Football: A Season of Celebration

Princeton’s new football helmets carry reminders of the 150th-anniversary season — 1869, the year of the team’s birth, appears in raised numerals on the front, and the words “Where Football Began” span the base of the back. “We’re very proud to be part of the team where it all started,” said defensive lineman Jake Strain ’20, one of the Tigers’ three captains. 

This year’s schedule seems tailor-made for celebrating that historical pride, with home games against two of Princeton’s oldest rivals, Harvard (Oct. 26) and Yale (Nov. 16), as well as a Nov. 9 meeting with Dartmouth at Yankee Stadium.

Associate Director of Athletics Brendan Van Ackeren, who is coordinating plans for the Yankee Stadium game, said the weekend’s events will go beyond sports, with a Friday entrepreneurship conference in Manhattan and gameday social gatherings near the stadium. But football traditions will be front and center when the teams make their way through the dugouts and onto the field. “We view this as a great season-long platform to tell our Princeton football story,” Van Ackeren said.