California/Stanford College Football --"The Big, Big Game"--26 Year Later

Cal's Kevin Moen (26) leaps with the ball in the air after scoring Cal's game-winning touchdown while the Stanford band runs to get out of his way in Berkeley, Calif., in this Nov. 25, 1982 file photo... (AP Photo/Oakland Tribune/Robert Stinnett) 

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"--John Greenleaf Whittier.

American football is a game of hits, blocks, passes, inches and seconds.  It is also a game that will break your heart if you develop favorite teams and they come up short on the brink of attaining excellence. 

    This happened to me when future NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback John Elway and the Stanford Cardinal--my second-favorite college football team, after my dad's alma mater, the then-lackluster Oregon State Beavers--lost a game to their arch rivals in November of 1982.  They were on the brink of going to the Rose Bowl and possibly playing for a national Top 10 spot in the national polls.  It all went up in smoke on what many people have called the weirdest (or most exciting)  finish to a Division One college football game in history.

I had been a Stanford fan since they had gone to the Rose Bowl in 1970, the year that their Heisman Trophy QB, Jim Plunkett (from San Jose, my home city no less) had led the Stanford Indians to a victory in the Pacific-8 Conference and defeated mighty Ohio State in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day in 1971. (Plunkett would go on to lead the Los Angeles Raiders to a Superbowl win over the Washington Redskins in 1984.) 

Now, a dozen years aftertheir last Rose Bowl  and sporting another great quarterback ( Elway) and a fine offense, but a questionable defensive eleven, the former Indians (renamed the Cardinal)  looked poised to win against the heavily underdog Golden Bears of California-Berkeley.        

I was ticked that Cal won, and upset Stanford's chances for a major post-season bowl.  My future father-in-law, a Stanford alumnus, and his wife were actually at the game and in the stands.  (They went to every Stanford home game and Cal-Stanford contest they could, commuting in from southern Oregon 350 miles one-way and back for a weekend contest;  such is the dedication of a lot of football fans in the Fall Season.)   He later told he was nearly sick when he saw this pandemonium before his eyes.  Two of my friends were at that game, one a Cal booster and alum, another a one-time Stanford backer. Guess which one I didn't want to see at all right after that game. 

 I also really get annoyed when I hear the broadcaster, Joe Starkey, get that falsetto shirek in his voice when he starts scrwaming about the Bears winning.  "The Bears Have won!  The Bears Have Won!"   ENOUGH already, Joe.   Is it just me , or does this Starkey guy sounds like he's calling the end of the world?   Talk about a "home team " broadcaster!  Crikey!  The little jerk sounds like he's being gilded!   (He still does the games on the radio for the San Francisco 49ers.  Every now and then he still does that high-pitched excited noise.  I love the Niners but this guy should be calling football games on a cartoon show like "The Simpsons".)    

All  I know is it went in the record books as a win for the Bears and all Pac-10 fans remember this one as the "Big Play", with a supporting role played by the nimrods in the Stanford Marching Band, who sealed the loss for their own side by going on the field prematurely.     But enough of the preliminaries.  Here is the amazing finish. The first video sets it up, the second shows the rather amazing improvised beauty of the play.    

The Stanford side claimed that the Bears kick return team made an illegal forward lateral in this kick-off return, which would have all but ended the game by bring the ball back to mid-field. As you can see from the second video, it was a clean play.  A disgusting play, but  still...