A reporter from the Yale Daily News called me last night to ask my thoughts on Yale’s crackdown on drinking at The Game.

Apparently, having written a book on higher education, I am now an alumni expert on binge drinking.

Nonetheless, I was happy to oblige, as I do have strong feelings about drinking and The Game. Which is to say, I am all in favor of it.

Let’s just set the scene here. Every year, Yale plays Harvard in both college’s last game of the season. Whichever locale hosts the game, the weather is likely to be bitterly cold (though it’s usually worse in Cambridge, and Harvard stadium has stone benches that will turn your bum into the kind of ice you used to be able to find in Antartica).

The quality of the football is not, shall we say, high.

I mean, it’s high compared to a group of weekend warriors such as myself playing touch football in Central Park. But not really compared to, say, USC vs. Notre Dame.

(Which, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing. Ivy League schools shouldn’t worry too much about the relative quality of their athletics.)

A few days after the game, students take off for Thanksgiving break.

So The Game is primarily a social event, and for undergraduates, alcohol is a huge part of that. I went to all four Games during my time at Yale, and I can’t remember a single play. (I do remember that Yale won the 100th-playing of the Game, but that’s about it.)

I do remember getting blotto and having a fantastic time. I remember, for example, my friend Bliss, in a fit of inebriated laughter, toppling over her seat and landing in the lap of not entirely amused art history professor Vincent Scully.

I also remember rolling down a hill with my roommate Eric. Why, I don’t know. It was a spontaneous gesture, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Another roommate, Peter, was in the marching band. I think he played the cymbal, an instrument which did not require him to stay sober. Yet another roommate, Tim, was a cheerleader. The primary benefit of this was a) girls (or, in Tim’s case, as it turned out, guys) and b) going to Mory’s after the games and getting drunk, followed by a power nap, then a second wind.

Yes, a good time was had by all.

None of us ever confused such drunken revelry with the real world; we knew that we were behaving childishly, and that we wouldn’t be able to carry on such behavior later. (Apparently, though, we could become president.) Bliss is now a schoolteacher, Eric is a film producer, Tim is the head of a prominent business organization in New York, and Peter is a rabbi.

No one I know ever got hurt from drinking at The Game. And if they did, well, it happens. I’d rather have life with a lot of fun and a little risk than a life with no risk and little fun.

Anyway, I digress. Yale has now cracked down on drinking at The Game, banning drinking games, people standing on the roofs of cars, and tailgates during the second half.

This is, of course, a travesty. Which is pretty much what I told the Yale Daily News. People should have the right to stand on car roofs whenever they want. After all, they paid for the cars.

I do love the alum from the class of ’41, though, who says that this isn’t a problem for him, because he “wouldn’t want to miss the kick-off.”

To which I say, the kick-off is a bloody mary at about 10:30 game day morning….