Secretly, we all knew that we witnessed, in real time, the making of an incredible sports-based legend during those tumultuous years.  Now, there’s a book that focuses exclusively on that story.

A freelance journalist with a Yale legacy past, Reg Lansberry (bio below), has written an affectionate biography of the Yale football team that went undefeated in the Fall of 1968.  He interviewed Brian, Calvin, and many, many other members of the team and has delivered a compelling narrative of the men, the coaches, Yale itself and the times, Blue Power: Brian Dowling, Calvin Hill, and Greatness at Yale.  Here is a summary:

BLUE POWER

Brian Dowling, Calvin Hill, and Greatness at Yale

Led by the remarkable Kingman Brewster Jr., the only university president in history to appear on the cover of both 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 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 premier 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 a Perfect Season: 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’s epic streak would be forgotten almost instantly. Even though they did not lose.

 You can buy a copy of the book directly from the author by clicking here:  

Testimonials:

 From Dick Jauron, Yale ’73, College Football Hall of Fame, 2015

Healthy rivalries in sport and in life are simply wonderful. They carry with them a huge rush of passion, energy, enthusiasm, focus, and clarity. They expose the best and the worst in our competitive natures.
“In 1968, on the final Saturday of the Ivy League football season, Yale and Harvard brought undefeated teams into Harvard Stadium to contest and decide the Ivy League Championship. In Blue Power: Brian Dowling, Calvin Hill, and Greatness at Yale, Reg Lansberry has done a masterful job recreating that time, that setting, that mood, those emotions, that intensity, and those characters. Enjoy this read. I certainly did. GO YALE. BEAT HARVARD!”

from Don W. Wilson, Ph.D., Seventh Archivist of the United States

“In Blue Power, author Reg Lansberry takes readers back nearly sixty years telling a story that is part collegiate football history, and part U.S. cultural history during a tumultuous period in our country. Even nominal football fans will enjoy reading about Yale’s legendary 1967-68 football seasons: the outstanding players and coaches who made up those teams and their heartbreaking tie game with Harvard to end the 1968 season. With excellent writing skills, meticulous research, numerous interviews and an infectious passion for the subject matter, the author creates a compelling social history featuring the players and coaches of these legendary Yale teams.”
—

from John Powers, Harvard ’70, a Boston Globe correspondent

“Thoroughly researched and colorfully recounted, Blue Power revives bygone Saturdays when B.D. and brethren conjured magic at the Bowl and beyond.”

from Bruce Pratt, author, poet, and host of Sports Lit 101

“Reg Lansberry transports us, through the lens of Yale football, to a time when the Ivy League began to transition from bastions of male-privileged into today’s more racially and economically diverse, co-educational institutions. Meticulously researched, history, sport, culture, society, Blue Power is one of the best books I’ve read this year.”–

About The Author:

Reg Lansberry has been a sports journalist for nearly five decades and followed Yale football for more than six decades. A native of Rowayton, Connecticut, his award-winning career began in 1977 at World Tennis magazine in New York, the start of a baker’s dozen years at the sport’s highest level, which concluded at the Men’s Tennis Council, the de facto worldwide governing body for men’s professional tennis. A member of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Association, he has written about thoroughbred racing for more than three decades. Also a member of the Society for International Hockey Research (SIHR), his work can occasionally be found in The Hockey News. He resides in Beaufort, South Carolina, with his wife, Kathy.