Kevin Rafferty '70 (Documentary Producer, Director, and Cinematographer, HARVARD BEATS YALE: 29-29, THE ATOMIC CAFE)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

On a crisp, clear afternoon in November 1968 forty thousand fans packed Harvard Stadium, Kevin Rafferty '70 among them. Expectations ran high. In New Haven all alumni had received two tickets apiece regardless of the number requested. In Cambridge officials filled the orders of the oldest classes first. When they reached 1949 they ran out of tickets and stopped. A scalper reportedly asked and received a thousand dollars for a block of eight seats.

On campuses across the country people were proclaiming that God was dead. In New Haven everyone knew he was alive and well. He wore number ten and played quarterback. His name was Brian Dowling.

No such optimism reigned in Cambridge. A majority of the twenty-two seniors, feeling underutilized and underappreciated for three years, wanted to quit the team, but at a meeting they decided to rally around their captain Vic Gatto.

That year Yale came to Cambridge undefeated as expected, but Harvard was also undefeated, which no one had expected. Both teams had a perfect season on the line.

An epic battle did not ensue. At the end of the first half Yale was leading 22-0 when Harvard coach John Yovicsin sent in junior quarterback Frank Champi who tossed a fifteen yard touchdown pass with thirty-nine seconds left. The conversion failed but 22-6 felt better than 22-0.

In the second half the senior quarterback again failed to move the team. Champi replaced him, and Harvard scored another touchdown. Then Yale scored making it 28-13. Convinced that Harvard could not come back, Yale went for the one point conversion, resulting in a score of 29-13.

But Champi was not through. He threw a touchdown pass with forty-two seconds left. The two point conversion succeeded. Then Harvard recovered the onside kick and scored again as time ran out. Pete Varney caught the two point conversion, and the next issue of The Crimson proclaimed, “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.”

Kevin Rafferty was an architectural sciences concentrator. As a matter of fact he had no interest in architecture, but this was the department where the filmmakers gathered. Two teachers stood out: documentary filmmaker Bob Gardner and Australian Don Levy. Levy had a PhD in physics and actually understood how lenses and cameras work. When he was hired to teach at a film school in California, Kevin went along as his assistant.

A year later Kevin was back in Cambridge working as a janitor, driving a taxi and writing grant applications. His first success came when New Hampshire Public Television commissioned him to make a documentary about a collective farm run by a Maoist commune.

Other documentaries followed, the best known being THE ATOMIC CAFE made in collaboration with Jayne Loader and his brother Pierce. It consisted of stock footage, news reels and government training films designed to assuage public fears about the bomb. To complete it Kevin moved to Washington, DC where the archives were. The project took five years.

In 2006 Kevin’s daughter was accepted at Yale. He began to think of his own experiences forty years before and the afternoon of The Game. He located a copy of the videotape, secured the rights and obtained the addresses of sixty-four players from both teams.

The Yalies lived all over the country; many of the Harvard players lived within an hour or two of the Yard. Kevin took a room at a bed and breakfast in Cambridge and began filming interviews.

Harvard captain Vic Gatto was one of the first. He had changed very little in forty years. By chance Brian Dowling was scheduled next, and Gatto agreed to stay so that the two of them could be filmed together.

Dowling arrived late. Gatto had to go to a meeting. So Kevin had only ten minutes to record their reminiscences. Later he reviewed the tape. He had each individual interview, but the ten minutes of the two together were missing. In his excitement he had neglected to turn on the camera.

The interview with Frank Champi was critical to the project. He is a very private person who has avoided publicity and was reluctant to be involved. However once Kevin set up the camera in his kitchen and won his confidence, he opened up. Most interviews ran forty minutes. His went on for ninety, and would have lasted longer if Kevin did not have to leave for another appointment.

Tight end Pete Varney, who had caught the final two point conversion, provided another perspective. Asked if this play marked the high point of his athletic career, he hesitated and then explained the thrill he experienced when, playing for the White Sox, he hit his first major league home run against the Yankees.

No one who was involved in any way with that November afternoon has forgotten it. (Your faithful correspondent was a ticketless graduate student and had to listen to the radio.) Everyone who wishes to know more should visit www.kino.com. The DVD of HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29 will be released on July 28. The book will be published by Overlook Press in November.