From: jfrederi@encore.com (Justin Frederich)
Subject: Re: If you're a front-runner, this won't interest you
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 01:11:02 GMT

tannerg@carson.u.washington.edu (Glenn Tanner) writes:

>Four years ago, SMU resumed its football program with a team that featured
>78 freshmen and about 40 scholarship players.  The team suffered through
>a 59-6 loss to a classy #1-ranked Notre Dame team, and a 95-21 rout by a
>Houston team bent on breaking NCAA records.  The only winnable game on the
>schedule seemed to be a home game against the University of Connecticut.
>After trailing 30-14 late in the 4th quarter, SMU rallied for a 31-30 
>victory by scoring a touchdown on the last play of the game.  Following
>is Dallas Morning News' David Casstevens column from September 19, 1989.


>	Two workers looked mildly amused by the nature of the job.  But the 
>foreman wasn't smiling.
>	"Turn it this way," he called out.  "little more.  Hold it.  Back
>th' other way.  Easy.  C'mon.  WHOA!!"
>	The guy in charge stood in the north end zone of Ownby Stadium, eyes
>upturned.  Another worker sat at the controls of a yellow front-end loader.
>Using the loader's upraised shovel, he gently tried to reposition the goal 
>post which, judging by its condition, hadn't sobered up from Saturday night's
>victory bash.
>	The crossbar is supposed to be parallel with the goal line.  It was 
>turned at a funny angle.  One upright leaned forward, as if tipsy.
>	SMU has got to stop this winning.  It's too intoxicating.  One taste
>and folks lose control.  SMU beat Connecticut, 31-30, on the last play of the
>game and you would have thought President Pye had just abolished freshman 
>English.
>	Mercy!  Cash Birdwell, the SMU trainer, has been around the Hilltop 
>for 17 years, through good times and bad, and he says he had never seen 
>anything quite like the spontaneous celebration that erupted at the end of the
>game.  Birdwell's first concern is for the health and safety of his players.
>A kid could sprain something -- or worse, suffocate -- at the bottom of that
>blue-shirted pile.  "you've got to use a little caution in situations like
>that," Birdwell warned.  "But," he added, smiling, "I'd never tell 'em not
>to do it again."
>	Of all of SMU's worries, you wouldn't think crowd control would be
>one of them.  Not this year.  But mix long suffering with a miracle finish
>and the intamacy of a small on-campus setting and the product of that 
>chemistry is, well...
>	Mitch Glieber says the emotions he experienced in that moment are 
>difficult to describe.  The Mustang senior is the only scholarship letterman
>who remained at SMU the past two years.  When SMU received the death penalty,
>most former teammates scattered like billiard balls after a hard break.  Mitch
>stayed.  In two years without football, Glieber forgot what winning was like.
>Then Michael Bowen caught Mike Romo's four-yard toss with no time left and 
>that old feeling returned, with a rush, only this was headier than anything 
>Glieber had felt before.
>	Students jumped railings and poured onto the field.  "People were 
>hugging me I'd never seen before," he said.  The scene looked like Lindbergh
>when he landed at Le Bourget, only on a smaller scale.  Before the last play,
>Forrest Gregg had advised his players to remain together on the sidelines,
>win or lose.  But when the referee raised his arms, signalling touchdown, the
>SMU coach could no more contain his troops than a kindergarten teacher could
>her class if Santa walked into the room.  Players broke ranks.  "The Great
>Wall of China," Gregg said, "couldn't have stopped 'em."
>	Like a sheriff breaking up a bar brawl, Glieber began pulling teammates
>off the pile.  Then HE dived on it, just for fun.
>	As the SMU band played the school fight son, several students climbed 
>the white steel Y structure in the end zone.  The uprights swayed like 
>antannae of some giant insect.  The post turned and listed under the weight.   
>"Ladies and gentlemen," PA announcer Bill Melton said, "in spite of your 
>enthusiasm, please DO NOT CLIMB THE GOAL POSTS!"  And to think, until four
>weeks ago, there weren't any.
>	To non-partisans, the giddy celebration may have seemed excessive.  
>SMU had not won a championship.  SMU beat Connecticut, a I-AA school.  So 
>what?  Big deal.
>	But it was a big deal.  It was a big deal for the players who this 
>year must pay the penalty for the transgressions of others, no longer here.
>It was a big deal for their parents who must watch their kids take some
>severe beatings in coming weeks. 
>	It was a big deal for Gregg and his coaches, who face the difficult
>task of selling a young team on the belief that it can compete, that it can
>win, even though the talent level and the schedule says, "You don't stand a
>CHANCE."
>	It was a big deal for alumni and students.  For the first time, in a 
>long time, something GOOD happened at SMU.  So they gravitated to the field 
>Saturday night -- players, coaches, students, parents, alumni, fans -- each
>drawn to each other.  They cheered and climbed the goal post and sang the      
>school song, and though the hour was late, they didn't want to leave.  It's 
>what college football is all about.

>              
>Saturday, SMU, which opened a 20 point underdog, upset Houston 41-16, led
>by their first full senior class.
  

  GREAT POST - SMU could not have picked a better time to pound someone.


Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college