Regarding the Cal/Stanford play: It will probably be the only quasi-historical moment in my lifetime where I can actually say I was there when it happened.
My dad, confused soul that he was, got his undergrad degree at Cal and his Ph.D at Stanford. (And his master’s at USC.) We lived in Palo Alto and had been Stanford season ticket holders for about three years when we went over to Berkeley for the Big Game. We were seated in the Stanford section in the end zone where the ball carrier scored; if you’ve seen the classic highlight, once the trombone player was flattened, if the camera had panned up about 25 rows you’d have seen a 13-year-old version of me.
What I remember about it was that Stanford made a field goal, yet left about 6 seconds on the clock, and I thought at the time that they made a mistake by doing that. Stanford kicked off to the right side of the field, and after about two Cal laterals I thought “Hmm, they should have tackled them by now. What the hell is the band doing?”
The Cal player scored, the Cal fans exploded, then the stadium was overcome by an eerie calm as everyone saw the referees huddle at midfield to figure out what the hell to do. I could have sworn I saw a yellow penalty flag on the field, which would have nullified the play, but if there was one thrown I guess the referee must have very discreetly picked it up.
Once one of the refs signaled “touchdown”, the stadium erupted (in joy if you wore blue, in anger if you wore red) in a way I have never seen and probably won’t ever again. 88,000 people knew they had just witnessed something amazing.
Thinking back on it, I realize now that was the last Big Game my dad saw; he passed away the next September. He joked about his dual allegiance often, and how split he was every Big Game day. Fortunately, both teams have historically sucked and the game rarely has meaning beyond Bay Area bragging rights. He had a shirt specifically for the Big Game that I’ll always remember. It was just a polo shirt from the Jack Nicklaus collection: Stanford red, and a golden bear logo on the front.
The biggest blunder in auto racing was performed by Mark Martin at a NASCAR Busch series race at Bristol about 10 years ago. This was before NASCAR instituted the green/white/checker finish they used today if there is a caution flag late in a race. In this race a wreck on lap 246 of the 250 lap race meant the race would end under caution and all Martin had to do was cruise around the track for 4 laps and win the race. When coming off turn 4 of the last lap, Martin ducked down onto pit road and pulled up next to victory lane expecting a cheering crowd. Unfortunately, Martin did not cross the start/finish line first and was in fact the 4th car to cross the line. The race win was awarded to David Green and Martin had to settle for a 4th place finish. Martin had unplugged his radio a few laps from the end and could not hear his crew chief tell him that he still had a lap to go.
I can myself accept the blame for a sports blunder. While driving figure 8’s at Spanaway Speedway, I qualified for the trophy dash which consisted of the 6 fastest qualifiers. When we rolled out for introductions, we had to shut off our engines so I reached up and flipped of the ignition power. After introductions I went to start my car and nothing, the engine wouldn’t even turn over. A push truck came out and pushed me into the pits and the race started without me. After I got to the pits I tried a couple more times to start the car and again nothing. My racecar had an automatic transmission and if you know how neutral safety switches work, a car will only start in park or neutral. As I went to climb out of the car I looked at the shift selector and noticed the car was in drive. I flipped it up into park and the car started right up. Yep, left the car in gear so it wouldn’t start. I told the track promotor what happened and he made sure the crowd at the track knew about it.
Was the UK-LSU football game in there? A couple of years ago, the lowly Kentucky football team kicked a field goal with 10 seconds left to take the lead against #14 LSU. If you know anything about UK football, this was huge. For some reason, they took a timeout at 12 seconds to kick the field goal, forcing them to kick the ball to LSU.
On the last play of the game, the LSU quarterback threw a 65 yard TD pass to win, with the receiver running through the fans coming onto the field thinking UK had won. I was there. I’m a UK fan. The damn coach could’ve called the time with 2 seconds left, kicked, and won the game. Nope, had to do this.
Wouldn’t they want to kick with some time on the clock so that if they fumbled the snap, they’d have time to down it and kick again? (This would be irrelevant if it was already 4th down, of course).
It was. That was going to be it. And, it was there last time out. Even if it had been third down, they couldn’t have stopped the clock. There was no reason in the world not to let the clock run down. Yet they did.
Well, technically on a botched snap they could throw an incomplete pass to stop the clock, though since it was 4th down that’s a moot point. (Just don’t listen to Chris Collinsworth and try to spike it.)
This exchange was a wonderful reminder of the Giants’ debacle in San Fran in 2002, which is always nice. whimper
Last year I went to a church mens gathering and met a guy who said he went to Cal in 1982, and that a good number of the football players were also on the rugby team. When you watch the video, it all makes sense.
The long version gives better context and better video quality.
Hmm… it seems I have yet a third version myself, in which the announcer sounds like he’s going to eject a vocal cord, he’s so excited. It makes for a more thrilling finish than the one I just linked to, in which the announcer tries to maintain some objectivity and distance.
Ok, now I have it straight. Sorry for the multiple posts.
The long version IS the one with the screaming announcer, but he doesn’t go nuts until the officials finally signal that Cal has really won the game which is after the instant replay on the telecast.
