The USG has chartered two buses to carry more than a 100 students to Cambridge, Mass., to watch the 100th-ever Princeton vs. Harvard football game Saturday.
The charters cost $1,000 per bus, with funds coming from the USG senate pilot fund and a $500 donation from the Princeton Football Association, an organization dedicated to the preservation and improvement of football at Princeton. Student bus tickets cost $10 each, and the USG bought group-rate game tickets from Harvard.
Last year, near the end of a successful season, then-USG vice president and current USG president Rob Biederman '08 chartered 10 buses to Yale for 500 Princeton students. The game resulted in a long-awaited bonfire and contributed to an Ivy League co-championship. After the victory, the students — a 10th of Princeton's total undergraduate population — rushed the field.
This year's trip setup will be similar to last year's, featuring food, a quiet bus and a small present for those who attend. USG vice president Josh Weinstein '09, who is organizing the Harvard trip, promised Year in Review calendars as a "party favor" for those who take the trip.
But the five-hour ride is much longer than the trip to Yale. The game begins at 12:30 p.m., necessitating a 7:15 a.m. departure time. The buses are scheduled to reach Harvard around noon and to leave Harvard Stadium around 4 p.m., getting back to Princeton around 9 p.m.
Weinstein said it was unfortunate that the length of the trip and the week the game occurs might dissuade some students from going. "One of the big shames is that it's at 12:30 and right before midterms," he said.
The players, however, will avoid the early wakeup call their fans face, traveling to Harvard on Friday morning and spending the night in a hotel. "I always measure a trip by the number of movies we watch," said Tim Boardman '08, a middle linebacker, noting that the ride to Harvard would be a two-movie trip.
"On the bus, I play out the game in my mind," he added.
Wide receiver Brendan Circle '08 said he appreciates the cheers of supporters when playing at an away game. "It really helped to have fans behind us when we started to make that comeback," he said, referring to last year's victory over Yale. "They were able to ignite that comeback."
There has been some talk about continuing to offer fan buses in the future, and Weinstein said he hopes to "make it a new tradition."
"It could really raise school spirit," he said.
Boardman said he liked the idea. "It's great as a player to have a fan base on the road," he said.
But Jamie Zaninovich, senior associate director of athletics, said he thinks the bus charters are "better as a student initiative. It means more to the team that it is student-run, student-funded."
Weinstein had a shorter-term goal for this Saturday's bus trip — keeping up football fans' spirits.
"Hopefully the bonfire is still alive," he said.
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