Former Oakland Tribune photographer ROBERT STINNETT recalls that instructions from his editors for shooting the 1982 Big Game were pointed and unequivocal: don’t leave early. “The year before, the photographer had missed the winning score, so I was in the end zone shooting the Band and the Stanford cheerleaders,” says Stinnett. Then he noticed the Band behaving “even more erratically than usual,” and a moment later Cal ball carrier Kevin Moen crossed the goal line, made a celebratory leap and crashed into Stanford trombonist Gary Tyrrell. Stinnett caught all of it on film. Those photos, accompanying “And the Band Played On,” have become the standard archive of the Play, and the Moen shot has been reprinted “more than 100 times,” according to Stinnett. An aerial reconnaissance photographer for the Navy in World War II (he flew with squadron leader George H. Bush), Stinnett retired in 1986 after almost 40 years at the Tribune. He has since focused on writing books; his latest is Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (Free Press, 1999).
Growing up in Ohio, the daughter of two Ohio State graduates, JACKIE KRENTZMAN learned a thing or two about football rivalries. But her research for the story about the Play (“And the Band Played On”) was an eye-opener. “I now realize that for my entire life I have labored under the misconception that the real Big Game was Ohio State-Michigan,” she says. A graduate of the University of Michigan—and full disclosure requires that we mention she earned a master’s degree in journalism at Cal—Krentzman is editorial director of Diablo Custom Publishing in Walnut Creek, Calif. A former newspaper reporter who covered both Stanford and Cal football and basketball, Krentzman has written several articles for Stanford, including a history of Sunset magazine and profiles of Nike chairman Phil Knight, MBA ’62, and Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy, ’52.
JOE HLEBICA’s love affair with the ocean began at age 4 when his parents gave him his first mask and fins. The Sacramento native studied biology and journalism at the University of Oregon, then worked in Japan for 12 years as a teacher, translator, writer and scuba instructor. Back in the States, Hlebica taught literature at a high school in Red Bluff, Calif., organizing a Steinbeck-focused field trip to Monterey. Today, he writes for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. The article on Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station “is a story I’ve always wanted to do,” says Hlebica. “I’ve long had a fondness for Hopkins and Monterey Bay.” The assignment has, in fact, inspired him to write a book—on maverick biologist Ed Ricketts, a friend of Steinbeck’s who pioneered the study of marine ecology.
