The Fifth-Down Game Revisited

The LA Times on the famed "Fifth-Down Game," between Cornell and Dartmouth that was played 70 years ago.

From the story:

Cornell President Edmund Ezra Day, declaring the outcome to be "tarnished," sent a telegram to Dartmouth, offering to forfeit the victory to the Indians.

"I remember he was a Dartmouth man," Conti says of Day, a Dartmouth graduate, "and his classic remark was, 'You can offer them the game, but they won't accept it.'

"We didn't believe that. I didn't believe that. Nobody believed that they would not accept the game."

And they were right.

Dartmouth accepted.

"Our coach and athletic director told us, 'As the years go by, this will resonate as a fine example of sportsmanship' — and they were 100% right," (former Cornell player Lou) Conti, 91, says during an interview at his home outside Chicago. "But if I had been a grown person with some authority, I never would have offered to give the game away."