The Play
Posted: June 17th, 2008 | Filed under: Other Sports | 17 Comments »
The ticket above belongs to Ed Price, Yankees writer deluxe for the Newark Star Ledger and my friend for, wow, more than 15 years now. Ed and I fist worked together in Augusta, Ga., back in the early 1990s, back when The Augusta Chronicle would give away “I Pounded Poz†T-shirts to the few* people who were talented enough to pick football games better than I did. Yep, those were the days.
*The missing word here is “thousand.†As in “few thousand people.†I’ll have to write here about my Augusta days sometime — I can tell you this now, I was so seriously bad at picking football games (still am), that they gave away too many T-shirts and I actually got word from the publisher that I needed to “start picking better.†I’m not kidding, I would get photos from entire families dressed in “I Pounded Poz†T-shirts.
In any case, Ed is one of the three most overqualified sportswriters in America; he has a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford*. This, as you might imagine, has helped him quite a bit when working in the clubhouse — you know, having all those conversations with A-Rod about the Pettier-Seebeck effect, with Giambi about the interaction of resistors, transistors and inductors, with Jeter about the application of electromagnetism in baseball rundowns. And so on.
*I know that one of the other two most overqualified is Memphis’ gifted columnist Geoff Calkins, who has a Harvard Law Degree. I met Geoff when he was writing sports for the Anniston Star, and so sometimes I would be at some Southern college football game like Auburn-South Carolina, and I would sit between Geoff and Ed, and there we were, the guy with the masters degree in Electrical Engineering, the guy with the Harvard Law Degree, and the guy who couldn’t hack it in accounting at UNC Charlotte. Something didn’t seem right about that. I’m sure they felt that way even more than I did.
Anyway, as a freshman at Stanford Ed attended The Big Game that had The Play. That above there is the ticket from the game. Dig the growling bear! And here are a few of his memories and thoughts about the play you voted the greatest ever:
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The first thing I thought was, “This is the most amazing play in college football history.”
I was in the end-zone stands where Kevin Moen scored, in the Stanford-student section. We were all stunned. In fact, we beat the rush to the BART station because the Cal people were celebrating and the Stanford people were shocked into immobility.
And every time it comes on the screen, every November or in a commercial for some video, I scream. It was my first Big Game, fall of my freshman year, and quite an introduction to the rivalry.
Here is what else I remember:
1. Earlier in the game, a Cal player dove for a pass. The ball went between his hands, hit the turf and he caught it after it bounced. But the only people who could tell it wasn’t a catch were those of us in the Stanford section. Touchdown.
2. Stanford was going to the Hall of Fame Bowl if it won.
3. John Elway put together a drive comparable to anything he did in Cleveland. On fourth-and-long, inside his own 30, he hit Emile Harry right in the numbers with a pass so hard that it might have just stuck in Harry’s chest if he didn’t get his hands on it. If there was no Play, would that drive have gotten Elway the Heisman Trophy? (Herschel Walker won it.)
4. After calling a timeout too early before the field goal, after going ahead, after the laterals and the runback, after the trombone player was crushed (I have never forgiven the band), the officials did not rule right away. They gathered at midfield to discuss it, and the stadium went silent. Then the referee emerged and signaled touchdown. Would he have done that if the game was at Stanford?
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No way does Elway beat out Herschel for the Heisman that year. The play cost them the Hall of Fame Bowl, not the Rose Bowl.
Regarding the latest poll;
I really don’t want to make out with any of them. I’ll put in a write-in vote for Stacy Kiebler
I’m going to go home and fantasize for a few hours about the Chiefs and Broncos swapping Elway and Emile Harry. Hold my calls.
It was also the last play of Elway’s college career, wasn’t it? Not counting the Hula Bowl or wherever he went for the all-star circuit.
Walker had 695 more votes than Elway in the ‘82 Heisman balloting so I don’t think that play cost Elway the trophy.
Interesting top 10 though: Eric Dickerson, SMU was third; followed by Anthony Carter; Dave Rimington (the Nebraska center who was very fast off the ball); Todd Blackledge of national champ Penn State; Tom Ramsey (UCLA QB); Tony Eason (Illinois); Dan Marino (who in fact did not have a particularly good senior year); and a tie for 10th between Mike Rozier, the next year’s winner, and Curt Warner, at the time the most famous football player with that name.
No video? I’ve never seen that play, and I’m no feeling seriously deprived. And depraved on account of I’m deprived.
I followed a link from The Star to get here. Does that mean you have finally figured out how to get paid for this. If so you deserve it, and if not keep trying.
I too was sitting in the Stanford student section behind the end zone. (Also my first Big Game; I had transfered in and was a sophomore.) I remember after the Cal player made the non-catch of the pass Eric mentioned (early in the game) the Stanford student section would sarcastically signal touchdown after every Cal offensive play. This went on the whole game and then through basketball season.
You wouldn’t think of Bruce Springsteen music as make out music, but “I’m On Fire” does wonders with women.
The Immaculate Reception still gets my vote, if for no other reason than it knocked the stinkin’ Raiders out of the playoffs that year.
Is it just me or does the announcer sound exactly like Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life?
Yes — yes, he does.
That is why The Play is, in fact, The Best Ever.
Well, that and the fact that I watched it on the teevee at age 12 as a disenheartened Cal fan (do not ask why the child decides to become a fan of a team who as best I can tell *tried to lose* thorough much of the 1970s; this is a mystery).
And holy hannah if that one moment didn’t make any number of Giants losses palatable.
I am wondering if John Clayton is the other “most smartest” journalist, he has a bachelors in Nuclear Engineering from Duquesne.
Third ballcarrier is down. Sorry Cal.
I’ve always wondered: whether the game was over or not, why would Stanford’s band be on Cal’s field?
The announcer is great. Absolutely great. Compare that to Joe Buck’s call* of the big play in the Super Bowl:
Monotone
Drops back to pass and escapes a defender. Manning throws it downfield and Tyree catches it. First down, Giants.
*Caution: reenactment from memory. May have occurred differently.
Sevens rugby looks like that all the time. That’s nothing too impressive.
On the same day, a couple of hours earlier in Lubbock, Texas, No. 1-ranked SMU had just been tied by Texas Tech with 17 seconds left. I was a sportswriter assigned to the SMU locker room story, standing behind the SMU 15-yard-line, awaiting the kickoff and writing the lead in my head…
The Tech squib kick bounced to the 15 where the returner bobbled it momentarily and as he came up with the ball, he turned to the left and tossed a “Music City Miracle” lateral to Bobby Leach standing alone at the SMU 9 along the left sideline. I’d seen the play before — in junior high school — and it worked way back then. Worked again, too. Leach went 91 yards and the noisy stadium went so quiet you could hear the celebration in the end zone.
THAT’S how big and amazing the Big Game play was. Nobody — but nobody — who didn’t attend the game in Lubbock remembers that the No. 1-ranked team in the country saved its season with a miracle play.
There is a coda to that story.
You should ask Ed about the fake edition of the Daily Cal that the Stanford sports writers published Wednesday after Big Game. It announced that the NCAA had reversed the outcome and Stanford won. A brilliant prank.
http://alumni.dailycal.org/newsletter/story.phtml?sid=61&eid=6&season=Fall&date=1999