Big Game has inspired heroics, creativity and sheer lunacy. The rivalry was so intense that day that members of the Stanford Band wore hard hats to protect themselves from the frozen oranges hurled by the hometown Berkeley fans. It was the 85th Big Game, and a victory for the 5-5 Cardinal meant a chance for senior John Elway to take his team to the 1982 Hall of Fame Bowl. The Bears, too, needed a win to secure their own postseason Bowl invitation. As usual, Elway didn't disappoint. With Stanford losing 19-17, he led a typically heroic final-minute drive that set up a field goal.
We win, 20-19.
I was in the stands, celebrating our come-from-behind victory and watching the final seconds tick off the clock. And then came The Play. Everybody knows what happened. Cal scored a touchdown on what is probably the most bizarre play in football history: a five-lateral kickoff return that ended with halfback Kevin Moen running through a sea of red-coated Stanford Band members who had stormed the field a wee bit early. In the stands, we were stunned to silence. "It won't count," I whispered under my breath to no one in particular. "One of those guys was down." And then the cannon boomed on Tightwad Hill.
Other Guys win, 25-20.
For the players and fans, the game was over. But back at the Stanford Daily, where I was only a cub reporter, the fun was just beginning. "We got ripped off," recalls Adam Berns, '84, then a Daily sportswriter. "There had to be a way of getting back at Cal." Berns had long admired the Daily pranksters who a decade earlier produced a bogus issue of the Daily Cal that declared the Bears ineligible for collegiate play due to NCAA violations. Now, Berns and a few buddies thought, was their chance.
"The problem," recalls sportswriter Mark Zeigler, '85, "was that it was midterm week." Still, they pulled an all-nighter on Monday, writing six stories, an editorial and three letters to the editor. Entertainment editor Tony Kelly, '86, did the layout. Mike Hale, '81, matched the Daily Cal's logo and typeface and did the paste-up. They made the bogus issue look credible by using bylines that were nearly identical to the names of Daily Cal writers and by creating an ad that called for a noon protest rally at Sproul Plaza. The coup de grace was a huge doctored photo purporting to show a referee "signaling the play dead" long before the touchdown. Based on that photographic evidence, the paper said, the NCAA was reversing the outcome and awarding Big Game to Stanford.
At dawn on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, the Stanford group piled into Kelly's 1971 Plymouth Duster. They distributed 7,000 copies of the four-page EXTRA around the Cal campus. "By sheer luck," Berns recalls gleefully, "the Daily Cal was four hours late that day." The Stanford pranksters hung around long enough to see the ashen faces of Berkeley students reading the headlines--and then they called the press to boast about the stunt. The San Francisco Chronicle put the story of the hoax on its front page, declaring that Stanford got "a soothing last laugh."
It was, of course, the prospect of the 100th Big Game, set for November 22, that triggered these memories. To mark the occasion, we've produced our most ambitious package in years: 18 pages of stories on the history, the traditions and the athletes. One highlight is the photo essay of "Beat Cal" banners at some unlikely places, including Stonehenge, the Leaning Tower of Pisa--and outer space. (Shuttle astronaut Scott Parazynski, '83, MD '89, snapped the shot for us after a trip to the Russian space station Mir in early October; we downloaded it from the NASA website days before deadline.) Quarterbacked by Associate Editor Ginny McCormick, this special issue truly is an effort of the entire magazine staff.
Our team's best play was getting the Axe, the symbol of Big Game since 1899, for the cover. After a flurry of phone calls, we arranged a photo shoot at a secret campus location. Jon Erickson, '65, the University bursar and an adviser to the Axe Committee, showed up wearing dark sunglasses, flanked by a broad-shouldered Stanford senior. Erickson was carrying the unmounted axe, which was covered in Saran Wrap, inside a battered attaché case. (Why the Saran Wrap? He had done some last-minute touch-up painting and the head was still wet.) It seemed like excessive security, but you have to remember that of the seven times the Axe has been stolen, twice the ruse involved Stanford students posing as photographers. A great prank--maybe even better than publishing a bogus newspaper.
You can send e-mail to Bob at bobcohn@leland.stanford.edu.
