Cornell on Mad Men

In the season premiere of Mad Men, there's a scene relatively early in the episode in which Don Draper returns to his apartment and puts on the TV. After a couple commercials, it shows a college football game being played a few days before Thanksgiving. If you listen closely you hear mention of Bill Wilson (Cornell running back from the 60s), the Tigers, and the Big Red. This may have been the 1964 game referenced in this article:

[classof65.alumni.cornell.edu]

More memories in that piece than I care to deal with. Steve Appell is not only a classmate but was the freshman-year roommate of my only high school classmate to attend Cornell. Bill Wilson was a fellow IBMer I had the pleasure of introducing as a guest speaker at the annual meeting of my IBM organization in New York City. Wilson was a fellow engineer and also terrific fullback.

Tom Harp coached football five years on The Hill, the same five years I was there. His teams had plenty of talent (Gary Wood, Gogolak, Pete Larson who played for the Redskins, Wilson, and others) but never achieved a won-lost record commensurate. Too many games were like that televised 1964 Princeton game, where the team outplayed the opponent but found a way to lose in the end. Harp left to head the program at Duke, achieving not much success there...but then, who does in football.

I had a feeling you'd be able to relate to that piece and shed some light on the players and circumstances.