Sadie Hawkins at Yale

Couple of years ago the Yale News startled Yale men with an announcement about the impending Yale-Michigan football game: that 800 eager Michigan co-eds planned to invade New Haven in search of mates. The story was a hoax. Consequently, when the News printed a similar story last month, Yale men yawned. Said the News: The day of the Brown game would be Sadie Hawkins Day: any girl who cared to buy game tickets and pay expenses might go to New Haven and grab herself a Yale escort. To their consternation, Yale men soon learned that this time the News was not fooling.

Sadie Hawkins is an ugly manchaser in the comic strip Li'I Abner, which deals with life in the hillbilly village of Dogpatch. Other characters: Li'l Abner, a handsome hayseed; Daisy Mae, his shapely, briefly-clad admirer; Pansy Yokum, his mother; Lonesome Polecat and Loathsome Polecat, Indians. The idea for Sadie Hawkins Day at Yale belonged to Sophomore John Maclean. Having heard that such celebrations had already been held in several freshwater colleges, Maclean persuaded fellow News editors to invite girls and turn them loose in Dogpatch costumes to chase Yale men in Yale's Bowl between the halves of the game.

As these details emerged, the Yale Record broke off relations with the News, described the proposed celebration as "a raw and vulgar exhibition." The Smith College Scan printed a bitter editorial. Miss Juliana Cutting, a Manhattan social secretary, wired: "SORRY, NEVER HEARD OF SADIE

HAWKINS. WHO WAS SHE?"

Unabashed, the News got the high-ranking fraternity Chi Psi to stage a Sadie Hawkins dance, arranged to brew for the affair Dogpatch's favorite drink, Kickapoo Joy-Juice, invited Li'l Abner's Creator Al Capp to the celebration, sent application forms to women's colleges.

By Sadie Hawkins Eve, letters and telegrams had arrived from 1,300 male-chasers at Smith, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Sarah Lawrence, Connecticut College. Next day, their bids accepted by Yale men, more than 200 showed up. With their men in tow, they marched into the Bowl in a chilly rain. But there was to be no manchasing in the Yale Bowl. At the last moment, the News had cold feet. Sole evidence of Sadie Hawkins Day in the Bowl was an undergraduate representing Daisy Mae, who suddenly dashed on the field at halftime in the midst of a humorless procession. They cavorted a few minutes before the silent, unsmiling stands, then slunk away.

The Harvard Crimson hooted: "Pass the tutti-fruitti."

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