For most of my life, one of the two or three worst days of the year was January 2. As a kid it wasn’t an aversion to going back to school after the holiday break (well, that was a part of it). It was the passage of another college football season. College football was a huge deal.
But the January 2 letdown continued as I grew older and spent 20+ years as a college football coach. That was often the day after our bowl game. Win or lose, getting back on the plane ride home gave a bittersweet sense of a page turning.
The accomplishments of the season past were now history and uncertainty was straight ahead. There were players graduating, new players to recruit and the year-long cycle to game day was at square one. It can be a daunting thing to start up the year-long pursuit.
Football is unique among the major sports in that there is preparation on 350+ days for just 12 guaranteed game days. All real coaches relish the year-round development of players on the field, in the classroom and as people.
But the addiction, the adrenaline high comes on game days. And on the morning after your bowl game you are never further away from your next high than at any other time of the year. The same goes for the fans who live for game days spent tailgating, and time with friends and family in passionate support of their team.
So a week like this it is only natural to think back in time….
In October, I came across a piece by the great southern writer Willie Morris that first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in March 1978. He wrote about early fall Saturday evenings:
“Someone would have brought a radio, and he was one of the few people I ever knew who loved as much as I to listen to the college football scores on Saturdays in the early fall drifting in from everywhere—first the little Eastern schools, like Bowdoin or Colby, or Allegheny and Gettysburg and Susquehanna, on down to the Southern and Midwestern ones which really mattered, then slowly westward—a roll call of America. ‘There’s a poetry of its own in that, ain’t it?’ he said…”
Great writers capture moments that illicit recognition of a common human experience. That passage highlights a line of demarcation in age, a life experience forever gone amid the rapid acceleration of information technology in this country.
That’s a nice way of admitting that I, along my contemporaries, am old.
In the 1970s and ’80s for people in State College or living in the surrounding towns, fall Saturdays meant a home game in 60,000 seat Beaver Stadium with a 1 p.m. kickoff. Back then maybe two or three games a year were on television.
If the game was on the road, you’d listen to it on the radio. The play-by-play voice of Fran Fisher was like an old-time gospel hour for the faithful. The radio network of stations made it so you could drive end to end across the commonwealth and not miss a play. And like the old-time preachers, he knew how to play the emotions of the moment and make you feel like you belonged.
Hallelujah!
But going back to the passage by Willie Morris…..
After home and road games, we’d listen to the post-game radio scoreboard show. First, they’d start by recapping the Penn State game, then the games of Penn State’s usual Eastern independent foes. They’d then feature the scores of other Penn State opponents. In the 1970s and 80s that meant scores of teams like Ohio State, Stanford, Iowa, Kentucky, NC State, Miami, Texas A&M, Alabama, Notre Dame and Nebraska. After that we’d get the scores of the Top 20, (they only ranked 20 teams back then).
From there it was just like the broadcast Willie Morris described, with an east-to-west sweep of the country starting in the East with Pennsylvania schools like Slippery Rock, Lock Haven, Dickinson and Washington & Jefferson. When the Ivy League scores came up our job was to listen for the Brown score to report to my dad how his alma mater had fared. The Midwest followed with Big Ten scores, followed by a swing south and west to the SEC, the ACC, the SWC, The Big 8, the PAC 8.
On game days in Beaver Stadium, the only connection to other scores was during timeouts. The kid’s section was in the open-end bleachers before they moved to section SJ and SK (kids tickets ranged from $4 to $6 per game back then). It seemed like an eternity waiting for the voice to say “In scores of other games…”
Only a couple of games a year were on TV back then, so there were few long TV timeouts to fill. Timeout time was invaluable real estate for important announcements like….
“For the driver of a green Oldsmobile station wagon with wood paneling Pennsylvania, license plate M75-822, your lights are on.”
Or,
“Will Doctor Joe Smith from Williamsport please report to the first aid station…under the west stands.”
Those announcements were always a letdown when you were waiting to hear if Pitt lost to Notre Dame.
Never was there more anticipation for a score announcement in Beaver Stadium than on the afternoon of Nov. 11, 1978 when Penn State was undefeated, ranked No. 2 and playing host to NC State. Oklahoma was No. 1 and was playing at No. 4 Nebraska. Oklahoma and Penn State were the only undefeated teams. PSU had wins at No. 6 Ohio State (19-0) and one week earlier had beaten undefeated and No. 5 Maryland 27-3. If OU faltered, Penn State was poised to become the No. 1 team in the country for the first time.
The previous announcements of the Oklahoma scores had indicated a tight game with the Sooners holding a slight lead.
In the fourth quarter of the Penn State game, there was a timeout and the anticipation was thick.
Then the voice came “In scores of other games…” Another dramatic pause.
The stadium fell silent.
“A final from Lincoln, Nebraska…” Another pause.
Will this guy just spill the freaking beans already?
“….Oklahoma 14…..”
Damn, they always announce the wining team first!
“……Nebraska…….SEVENTEEN!”
Instant mayhem.
Thanks to technology, those moments are long gone. The passage of time has a certain way of changing things. And time’s inevitable march is never more obvious than in the first days of January.
This year the college football season is over for almost everyone (hats off to Michigan, Washington, Montana and South Dakota State),
This January we can feel the slippage of “what was” even more. The calendar next year will mean two more bowl games after this week and then a National Championship game stretching into mid-January. It is new, it is different and it feels inauthentic.
For those of us old enough to remember those afternoons long ago hanging on to every word from the radio or waiting for a score from another game on the PA system, playing a made-for-TV college football title game on a random Monday in January will always feel like a cheap knockoff of the real thing.
But as each season passes into history, the only constant is change. And it’s okay feel a tinge of nostalgia for what brought you to the faith in college football’s cathedrals in the first place.
