1998 Week 6
October 7, 1998
Well, I have to say that someone at Nebraska must have been reading my post last week as I see they finally played a real game. Watching the Nebraska vs. Oklahoma game last week reminded me of all those great NU-OU match-ups from the '70's. It was a tough, hard fought game that came down to the last play.
I thought Oklahoma wearing Orange to psyche out NU was a great move. Again, they must have been reading my post from last week. I bet NU thought they were playing a pushover like Oklahoma State or something. Anyway, NU won, but Barry Switzer sure looked healthy with that nice tan.
Of course last week did have some bad moments too. Like Prarie View getting banned from any more SMAC conference games because its band played a show at Grambling. Now, I don't pretend to understand how a band playing a concert somewhere could get a football team in trouble, but it does make me reminisce a bit.
I remember the great Stanford vs. California game of 1982. Remember the ending to that game? The California Players played rugby with the kick return and scored on the final play to win the game?? And they had to do it while running through the Cardinal Band.
I never did understand how come Stanford didn't get penalized for having too many men on the field for that play. But it wouldn't have changed the outcome - Stanford still lost. I tell you, Bill Walsh was smart for calling that defensive formation, but it still didn't work for him. It even cost Stanford a trombone or two if I remember.
But, speaking of bands, I fondly recall the deep South back in the 1930's. It was about the time that the OSU band had invented the script Ohio.
Well, Sam Houston Institute of Technology thought that spelling out its school's name would be a neat way to show off the band's spelling abilities. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough band members to spell out the entire name unless they were using braille. So they had to abbreviate it.
Well, you can imagine the chagrin on faces of the chancellors of the school when they played their halftime show at their game against Florida Undergraduate College. Half the spectators thought that Sam Houston couldn't spell because all they saw was "TIHS".
The rest of the fans were irrate. They should have been thankful that Florida Undergraduate College didn't decide to spell their name or the halftime show would have looked like something from the Stanford band.
Needless to say, the Panamerican Interleague Scholastic Sports conference was not happy and they suspended the band from all sporting events for the rest of the school year.
I'm glad that bands these days concentrate on things that are more important than spelling, like brawling with other bands or beating up on the other team's mascot. I had to stifle a chuckle when I saw the NC State band members crushing the Syracuse Orange Testicle as it danced along the sidelines during the halftime show.
That kind of reminded me of my days in the Marines and the "kick me in the jimmy" contests we used to stage. I'd certainly like to share my tales of those days with my children, if I had any, so I guess I'll just continue to share them with you.