[GaryT]

To this day, every time some highlight reel includes the Play in its pantheon of greatest ever comebacks or craziest plays of all time, I stop watching.  It's a moment in football that never would have survived today's review process and thoroughly robbed Elway and the gang of a well-deserved bowl game that season.  Yes, it's memorable; yes, it has become iconic of the Stanford-Cal rivalry; and, yes, I am perhaps being a bit sour-grapes about it all.  But any replay of that kick-off shows multiple infractions that should have halted play.  Nearly forty years later, we are still talking about it, so there's that.  I just don't enjoy watching it, but that's par for the course when your team is on the bad end of an event like that.

This, by far, is the worst aspect of The Play.  For the fans, we've gotten over it (at least I think everyone has*), and we even were treated to Karmic Redemption of sorts in 1990.  But the players on that team were forever robbed of a bowl game experience (and the country was denied another chance to see the wizardry that was Elway in a Cardinal uniform).  That sucked then; and it still sucks today.  And for that reason, I'm even more impressed with the Stanford players' ability to show perspective and grace during the look-back documentary (I'd probably still be pissed . . . although 40 years is a long time to stay bent).

* The documentary also interviewed Jim Rutter, founder of The Bootleg (and as Cardinal Die-Hard as it gets).  His closing remarks were along lines of "I thought at the time that something smelled bad with the way that game ended.  And thirty years later . . . I'd say it smells even worse!"  (Or something like that.  I had to chuckle at that one).

Well said, Teejers. We both remember how down, dark, and weird the times were in our community through the rest of the school year. Walker probably still would have won the tHeisman, but, as someone wrote in one of their stories about The Play several years later: even when Stanford guys lose, they win. It's a long game. 65-47-11

[GaryT]

To this day, every time some highlight reel includes the Play in its pantheon of greatest ever comebacks or craziest plays of all time, I stop watching.  It's a moment in football that never would have survived today's review process and thoroughly robbed Elway and the gang of a well-deserved bowl game that season.  Yes, it's memorable; yes, it has become iconic of the Stanford-Cal rivalry; and, yes, I am perhaps being a bit sour-grapes about it all.  But any replay of that kick-off shows multiple infractions that should have halted play.  Nearly forty years later, we are still talking about it, so there's that.  I just don't enjoy watching it, but that's par for the course when your team is on the bad end of an event like that.

This, by far, is the worst aspect of The Play.  For the fans, we've gotten over it (at least I think everyone has*), and we even were treated to Karmic Redemption of sorts in 1990.  But the players on that team were forever robbed of a bowl game experience (and the country was denied another chance to see the wizardry that was Elway in a Cardinal uniform).  That sucked then; and it still sucks today.  And for that reason, I'm even more impressed with the Stanford players' ability to show perspective and grace during the look-back documentary (I'd probably still be pissed . . . although 40 years is a long time to stay bent).

* The documentary also interviewed Jim Rutter, founder of The Bootleg (and as Cardinal Die-Hard as it gets).  His closing remarks were along lines of "I thought at the time that something smelled bad with the way that game ended.  And thirty years later . . . I'd say it smells even worse!"  (Or something like that.  I had to chuckle at that one).

Well said, Teejers. We both remember how down, dark, and weird the times were in our community through the rest of the school year. Walker probably still would have won the tHeisman, but, as someone wrote in one of their stories about The Play several years later: even when Stanford guys lose, they win. It's a long game. 65-47-11