After 12 years, Old Nassau to see blaze on Cannon Green

After 12 years in the dark, thousands of students, alumni and community members will assemble this evening on Cannon Green to reignite a hallowed University tradition known simply as "The Bonfire."

The football team is providing the occasion for the celebration, having completed their sweep of rivals Harvard and Yale — the first time since 1994 — on Saturday. Tomorrow, the Tigers face off against Dartmouth, with the Ivy League Championship on the line.

Football team senior co-captains Luke Steckel and Jeff Terrell will light the pyre being constructed today by student volunteers from each class. Before the lighting, USG president Alex Lenahan '07 and senior class president Jim Williamson will emcee a 10-minute program that will include short speeches by President Tilghman, football coach Roger Hughes, Steckel and Terrell.

Anticipation has been high since Saturday's 34-31 come-from-behind victory over Yale. Students stormed the field at the Yale Bowl in celebration, joining the University Band in a spontaneous rendition of "Old Nassau."

"I feel like there's a lot of excitement," Daniel Gadala-Maria '09 said of the bonfire.

"When it was originally scheduled for Thursday, I had heard a lot of talk of people skipping Thursday precepts and labs to go to this bonfire," he said. "It's a pretty important thing, because I know some people who wouldn't normally skip class, but they were going to do it in a heartbeat."

The bonfire was postponed one day on Wednesday due to rain.

Some students are making more drastic changes to their schedules to avoid missing out.

Tom Brown '07 planned to go to Boston today for part of the weekend but cancelled the trip after predicting the bonfire would be moved to today due to rain.

"The bonfire's a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I couldn't miss it," Brown said.

Even alumni are excited for the occasion, especially recent graduates who, like current students, have never witnessed Nassau Hall and Whig and Clio Halls awash in the orange glow of the bonfire.

"You never know when this is going to happen again," Benjamin Sharma '03 said. On Wednesday Sharma made the trip down to Princeton from Cambridge, where he's a graduate student at Harvard. "I thought I might as well come see it."

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Sharma said his friends at Harvard were puzzled upon hearing of the tradition, which they said sounded uncivilized. His response: "You didn't go to Princeton."

"It's just that we've been waiting for it for so long," Gadala-Maria said.

"I'm just a sophomore, but a lot of people have been here for several years, and some people are big fans of Tiger football and came to all the games," he said. "We've just been wanting it. And now that it's finally here, it's just unreal."