The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Former Yale, UConn rivals relish history: ‘Fantastic thing’
Helping push Yale’s dominance of a unique New England college football rivalry into a new decade, Rich Diana scored two touchdowns as a junior and two as a senior in victories over UConn in 1980 and 1981.
Months later, after graduating cum laude in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, Diana found himself in Storrs … and found himself a life partner.
“The biggest prize I ever got from UConn was when I went to a party up at UConn after my senior year,” said Diana, one of the
most decorated players in Yale history who went on to play in Super Bowl XVII with the Dolphins following the 1982 NFL season. “My wife-to-be was supposed to be there to meet a player from the UConn football team. But I met her and, instead, I wound up with the girl.”
Diana and that girl, then Ann Monahan, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, when Diana took time to reminisce about his place in an up-and-down, back-andforth, Yale-UConn series that resumes this week after a 23-year hiatus.
“I think it’s a natural and a wonderful rivalry and if the teams are at similar levels I think it should happen every year,” Diana said. “It was a fantastic thing when I played. The crowds were raucous and sizable. They were the loudest crowds of the year. We had a lot more people come watch us play against Navy and Harvard, for instance, but I don’t think the crowds were ever louder. Even though there were 20,000 people more at certain games, I don’t think any crowd was more juiced up than that Yale versus UConn game.”
The teams last met in 1998, a 65-21 UConn victory. The Huskies have won 10 of the past 11 meetings but Yale, which won the first 16 games, leads the series 32-17.
The 50th meeting is Saturday at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, the first game the teams have played in the stadium constructed as part of UConn’s early-2000s transition to college football’s highest level, now known as FBS.
Forty-eight of the 49 games have taken place at Yale Bowl, where Diana played himself into Heisman Trophy consideration and broke UConn’s spirit time and again. UConn won in 1982 and soon the pendulum swung to the point that the matchup no longer made sense, with the Huskies becoming competitive in the Big East, and nationally, in the 2000s as Yale struggled to meet its lofty Ivy League goals.
Now the matchup makes as much sense as ever, from angles of competitiveness and interest. UConn has sunk like a stone in recent years, while Yale has climbed the Ivy under coach Tony Reno, winning the conference two of the past three seasons and beating Harvard in three of the past four games.
So this faded rivalry is actually a bright spot on both schedules in 2021. While there is no betting line listed by major sportsbooks — not uncommon for FBS-FCS matchups — this is not the typical guarantee for the home team. The Huskies are 0-7 and coming off a 24-13 loss at previouslywinless UMass. Yale is 2-2 and coming off a 24-17 loss at Dartmouth. UConn is paying Yale $285,000 to visit.
UConn’s Ken Sweitzer, an All-Yankee Conference player as a quarterback, receiver and punter, was, like Diana, a senior in 1981, when Yale won for the eighth meeting in a row.
“That was our biggest game,” Sweitzer said. “They had Harvard. We had Yale. And we went to the Bowl every year. In 1979, we opened at Army with 31,000 at West Point, then we went to Annapolis in front of 45,000 to play Navy, then we went to Yale and there were 42,000 in the stadium — and they estimate 80-90 thousand outside the stadium. It was really a tremendous event.”
Diana, who grew up in Hamden and remains in Hamden, and Sweitzer, who grew up in Madison and remains in Madison, are Connecticut guys. They became, and remain, very close friends.
Diana, who also played baseball at Yale, has two children with Ann. He spent one season with the Dolphins before attending Yale Medical School. He is an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist as part of Connecticut Orthopaedics.
Sweitzer married Cari, his childhood neighbor, 31 years ago. They have three children. A longtime financial advisor, he was a first-team All-New England quarterback in 1981 and left UConn the holder of 18 individual records — and a wealth of memories, even from losses at Yale.
“Back when Joe Namath played at Yale Bowl against the Giants, I was 14 and I went to that game with my dad and my brothers,” Sweitzer said. “I always wanted to play there. The best was walking down the tunnel. I can hear it right now, our cleats walking down that concrete walkway, down the tunnel and into the stadium, onto the grass field, running out there. It was just like a dream. It’s almost an out of body experience. You’re trying to digest it, figure it out, and get ready for a game at the same time.”
A crowd of 34,500 attended Yale’s 20-10 victory in 1980.
A crowd of 36,000 attended Yale’s 27-18 victory in 1981.
“Kind of like a Yale baseball game against St. John’s, where the 2,000 people that were there somehow become 20,000,” Diana said. “I’ll tell you, it sounded like 70,000. The bands were playing and the people were crazy. The in-state rivalry, it was different. I loved it.”
In 1981, Diana had 26 carries for 140 yards. Sweitzer ran 18 times for 52 yards and passed for 177.
UConn was loaded with Connecticut high school players and Yale had some sprinkled throughout the roster. Some players who were opponents in high school championship games became opponents at Yale Bowl.
“We had more yards rushing, more yards passing, but we couldn’t get in the end zone,” Sweitzer said of games in 1980 and 1981. “Every year there was a fourth-and-goal from the 1. We could never get in. We could never make that next step. Carm Cozza knew exactly what we were doing every play. We lost all four years, and the next year after I left, we won. There is a group of us that think we helped the program get to that point where they could beat Yale.”
Diana has all sorts of memories, including a long punt return to set up a pivotal touchdown his junior year, and a tackle on a punt to save one as a senior.
“There’s a famous picture of me diving over the top of the pile against UConn,” Diana said, adding that he has the picture framed in his weight room. “I landed on my head on the goal line. It’s one of my classics. They marked me down at like the 1 inch line. I almost killed myself landing on my head and I didn’t get the touchdown. I got it on the next play, I’m pretty sure.”
Diana won every game against UConn. Then, while in Storrs, he won over Ann.
“I got a lot of pride from beating them four times,” Diana said. “But I went up there and I took their best girl, too.”