The “8: Ivy League Football and America” DVD explores the unique role that the Ivy League schools played in developing American football. From the day Princeton played the first intercollegiate game in 1869 football caught America in its grip. By the 1880s, New York’s Manhattan Field overflowed to watch Princeton and Yale play for the national championship on Thanksgiving Day, and Ivy League teams produced many of the men who would build football as we know it today: Walter Camp, Pop Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg, John Heisman, and John Outland. But by the turn of the 20th Century, the Ivy League schools also forged a game so violent that it took the intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt to save it.

This is a limited stock item and makes a great stocking stuffer. Click HERE for more info and to purchase. Shop today!

Launching later today and designed by yours truly! Harvard shares the Ivy title with Brown this year. Harvard also won last year creating back to back Championships! Go Crimson football! Check the Ivysport Champions Fall Store later in the day.

Sneek-peak; Ivysport’s Ivy Champions; 2008 Brown Ivy League Football Champions. This is Brown’s second championship in the last three years (2005).  These should be up shortly followed by Harvard’s Football Champions. This is Harvard’s second consecutive win and its first title repeat since 1982-83.

Courtesy of Brown Sports Information and Harvard Athletic Communications

In two different games with similar frigid conditions, Brown and Harvard completed their championship seasons with wins to share the 2008 Ivy League Football title.

In the 125th edition of “The Game”, Harvard emerged with a 10-0 victory over Yale for the program’s 13th Ivy League Championship fighting through swirling winds, single-digit temperatures at Harvard Stadium.

Just over 50 miles away in Providence, R.I., Brown came away with a 41-10 victory over Columbia for its fourth Ivy Football title playing in sub-freezing temperatures on the frozen tundra at Brown Stadium.

For Harvard, the title is the Crimson’s second consecutive Ancient Eight Championship and its first title repeat since 1982-83. With the victory, Harvard (9-1, 6-1 Ivy) became just the eighth team in history to come back from a loss in its league opener and still win the championship.

Brown’s win gave the Bears (7-3, 6-1) their third Ivy title in the last 10 years and fourth-ever Ivy Football championship. The Bears had previously captured Ivy League titles in 1976, 1999 and 2005.

Conditions for “The Game” would have seemed to favor Yale (6-4, 4-3) with the nation’s top-defense in terms of points allowed to compliment All-Ivy running back senior Mike McLeod. Only it was Harvard with the staunch defense and game-breaking running attack that left its mark on the frozen turf of Harvard Stadium. The Crimson defense held McLeod to 65 yards on 21 rushing attempts and the Bulldog offense to just 90 total yards – the fewest Harvard has allowed since last year’s game, when Yale was held to 123 yards.

The Harvard offense, though it did not find the end zone more than once, moved the ball and controlled the clock throughout. The Crimson possessed the ball for 39:15 while netting 370 yards of offense, 261 of those coming on the ground.

Sophomore running back Gino Gordon led the ground attack with 39 touches for 177 yards and the lone touchdown. The 177 rushing yards by Gordon are the most a Harvard back has gained against Yale since 1998, when Eion Hu also racked up 177 yards on the ground via 40 carries en route to a 26-21 Harvard victory. Senior quarterback Chris Pizzotti, in his final game in a Crimson uniform, had an effective day in 30 mile-per-hour winds, finishing 12 of 21 passing for 109 yards. He also ran 16 times for 74 yards.

Brown’s fourth Ivy League Championship was especially sweet for its seniors. This year’s group of 21 seniors, Brown’s Class of 2009, became the first class in Brown football history to earn two Ivy League Championships.

The win over Columbia for the Ivy title further enhanced the coaching credentials of Bears’ head coach Phil Estes, who has now led Brown to three Ivy League Championships in his 11 years as head coach of the Bears. Brown had captured one Ivy League Championship in the previous 43 years.

The offensive hero for the Bears was senior quarterback Michael Dougherty, who braved the elements to throw three touchdowns on passes of 32, 21 and 13 yards, and run for another, a 22-yard touchdown scamper. He completed 18 of 35 passes for 261 yards in near impossible throwing conditions.

Senior running back Dereck Knight was a workhorse in the second half, running for a game high 87 yards, including 50 in the second half as the Bears ran out the clock.

Junior wide receivers Bobby Sewall and Buddy Farnham each caught six passes, Farnham for 76 yards and a 21-yard touchdown grab, and Sewall a 13-yard touchdown grab and a three-yard touchdown run

from: IvyLeagueSports.com

With Brown’s 45-16 rout of Dartmouth and Harvard’s 24-21 thrilling win over Penn this Saturday, the Ivy League Football title will come down to the final weekend.

Brown and Harvard enter the last Saturday of the 2008 season each at 5-1. The Bears host Columbia at 1 p.m. while The Crimson welcomes Yale at Noon in the 125th edition of The Game and The Ivy League Game of the Week, Presented by TIAA-CREF. The two teams will share the Ivy title with wins. A Brown win and a Harvard loss would give the Bears their fourth-ever Ivy title and first since 2005. A Harvard win and a Brown loss would give the Crimson its 13th Ivy championship and third in five seasons (2004 and 2007).

For the first time in Ivy League history, four teams could share the Ivy Football title. If Brown loses to Columbia, Yale defeats Harvard and Penn wins over Cornell, the League crown will be shared by Brown, Harvard, Penn and Yale with identical 5-2 League records. Twice three teams shared the Ivy Football title since 1956 –- in 1966 (Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton at 6-1) and 1982 (Dartmouth, Harvard and Penn at 5-2). The 2006 season was the last time the Ivy title was shared when Princeton and Yale each ended the 2006 season at 6-1.

Here is the schedule for the final weekend of the 2008 Ivy Football season:

Yale at Harvard, Noon
Columbia at Brown, 12:30 p.m.
Penn at Cornell, 1 p.m.
Dartmouth at Princeton, 1 p.m.

The Yale-Harvard game can be seen nationally on the VERSUS Network (DirecTV 608, DISH 151) and heard nationally on Sirius Satellite Radio (Channel 130).

from: IvyLeagueSports.com

Here’s a sneak-peak to the upcoming THE GAME Harvard-Yale or… Yale-Harvard shirts. I have to say that these are my favorite THE GAME designs that I’ve designed in most recent years. When designing them I thought about the reference “Harvard-Yale” and then imagined the yells and oppositions of “No! It’s Yale-Harvard!” How can I make both sides happy and excited about this year’s THE GAME shirt? Got it! Create their own shirts and further differentiate them by the color of the shirts respective to each university’s color. On top of that give them our vintage distressed treatment and… masterpiece.

The shirts feature “Since 1875″ for the first year THE GAME was played. Harvard’s shirt features “Harvard vs Yale” and Yale’s shirt features “Yale vs Harvard” below “THE GAME”. Also, on the front left bottom, there is a small print of the location of the each respective school’s football stadium: “Ath. Dept Boston” for Harvard and “Ath. Dept. New Haven” for Yale.

THE GAME will also be available on hooded sweatshirts for both schools and will be launching tomorrow…at the latest Thursday morning just in time for THE GAME later this month on the 22nd. Check back here (Ivysport’s THE GAME Shop) to get yours for the best selection of sizes. As always – these are produced in limited quantities so once they’re gone, they’re gone forever!

Go Crimson! Go Bulldogs! Go Ivy League! Go Ivysport!

Eight is narrated by two-time Tony Award winning actor Brian Dennehy (Columbia ’60) and features interviews with Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones (Harvard ’69), Penn State Coach Joe Paterno (Brown ’50), ESPN anchor Chris Berman (Brown ’77), General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt (Dartmouth ’78), former Secretary of State George Shultz (Princeton ’42), College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik (Penn ‘49), four-time Pro Bowl running back Calvin Hill (Yale ’69), Chicago Bears standout lineman Dan Jiggetts (Harvard ’76), Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmaier (Princeton ’52), actor and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ed Marinaro (Cornell ’72), Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell (Columbia ‘62), and many others.

The film is directed by Erik Greenberg Anjou (A Cantor’s Tale: Ergo Media and the cool surface: Columbia TriStar) and produced by Anjou and Mark F. Bernstein (author of Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). It was edited by Karlyn Michelson (Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence and A Cantor’s Tale) and features an original score by Grammy-nominated guitarist Gary Lucas (Gods and Monsters).

from: www.IvyLeagueSports.com