate success. This makes it not only the most played rivalry but the longest continuously played rivalry series in college football. This year also marks the 118th consecutive year.
Lafayette and Lehigh, two Division-I schools with great academic reputations separated by 16 miles in eastern Pennsylvania, first dueled in 1884, one year after standardized football rules were instituted in the U.S. In their first matchup, organized on Lehigh’s side by future war correspondent Richard Harding Davis, shoulder pads didn’t exist and footballs were shaped like ripe melons. Much has changed, including the invention of the football helmet by Lafayette’s George “The Rose” Barclay in 1894, and the forward pass, which Lehigh’s head coach Howard R. Reiter is credited with helping develop in the early 1900s.
The game is sold out, with almost 50,000 fans expected, making it one of the largest football crowds in the history of Yankee Stadium. Lafayette and Lehigh have a combined undergraduate population of less than 10,000 and combined alumni populations of about 100,000, meaning nearly half of all those who ever attended either school will see the game live.
“The Rivalry” is considered by ESPN and Sports Illustrated as one of the top college football competitions in the country. In an era of big money college athletics, “The Rivalry” exemplifies the true spirit of college sports. It’s a contest steeped in tradition, honored by passionate fans and sustained through two world wars.
It is the quality of scholar-athletes, like Cohen, that make “The Rivalry” such a proud and unique tradition.
