The Flag That Gave Penn One More Kick—and Left Harvard Protesting

The scoreboard said Harvard had won. Dave Shulman’s field-goal attempt had missed, the clock at Franklin Field showed 00, and the Crimson’s comeback had turned a 20-point deficit into a one-point lead. Then came the flag.

The referee called roughing the kicker. Harvard disputed that Shulman had been hit in a way that warranted the penalty. Penn got another attempt. With no time showing, Shulman kicked the ball through the uprights, and a game that had appeared to end 21–20 for Harvard ended 23–21 for Penn.

Original charcoal illustration of a Penn field-goal attempt and penalty flag at Franklin Field; interpretive scene, not a depiction of an exact play.

That sequence has a place in Penn football history: the missed kick, the penalty, the winner after time expired. Yet its details matter precisely because the ending has become so familiar. Shulman’s first attempt did not begin with the clock at zero. A contemporary account says three seconds remained when he lined up. The winning kick came only because of a call Harvard challenged immediately and forcefully. And although Penn left the field assured of at least a share of the Ivy League title, Harvard would ultimately share the championship, too.

None of that makes the second chance less remarkable. It shows why, more than four decades later, the play can still carry both Penn’s joy and Harvard’s objection.

Penn had reason to value a championship opportunity even before the extraordinary finish. The program had gone 2–27 over the previous three seasons, from 1979 through 1981. Under coach Jerry Berndt, the 1982 Quakers had moved from chronic losing to an Ivy title race. A win over Harvard on November 13 would secure at least a share of the championship and end a long wait for one.

For much of the afternoon, Penn seemed to have placed that result beyond doubt. The Quakers led 20–0. But a lead that large can make the final score sound inevitable in retrospect, when it was anything but. Penn mistakes, including a fumble and a partially blocked punt, helped Harvard back into the game. The Crimson scored three touchdowns in roughly seven and a half minutes. On fourth down, Mike Granger ran for the touchdown that put Harvard ahead 21–20 with 1:28 remaining.

Now the team that had led by 20 needed points simply to escape. Penn quarterback Gary Vura directed a last drive that reached field-goal range. In a later account by The Daily Pennsylvanian, one pass appeared headed for an interception before receiver Rich Syrek came away with the ball and gained 19 yards; passes toward the sideline then advanced Penn farther. It was a fitting prelude to the finish, though no one on the field could have known that one apparent loss of possession would be followed by one apparent loss of the game.

Shulman came on to try a 38-yard field goal. According to Gwen Knapp’s report for The Harvard Crimson, three seconds remained, and he faced a 21-mile-per-hour wind. The kick missed. By the time it had done so, the clock read 00.

For Harvard, the sequence meant the comeback was complete. For Penn, absent a penalty, the last chance had gone wide. The flag made both conclusions provisional.

The referee’s ruling was roughing the kicker. It gave Penn another attempt closer to the goal. Knapp reported that Harvard coaches and players insisted Shulman had not been hit. Their challenge went beyond the ordinary frustration of a team that had lost on a late call. In a United Press International account published several days later, Harvard coach Joe Restic said film showed Shulman’s kicking foot already back on the turf when contact occurred. Restic also maintained that a Penn player had blocked a Harvard player into the kicker.

Those were Harvard’s claims about the contact, not an established finding about what the officials should have called. The available accounts do not settle the mechanics of the play or the ruling under the applicable rule. They do establish that the disagreement began at once, not years later as a revision of an unwelcome result. The official’s decision stood; Harvard’s objection endured.

The referee spotted the ball for Penn’s second attempt. The Crimson’s 1982 report called the kick 27 yards and placed the ball at Harvard’s 11-yard line. A later Daily Pennsylvanian retrospective also gave the distance as 27 yards. Other published retellings, including accounts in The Pennsylvania Gazette and the Crimson, have called it 28. The one-yard discrepancy does not change what happened: Shulman had a shorter kick, no time remained on the clock, and he made it.

Still, the varying numbers are a useful reminder of how a celebrated play is passed along. In the compressed version, Shulman kicks after time has expired and Penn wins. In the fuller one, he first tries with three seconds left, misses as the clock runs out, and receives another chance because of a contested penalty. The difference is not a technicality. The first version gives the play its enduring name. The second explains how it was possible.

It also preserves what Harvard had done before the flag. Penn’s victory was not the end of a game it had controlled throughout. Harvard had erased 20 points and taken the lead in the final two minutes. Penn, in turn, had driven far enough to attempt a winning kick before the penalty entered the story. Both teams had made their case on the field; the call determined whether Penn would get to make its case once more.

At Franklin Field, the result belonged to Penn. The final score in the schools’ series record is unambiguous: Penn 23, Harvard 21. The celebration was emphatic, too. As recounted by The Pennsylvania Gazette from coverage that season, fans tore down a goalpost, carried it toward the South Street Bridge and threw it into the Schuylkill. For a program coming out of three years with just two wins, the scene marked a change in what people could expect from Penn football.

But the championship story did not stop when the goalpost went into the river. Penn had secured at least a share of the Ivy title against Harvard, not the title to itself. The following week, Penn lost to Cornell and Harvard beat Yale. The two teams finished as co-champions.

That less tidy ending is worth keeping alongside the kick. Shulman’s second attempt gave Penn its long-sought share and one of the program’s defining moments. It did not remove Harvard from the championship. The team that protested the decisive call still earned a place beside Penn in the final standings.

Penn football’s 150th season has brought renewed attention to the 1982 team. In a 2026 Daily Pennsylvanian history feature, Vura looked back on that team as helping establish a continuing purpose for the program. The recollection speaks to the reach of the season without requiring one kick to account for everything that followed. Berndt’s team had already transformed its prospects before Shulman lined up against Harvard. What happened on November 13 gave that turnaround an ending people could tell—and retell.

The telling is strongest when it leaves room for both what is certain and what remains disputed. Penn had a 20–0 lead. Harvard took it away. Shulman missed from 38 yards as the last seconds elapsed. The referee called roughing the kicker. Harvard argued the contact did not justify the flag. Shulman made the second kick with no time showing. Penn won, 23–21, and eventually shared the Ivy championship with Harvard.

A second chance is an irresistible sports story, especially when it arrives after the clock has reached zero. This one has lasted because the chance was real, the kick was good and the stakes were large. It has also lasted because, for the people on the other side of the flag, the first ending never entirely disappeared.

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