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Segment One: My Encounter With A Football Miracle — In Search Of The Stories Behind 'The Play' 

California's Kevin Moen (26) jumps into the air subsequent to scoring the triumphant score for the Golden Bears against rival Stanford on Nov. 20, 1982. The shocking consummation became referred to just as "The Play. 메이저사이트

I turned upward into the Big Man's eyes and shouted and shouted. I shouted at near the highest point of my lungs. Then, at that point, I yelled some more. 

I needed to ensure the outsider heard me. So I pounded descending with two hands on the Big Man's shoulders. They lingered like twin mountains, tied into a bunch of huge shoulder braces, enveloped by a uniform of dark blue. 

So I beat and cried. Beat and cried. What's more, the Big Man appeared to get it. Thank heavens, he appeared to get it. Since, at 6 feet 3 and 290 pounds, it was significant that he got that — despite the fact that I seemed distracted — I came in harmony. 

I have esteemed that second for the mediating forty years. I love to recount the tale of how I submitted boisterous attack (and close battery) on George Niualiku, a hostile watchman on the University of California football crew. What's more, I lived to tell about it. 

My little trip of madness was not interesting that pre-winter evening in Berkeley. Surrounding us on the field at California Memorial Stadium, others came unhinged. They wailed like little children, "Wooooo-hooooooooooooo!" They Bear-embraced outsiders. They raised their arms on high as though they had won the heavyweight title. 

That is the manner in which it goes when you have seen what Cal radio in depth broadcaster Joe Starkey called "the most stunning, electrifying, sensational, awful, invigorating, exciting completion throughout the entire existence of school football." The subtleties would gradually come into center over numerous years, as the venture named "The Play" developed into both a games peculiarity and my own fixation. 

Dealing with a book about the mysterious consummation of that confrontation game among Cal and Stanford, I talked with mentors and players, fans, writers and authorities. I took in a ton about football, yet more with regards to fellowship, lament and trust.  

However, until this fall, I had never met Niualiku, the person who in a real sense lingered biggest in my memory of Nov. 20, 1982. I needed to know what he recollected of our experience, such countless seasons back, and how The Play affected him.

The 124th yearly field confrontation between UC Berkeley and Stanford — referred to Bay Area genuine devotees as the "Major event" — is booked for this Saturday. A year short of its 40th commemoration, the legend of The Play lives on. An ESPN highlight, facilitated by resigned NFL star Eli Manning, again hailed it last month as the "most awesome second" in 152 years of school football. 

The Play stays unmatched in light of the fact that UC Berkeley had everything except unquestionably lost — apparently crushed by a shocking John Elway-designed scoring drive and a Stanford field objective that left only 0:04 on the clock — before Cal's opening shot return group went splendidly schoolyard, in a second that remains video misleading content right up 'til the present time. 

The strategy for the Golden Bears' liberation made no sense and all point of reference: four players weaving together five laterals and a childish hurry that brought them through, finished and around 11 Stanford football players as well as 144 individuals from the Leland Stanford Jr. College Marching Band. 

The football contention between the two incredible colleges is one of the most established west of the Mississippi, with different games chose by somewhat late heroics and others delivering inconceivable bombshells. 

In 1982, Elway quarterbacked the sort of late-game drive that would turn into his mark in a Hall of Fame NFL profession. His marquee second accompanied not exactly brief left, when he evaded a fearsome charge by the Cal protective line and tossed a 28-yard laser on fourth down and long. Four plays later, a 35-yard field objective appeared to guarantee a 20-19 success for Stanford. 

Yet, Elway and the Cardinal had called break too soon. Indeed, even as Stanford players mobbed the field, guaranteeing triumph, four seconds remained — an unending length of time for designers of the unbelievable. 

In the disarray and consternation that followed on the Berkeley sideline, some Cal players conversed with mentors about bringing down the kick, allowing for one final Hail Mary pass by quarterback Gale Gilbert. Nobody told that to the Cal kick bring group back. 

Toward the finish of-game disarray, Cal assembled just 10 of the standard 11 players for the Stanford the opening shot. Fortunately for the Bears, two of them were Kevin Moen and Richard Rodgers, deadly hitters on guard and, significantly, previous choice quarterbacks in their secondary school days. They realized how to deal with the ball. 

Over the clamor of the Stanford band's triumph tune, "OK Now," Rodgers didn't sit tight for an order from mentors. He called the majority of his partners into a group, yelling that they needed to dispose of the ball in the event that they fell into inconvenience. "Try not to fall with the ball," furious No. 5 proclaimed. While great many Bears fans (this one included) looked down in disgrace, a little seed of trust had been planted among the Berkeley 10. 

Moen handled the bouncing stunt kick from Stanford, six yards behind midfield. He falter ventured on his right side and afterward back on his left side. With red-and-white protectors pushing ahead, Moen tossed overhand to Rodgers. Caught along the sideline, he scooped the ball back to Dwight Garner, a rookie running back. Earn shimmied and cut back, however five Stanford tacklers amassed over him. 

Fans from Palo Alto will perpetually demand that Garner's shin and knee had hit the ground and that The Play ought to have been pronounced dead not too far off. Luckily, the authorities had a more free enterprise (or deterred?) view. They neither blew their whistles nor tossed any punishment banners against the Bears. With white pullovers sticking his arms, Garner heard Rodgers calling to him. He scarcely figured out how to push the ball free. 

The Bears' field marshal snatched it, wheeling to one side, tracking down a touch of open turf and stepping into Stanford domain. With more white shirts again shutting in, Rodgers lateraled for the subsequent time, flicking the ball back to Mariet Ford, No. 1, an armada wide beneficiary who previously had one score 

The Stanford band goes wild on the field toward the finish of the California-Stanford NCAA school football match-up in Berkeley on Nov. 20, 1982. Yet, Cal utilized five laterals and ran over a Stanford trombone player in scoring the triumphant score on the last play of the game. Stanford actually doesn't recognize its adversary's triumph. 

Stanford musicians, collected just past the north end zone, as of now had detonated onto the field after Garner went down. ("We thought WE were the show," one musician told me.) As Ford sped forward, an ocean of red-covered artists horsed around and skipped across the south finish of the field, foraying past the 20-yard line. Passage ran past the gatecrashers and flung himself at the last genuine snag: three Stanford players. 

Portage's jump took out the Cardinals, similarly as he hurled the ball over his right shoulder. No. 1 would say in the postgame storage space that he detected Moen running some place behind him. The strong security, the principal man who had contacted the ball, would likewise be the last. He got Ford's franticness hurl and thundered the last 25 yards, past saxophonists, clarinet players and one last, bewildered Stanford linebacker. 

Sports Illustrated's Ron Fimrite would compose a year after the fact "not really settled, full flight" and the melodic musicians dashing to wellbeing. 

"Like a Red Sea," Fimrite stated, "they separated for the wonder laborer." 

With a last, happy jump, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Moen brought the ball down on the head of trombone player Gary Tyrrell, who remained in at 5 feet 6 and 148 pounds. Tyrrell went down, while Moen cavorted through the end zone and into history. 

Tyrrell, presently a resigned Silicon Valley monetary chief, and Moen, who sells land on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, have been connected in Big Game legend from that point onward. Presently as warm as siblings, they show up together on TV and radio on every one of The Play's significant commemorations.