1999 Week 8
October 27, 1999
I tell you, the world of sports is suffering from a lot of misbehavior these days. Last weekend boxing suffered another black eye. Mike Tyson must have been going to the Jack Tatum school of cheap shots, what with that attempt to injure that other fighter's knee.
Then we had the big controversy Sunday night on the field at the World Series with that interview about gambling. It was interesting to see an NBC reporter giving a former star the third degree about betting on baseball games.
It was even more interesting since the star being grilled sure looked like former tennis player Jimmy Connors. At least I thought he only played tennis. Maybe he pulled a Bo Jackson and played baseball for a while in the 70's when I wasn't paying any attention. He certainly still has that bad 70's hairdo.
Only thing I remember about Jimmy in the 70's was that he once was engaged to that cute little Chrissie Evert. That was before she grew up, had a sex change, and played QB for Purdue and the LA Rams. At least that's what my good friend Jim Rome tells me.
Speaking of Purdue and rule-breaking, did you see that play in the Purdue/Penn State game? Purdue QB Dru Breeze threw a bubble screen pass (sounds like something you might see in a theatre showing one of Dru's old adult films). The Purdue receiver caught it. Then a Penn State player from the sideline ran out onto the field and tackled the receiver.
Penn State got penalized 15 yards for "illegal participation". I'd never heard of that penalty before, "illegal participation". Sounds like something that might happen at an orgy. Or in Tony Driver's dorm room at ND.
This wasn't the first time someone illegally ran out onto the field to try to make a play in a game. One of the most famous occurred out in Berkley in 1940, when Ole 69, Tom Harmon, was running for a touchdown against the Cal Bears. Some spectator ran out of the stands and, in a piece of film almost as famous as the Hindenburg expulsion, he tried to tackle Harmon.
Before moving on to the end zone, Tom kicked the interloper in the groin, punched him in the face, slammed his head to the turf, and stomped on him a couple times for good measure.
Tom and the guy who ran onto the field later became lifelong friends. It turned out the guy greatly enjoyed the beating Tom inflicted on him. Apparently he was one of those macho-kiss guys. He would regularly fly down to LA to let Tom beat the snot out of him all over again.
He eventually opened up a parlor across the bay in SanFran for people like himself. Tom would even do a special guest appearance a few times a year, dress up in cleats, put on his old jersey, run with a football, and stomp the hell out of the customers. One year Keith Jackson bought me a free visit to the parlor as an anniversary gift. That was one of the most exciting experiences of my life, getting the crap kicked out of me (literally) by the great Tom Harmon.
One little-known fact about the Harmon incident was that Cal's coach actually ordered the fan onto the field. Lots of these coaches have plans in case someone on the other team breaks loose on a critical long run.
Another time where this planned illegal participation play happened was the 1954 Tangerine Bowl, between Auburn and Tulsa. An Auburn player broke through the line and was on his way for a touchdown. A Tulsa player on the sidelines, hearing his coach's command, "someone get him!!!", raced out onto the field and made the tackle.
Auburn, like Purdue, only gained 15 yards from the penalty (instead of the TD they would have gotten) and didn't score on the series. Since Tulsa won by 4 points, the sideline play by the Tulsa player actually won the game for them, so it was a brilliant strategic move. After this point you saw more coaches adopting this strategy as an emergency backup plan.
The most famous illegal participation play occurred right back in the Bay Area. In 1982 Stanford was playing Cal. With just seconds remaining, Stanford got a go-ahead field goal thanks to a drive led by Jack Elway. Stanford then was smart enough to follow Coach Bill Walsh's advice and do a squib kick to Cal, in the hopes of preventing a long return.
Cal, in a play memorialized on a film that's almost as famous as "Out of Africa" combined with the Zapruder's home movies, scored the winning TD on the return. Most of us remember the guy who scored for Cal running through the Stanford band after the Stanford band moved onto the field.
What we don't recall is that this was one time Bill Walsh's genius failed him. As Cal lateraled from one player to the next, Walsh saw disaster about to strike. So he screamed at his emergency guy at the Stanford 30 to race out onto the field to make the play, but that guy was already celebrating the intended victory. He had a backup plan due to a player at the 35, but that player was too far from the play.
So Bill Walsh, genius that he is, raised his drum major's mace to give the emergency signal to the Stanford band. You see, Walsh's final backup plan was to send the band out onto the field to make the tackle.
Unfortunately, these band members were a bunch of 98-pound weaklings and, outside of the one trombone player who at least showed he could take a hit, none of them even touched any of the Cal players and Cal scored to win the game.
Bill Walsh fixed that problem the next season. Since the NCAA didn't regulate body-enhancing drugs for band members, he started them on a crash steroid diet. By 1983 Stanford had the most muscular band in the country. The steroids had their side effects, mostly brain damage, and that's why you see so many goofy halftime shows from the Stanford band.