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Sun Bowl 1977 video - Printable Version

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Sun Bowl 1977 video - 81alum - 12-07-2012

I just came across this on Youtube and it took me back to my freshman year, when Guy Benjamin was a senior and Darrin Nelson was a freshman, playing under Bill Walsh in his first year.  Other famous names include James Loften, Gordy Ceresino, Gordon King. 

The announcing was...unique.  Pat Summerall and Tom Brookeshire were joined by, Burt Reynolds?

Darrin Nelson did his damage mostly on swing passes in this game.  Loften caught a 49 yard post pass at the beginning of the 2nd quarter.

Our opponent was LSU, led by tailback Charles Alexander.  Our defense had been vulnerable to the run that year.  Walsh tried some unorthodox strategies to stop Alexander that today would be commonplace, including "stacking the box" to force LSU to pass.  That did not work all that well.  Alexander was a beast.

I watched this 35 years ago, and have been frustrated at the lack of video of Walsh I.  Now we have some.  What a time machine.

Apologies if this has already been posted here--the videos seem to have gone up within the last few weeks in 4 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a97vZmQqzyQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3twpcWTjpYE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_U6WczDH74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saz7MyBsTEY

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - estephan500 - 12-08-2012

That was the first year I started watching the cardinal. (Seeing the plural on that video is so bizarre.) sitting with my dad in the north end zone family plan. Watching long bombs to lofton and Margerum in that era, and getting the electric jolt when they succeeded, permanently damaged my football sense, and whenever I would play a football game (for instance the two-player Atari football video game with the trackballs that was toward the back of the tressider game room...) I would just always call long bombs all the time.

Truly glad you posted that video... Blasts from the past like that... Even regarding tv production details, uniforms, the shape of the helmet block S ... Always blow my mind.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - pincemob - 12-08-2012

It is interesting to see the team referred to as the Cardinals, including in all the TV graphics. I recall in the early 80s a fair amount of Stanford Cardinals gear floating around; as a kid I had a Stanford t-shirt with the bird logo, and another with the Indian which were still selling back then.  Relative to the Cardinals, did the outside world, including media & merchandisers actually think we were the Cardinals?  Was there a part of Stanford (like maybe the players or AD?) who preferred to be the Cardinals and promoted that nickname?  Anyone with a better memory than me?  You still hear the occasional slip-up (Musberger at end of S.C. game last year "Cardinals win it") but for the most part Cardinal without the "s" is pretty universal and has been for ~20 years. 

It is also interesting to see the end of game clock management by LSU.  Down 10, ~1 minute left, 4th and 4 and LSU brings out the punt team.  They then call a timeout and go for it. 



Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - pincemob - 12-08-2012

Thanks, I did not know that.  I never knew the "Cardinals" existed prior to the student vote which ended the Indians, and assumed it grew out of "Cardinal".  Sounds like perhaps it was the other way around.  Interesting. 

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Gauss - 12-08-2012

Wow, I'm only through the first video, but it's great!

A few things:
Thank you again!

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - 82 Card - 12-08-2012

Quote:an uncalled glaring intentional grounding

The standards for intentional grounding were a bit different back then. If the ref thought the QB was actually trying to throw to an eligible receiver, it was not intentional grounding. A QB known for actually making completions when they should have been down could be assumed to be really trying, especially by a friendly ref. At least that's the way I remember it.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Spiny_Norman - 12-08-2012

(12-08-2012, 09:32 AM)garvin link Wrote:"Cardinals" (often shortened to "Cards") was the standard way everybody referred to the team when I was in school from 1971 to 1975, and I know from leafing through old bound volumes of the Daily that this usage went back many years. (Even before we got rid of the Indian mascot in late 1971, Cardinals was used as an alternative.) My impression is that one of the presidents, perhaps Don Kennedy, issued some kind of executive order making it Cardinal without the S, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but I'm not certain about that.

Anyway, that Sun Bowl announcing team was not committing a gaffe -- that was the nickname Stanford people used at the time.

Stanford organized a campus wide vote when I was a student, I think it was 1981.  The three choices on the ballot were Cardinals, Sequoias and Gryphons (Encina Gym had two griffin statues in front of it so this was recognized as the athletes' choice).  However write in candidates Robber Barons and Thunder Chickens did very well. 

After the election, President Kennedy informed us that it was only an advisory vote and that the school nickname would be Cardinal singular, in the great tradition of the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Dartmouth Big Green.  I always expected there to be something after Cardinal, like the Stanford Cardinal Numbers or the Stanford Cardinal Sins.  Yet here we are 30 years later, still the Cardinal. 

The CardBoard FAQs on the nickname history - http://thecardboard.org/faq.html#cardinal



Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - CowboyIndian - 12-08-2012

(12-08-2012, 07:01 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:... in the great tradition of the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Dartmouth Big Green.

The great tradition of the Dartmouth Big Green was all of 7 years old at the time. They'd changed their name from....wait for it......Indians!
This is from a game program for a Stanford-Dartmouth game in the 1930s. Not what I would call demeaning...

[Image: suduprogram.jpg]

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Griffins78 - 12-09-2012

(12-08-2012, 07:01 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:Stanford organized a campus wide vote when I was a student, I think it was 1981.  The three choices on the ballot were Cardinals, Sequoias and Gryphons (Encina Gym had two griffin statues in front of it so this was recognized as the athletes' choice).  However write in candidates Robber Barons and Thunder Chickens did very well. 

After the election, President Kennedy informed us that it was only an advisory vote and that the school nickname would be Cardinal singular, in the great tradition of the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Dartmouth Big Green.  I always expected there to be something after Cardinal, like the Stanford Cardinal Numbers or the Stanford Cardinal Sins.  Yet here we are 30 years later, still the Cardinal. 

The CardBoard FAQs on the nickname history - http://thecardboard.org/faq.html#cardinal
Your're right about the vote - but it was in 1975 (see the Stanford website: http://www.gostanford.com/school-bio/stan-nickname-mascot.html). Perhaps our FAQ should reflect those details. The way I recall it - the Student Body voted for Robber Barons. The Band voted for Trees. And the Athletic Department voted for Griffins (I was one of them). Kennedy rejected them all. So all we had was the color - not a mascot. It was all part of what made Stanford unique and well, Stanford. And the Band had a Stanford Tree. The first one was a woman and to this day - she is still the best Tree.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - yvonne - 12-09-2012

Can we get Class of 75 and Garvin to chime in with details? thanks.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Nan3cy - 12-09-2012

I remember the band announcer, the first home game after we became Cardinal singular, saying something like "You know, Cardinal, the color, not the bird. Like the Crimson of Harvard, the Green of Dartmouth, the Yellow of journalism."

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Leftcoast - 12-09-2012

There were three student votes that I know of - The first in '72 and a second in '75 covered reinstating the Indian and the one Spiny and I remember in '81 served as an advisory referendum for President Kennedy on alternate names (not including the Indian.)

I believe I voted for Gryphons in '81 but have ever since wished I cast one of the Robber Baron write-in votes.  My memory matches Spiny's - the administration largely ignored the student vote, pointing out that Students were only one of the three main constituencies which also included Alumni and Faculty/Staff.  (We all guessed large donors were a fourth group that had a big thumb on the scale)

I had a native American classmate who invited me to one of the Native American student association meetings (SAIO?).  I came from a California Sierra foothill community where our high school name, the Chieftains, had never been a problem for the relatively large Indian population so I was interested in why the dynamic was different on a college campus.  (It was also early in the term and it didn't hurt that she was quite cute.) 

The Stanford club was strongly opposed to any move to resume the Indian name.  From my outsider viewpoint some of the opposition was  offense over the caricature and the negative racial stereotyping in fan cheering.  Some of it seemed like an activist element siezing on a rallying point to energize their community.  I left thinking it didn't really matter whether I or anyone else felt they SHOULD be offended or not - a substantial number of my fellow students were very offended and I couldn't see why our team's nickname should be a divisive issue. 

I made up my mind then and there and 30 years later I'm still glad we moved on even as I understand the pain of folks who spent THEIR college life rooting for the Indians rather than the Cardinal.

Notice that my experience mirrors the mixed feelings and stratification underlying the SI article - The Native Americans in my local/home community were either supportive or ambivalent about the Chieftain name.  In fact, Indian nicknames are popular at the rural high schools where many Native Americans go to school.  In addition to my mountain area high school, our grade school team was called the Chiefs and a nearby grade school's mascot was taken from the name of the local tribe.  I'd never heard of this being an issue and there were many visible signs of support for the mascot and the teams.

The more politically charged college campus environment was another story entirely.  The Native American students at Stanford had no strong pre-Stanford affiliation with the mascot and opposition was near universal among the Native Americans I met.

Here's a historical document that some may find interesting - Omsbudsman Amsterdam's 1972 Memorandum to President Lyman that led to the removal of the Indian symbol.  Notice he tackles the alumni issue head-on.

http://lib.stanford.edu/files/8655_amsterdam_mascot_response_1972_feb_3.pdf


Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - estephan500 - 12-09-2012

Really appreciate you digging up that memo. It's pretty well put.  Also interesting to see the footnote ... Roughly "for god's sake don't summon a committee." An ombudsman with a sense for tactical efficiency.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Leftcoast - 12-09-2012

Thanks for the insight, Garvin. 

Was the Amsterdam memo published on campus at the time?  It seems to be worded with one eye toward history yet the footnote on committees seems to be carefully put but still a "between you and me" comment.  There's also a section on the need for academic aid for the native Americans on campus that you mentioned proved not to be forthcoming.

Being a Campus President (almost any campus) from Port Huron in 1962 through the end of the Vietnam War was not for the faint at heart. 

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - oman - 12-09-2012

(12-09-2012, 10:41 AM)garvin link Wrote:I get these details from a Stanford Review article that appeared during a resurgence of the controversy in 2006. I'm sure some of you don't trust the Stanford Review, but its recounting of the events of 1972 is detailed and often cites specific Daily stories from the time, so I'm guessing it's fairly reliable as to the chronology.

I think I linked this article in the other thread. 

Should have put a deal out to the alumni.  Endow four professorships in a Native American Studies Department and you all can keep the name.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - terry - 12-09-2012

There was a vote by the students during the 1975-76 school year, as I recall. I believe the five options on the ballot were Cardinals, Robber Barons, Sequoias, Trees (or maybe Redwoods, I'm not sure), and Space Cowboys. Robber Barons won. Sequoias and Trees (or Redwoods) were second and third, splitting the tree vote. The administration ignored the vote. I believe Griffins (or Gryphons) didn't become a contender until a couple years later.

Stanford wasn't called the Indians until the late 1920s. The Indians name was adopted officially in 1930. Before that, Stanford was called the Cardinal or the Cardinals (referring to the color), going back to the 19th century. Some examples:

From "The Games of California and Stanford" (1900) --

[Describing the first Big Game, in March 1892:]
On the next play the ball was given to Clemans whose name from that instant rang as a college hero. A dodge to the right, a burst of speed, a jab of the wicked straight-arm and he had crossed the last whitewashed line for the first touchdown! In the mad Cardinal five-minute celebration the goal was kicked. . . .

[Describing the second Big Game, in December 1892:]
Then the Cardinal backs knocked all the figures off the chess board by a series of runs which were positively electrifying. . . . After several quick exchanges of the ball following the opening play, the brunt of battle lay in California territory, with the sphere in Cardinal possession . . .

[Describing the 1894 Big Game:]
Stanford burst the heavens in shouts of victory. The game ended six to nothing in favor of the Cardinal . . .

From "The Cardinal Song" (c. 1904)

Let every man be singing while Stanford makes the score;
We've made a plenty of them and we'll make a plenty more.
We'll win greater glory than we have won before,
Down in the country of the Cardinal.

Then for the Cardinal give a cheer!
The Stanford spirit can know no fear!
Then all together, we shout it loud and clear:
"To victory! To vict'ry with the Cardinal!"

From "After the Game" (c. 1904)

Oh, I wish I had an ocean of rum, of sugar a million pounds,
The dear old Quad to mix it in, the chimney to stir it round;
I'd drink the health of the Cardinal, so glorious and so true,
And I'd join the rollicking chorus, "Down with the Gold and Blue."

"The Cardinal is Waving" (c. 1915)

The Cardinal is waving over the field;
Our men are fighting with the spirit that will not yield.
Rah, Rah, Rah! Farewell old Berkeley, we're after you,
Once again the Cardinal will whip the Gold and Blue!

From "The Story of the Axe" Appearing in the "Stanford Illustrated Review" (November 1927) --

The famous Stanford Axe, having long since passed out of active use, is now but a tradition. Formerly a weapon of the Cardinals, it is at present a trophy of the Bears. . . .

[Describing the theft of the Axe in 1899:]
In the confusion which followed, one of the Californians slipped away to the Alameda Ferry with the prize in his possession. He was here most ably assisted by a young co-ed in concealing the axe. She hid the object in the abundance of her skirts, which were typical of the period, and was allowed to pass unmolested. About forty-five minutes later the axe was secretly reposing in a California fraternity house, the Chi Phi. Stanford was down but not out. Learning where the axe was concealed, that night the Cardinal organized a mass attack and raided the house. But they could not find the axe as it was concealed in the piano. . . .

Excerpts from the Stanford Daily, April 4, 1930 (following the recovery of the Axe by the Immortal 21) --

While the Blue and Gold horde literally slumbered on its feet last night, a band of twenty intrepid wearers of the Cardinal whisked the precious implement from under the nose of the Berkleyans in whose possession it had rested since that fatal day in 1899, and brought it back to the Stanford campus. . . . Following is the order of events in the Cardinal triumph and the California catastrophe . . . Roaring through the night over East Bay sideroads; carrying their prize back through the gates from whence it came 31 years ago, an intrepid band of 21 Cardinal patriots made history for their Alma Mater. . . . "Give 'em the Axe," famous Stanford yell rang out with its original meaning for the first time in 30 years when 2000 Cardinals rallied before the Library Friday morning to celebrate the return of the historic weapon. . . .

From "The Stanford Axe" (1930) --

Pandemonium greeted the return of the Axe to Stanford. The speeding car arrived on the campus about half-past ten that night. . . . The party then proceeded to Sequoia Hall, home of most of the raiders. Cries of "We've got the Axe!" quickly brought out studying and sleeping students to learn the startling news. The Axe was taken into the lobby of the dormitory where eager Cardinals closely examined the famous trophy. . . . At Roble an impromptu rally was held --- the first Axe Rally at Stanford in thirty-one years. Closely guarded by husky Cardinals, the Axe was raised to view, running enthusiasm to fever pitch. . . . Headlines in the city papers featured a variety of remarkable stories. An account of the capture was also broadcast over the radio. Never before has any collegiate prank created such general interest in this section of the country. The return of the Cardinal's prodigal emblem easily rivaled the Big Game in interest.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - Class_of_75 - 12-09-2012

Yvonne, sorry my memory is not as good as Glenn's. I vaguely remember the referendum on the Indian nickname.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - yvonne - 12-09-2012

I think I can cobble something together from Glenn's and Terry's posts.

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - CompSci87 - 12-09-2012

Love the old-fashioned, flowery language of the quotes in Terry's post.  :)

Re: Sun Bowl 1977 video - 81alum - 12-09-2012

(12-09-2012, 08:20 PM)terry link Wrote:There was a vote by the students during the 1975-76 school year, as I recall. I believe the five options on the ballot were Cardinals, Robber Barons, Sequoias, Trees (or maybe Redwoods, I'm not sure), and Space Cowboys. Robber Barons won. Sequoias and Trees (or Redwoods) were second and third, splitting the tree vote. The administration ignored the vote. I believe Griffins (or Gryphons) didn't become a contender until a couple years later.
I started in 1977 and remember something about the Griffins.  I remember being told by my friends, who were managers on the team, that Griffons were the athletes' choice because of those statues, but thinking that they really had nothing to do with Stanford. Strangely, I do not remember what I supported at the time.

I also remember going to the games in 1977 as a freshman and taking red feathers that alums were passing out.  I remember being confused and having to ask "What's with the red feathers?"  I did not know that Stanford had ever been the Indians--and yet it had been just five years.  It does not take long for culture to change.