Courtesy of Mike Kai
Mike Kai and David Aulicino were seniors at Yale in 2004 when they, along with 20 friends dressed as the fictional "Harvard Pep Squad, " boldly entered Harvard's football stadium and convinced close to 2, 000 unsuspecting Crimson fans to help spell out two words — "WE SUCK."
The prank — brilliant in its simplicity — actually took more than a year of planning to properly execute. For the 10th anniversary of the "WE SUCK" gag, Business Insider spoke with Kai and Aulicino, who explained just how they were able to pull off one of the greatest college pranks of all time.
Courtesy of Mike KaiYale students and prank masterminds David Aulicino (l) and Mike Kai (r) pose with a stack of red and white construction paper. A Partnership Is Born
Kai and Aulicino first met during their freshman year at Yale, when they were randomly placed into the same residential college, Pierson. According to Kai, the two bonded by "concocting random plans together" — among their earliest endeavors were building a hot tub using an inflatable pool and garden hoses, and a foam machine made with parts from Home Depot.
By their junior year, the duo had moved on to bigger projects. While throwing around some prank ideas for the annual Harvard Crimson-Yale Bulldogs football game — a massive event for both universities known simply as "The Game" — one of their friends suggested getting Harvard fans to unknowingly spell out an embarrassing message.
"It was one of those things where you're sitting around with some buddies drinking beer and one guy says 'Wouldn't it be cool if.' I woke up the next day and couldn't shake the idea. It haunted me. At first, it was a matter of getting the ball rolling, building the team, coming up with the strategy. But later, once we invested so much time and money into it, there was no turning back, " Kai .
