Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Media Memories: 1981 Holiday Bowl 30 Years Later

There is this amazing algorithm which takes place in the part of the brain where memories are stored.

The longer you live, time increments shrink proportionally, and before you know it, 5, 10, 20 years have passed in the blink of an eye, and you're like "...huh? ....wait, WHAT?"

And so it is for me to mentally rolodex back to the 1981 Holiday Bowl and realize that 30 years - three decades - have passed since two teams of Cougars squared-off on a crisp December evening at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. WAC versus PAC. Provo meets Pullman. Cosmo and Butch battling for mascot supremacy three years before ESPN would 'Big-Bang' it's way into the sports broadcasting universe.

I was on the sidelines that night, press pass hanging around my neck, one-year before graduating from BYU with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

It was BYU's fourth-straight trip to the bowl it literally helped found in 1978, and it was my third-straight year attending the game, having been in the stands with my family for 1979's last-second 38-37 heartbreaker to Indiana (the first time a BYU kicker would break our hearts) and on the sidelines for the first time, camera and notepad in tow for the Daily Universe for 1980's had-to-see-it-to-believe-it 46-45 comeback miracle thriller against SMU and their (in)famous Pony Express backfield of Eric Dickerson and Craig James.

I was pulling double-duty this night. My credential had been issued to me as Sports Director of KDOT-AM radio in Provo, a position/title I literally created for myself after a great summer news internship at the little station located between Southwest Provo and Utah Lake. Armed with a tape recorder, I arrived early in the week and attended every BYU practice and bowl event, feeding back reports and interviews and doing multiple daily live phoners with Tom Walker and J. Robert Howe.

It's hard to beat the Holiday Bowl when it comes to the bowl events. What's not to like about lunch and a tour of a US Navy aircraft carrier and Team Night at Sea World? The host and emcee of the Sea World Team Night dinner was Mister College Football himself, Keith Jackson, who managed to remain almost completely neutral despite being a WSU broadcasting alum.

After dinner and the program, I got Keith off to the side by myself, and talked to him about the Production Assistant freelancing I had already done for ABC Sports at the 1981 NCAA Track & Field National Championships in Provo and on both ABC's college football broadcasts and several Monday Night Football games throughout the Fall of 1981. He told me he was losing his in-booth spotter for college football and invited me to apply for this F/T network position.

I did so, with Al Michaels and Frank Broyles as my two top references. True to his word, Jackson considered me, and called me the next week at my parents home in Los Angeles to personally tell me I had narrowly lost-out to a much older applicant who already had years of full-time network experience. It was a disappointing, yet wonderful conversation and a defining and motivating moment in my sportscasting career.

Once the actual game arrived, I switched my sideline duties. BYU photography legend Mark Philbrick approached me with WSU's Sports Information Director alongside and explained that Wazzu's sports photog had not been able to make the trip. They asked me if I would be willing to shoot the game - which I was already planning on doing - and get a bunch of isos and close-ups of the Pullman Cougars that they could have for their official publications and archives.

My color slides and B/W negatives from that night are somewhere in a box in my parents, but many of my shots are very similar, and in some cases, almost exact duplicates of what you see here. I remember Danny Plater getting behind the WSU secondary for a 35-yard Jim McMahon touchdown bomb to open the scoring in the 1st quarter.

I can still see a BYU backup quarterback named Steve Young hustling into the huddle, unseen by WSU's defensive coordinator, taking a pitch from McMahon, rolling right and then passing to TE Gordon Hudson who was dragging on a backside route. Big gainer, and just the start of great things to come from Young-to-Hudson.

When McMahon brought the Provo Cougars to the goal line in the 3rd quarter, just before handing-off to Waymon Hamilton for a 1-yard dive which would stake BYU to a 24 - 7 lead, I caught the moment.

My lens found RB Don LaBomme leaping into the endzone over BYU's current Athletic Director, Tom Holmoe (who earlier had returned an interception 35-yards on a pick-six) - to pull State back within 31-15 in the 3rd quarter.

From that point, in a surprising role-reversal from their game the year before against SMU, BYU saw a seemingly-insurmountable lead evaporate into the foggy evening as Wazzu posted 13 unanswered points to close to 31-28 heading into the final quarter.

But McMahon was McMahon, and threw a 4th quarter touchdown to reserve RB Scott Pettis, then gathered-up a bobbled snap on a critcal 3rd and short and surged ahead for a first down, allowing BYU to run out the clock on WSU for a typical (see: thrilling) Holiday Bowl win, 38-36. It was BYU's fourth-straight Holiday Bowl appearance and their second-straight win, setting the stage for many more great (and a couple of not-so-great) moments at the Murph.

As I watch Texas and Cal battle tonight, 30 years later, it will seem a little odd, as it has for years now to not see the Cougars on my screen, rocking the home blues as the host team of the Holiday Bowl.

Kind of like driving past the home of your youth and seeing strangers living there.                                                                                   

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