From: tannerg@carson.u.washington.edu (Glenn Tanner)
Subject: If you're a front-runner, this won't interest you
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 20:49:09 GMT

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.
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college