>Controversies
>In 1982, when Newell was attending Harvard University, he and fellow students Ron Meyers and James Touchen were accussed of playing a prank on one of their senior professors, that, according to Touchen '...quickly became out of hand'.[72] The incident remains largely controversial due to the unreliable and varying testamonies each party has given since, and the impact the event continues to have on the town and college of Harvard today.
>According to Touchen, the idea was entirely Newell's. 'He was the mastermind, the...it's hard to explain. People know him now, it's different...he...back then, he was like Brando in Apocalypse Now, he was just this intense, quiet, brooding kid. We knew him from regular Dungeons and Dragons club meetings at (Meyers') dorm. It was there he first told us about the idea. I remember I was dead against it, but (Meyers) seemed to be into it, he would have followed (Newell) to the ends of the Earth.' [73]
>Though less than a chapter is dedicated to the event, Meyers recounts things differently in his college memoirs (though certain themes, such as Newell's over-bearing personality and conception of the idea, remain):
>'...and, so we thought, why not? Let's give this fat child a chance. We may make a wizard of him yet! Little did we know, like the short-sighted Dr Frankenstein, we would create and monster that would eventually make us it's pawns.[74]
>Seemed Gabe had an idea to put that snooty dean in his place once and for all...and all during the big home-coming football game! Well, both myself and (Touchen) were enrtaptured by the idea, or were we with Newell? To this day I can't say which, though I know for sure the feeling remains.'[75]
