Recalling Big Game's big play Big Game

Recommended Video:

(10-18) 16:48 PDT --

Robert Stinnett, who snapped the iconic photo, was at Memorial Stadium only because Oakland Tribune photographers failed to get a shot of the Axe at the previous Big Game.

Al Lopez, whose footage has been replayed thousands - if not millions - of times, received his first Memorial Stadium assignment only because another KPIX photographer attended a wedding.

John McCasey, the Cal sports-information director (SID), missed The Play because he frantically was trying to get a camera crew in place to shoot an interview with the Bears' player of the year. Bob Rose, the Stanford SID, saw The Play only because he wanted to savor the last few moments of his tenure with the Cardinal.

Barry Tompkins, the play-by-play announcer for the Cal highlight show, says his description of The Play is the one call "that I'd like to have back more than any other." Pete Liebengood, the play-by-play announcer for the Stanford highlight show, says his description of The Play is "one of the things about my whole career that I'm most prideful."

And Niels Melo, who produced and directed the Cal and Stanford highlight shows, made so many dubs of The Play in the days and weeks after Nov. 20, 1982, that "I think I finally destroyed my copy just so I could tell people I can't do that anymore."

The Bears' 57-yard, five-lateral kickoff return through the Stanford band to beat the Cardinal 25-20 remains the most bizarre, recognizable play in the history of college football.

The Play, Cal-Stanford, Moen over goal line, November 20, 1982. The Play, Cal-Stanford, Moen over goal line, November 20, 1982. Photo: Robert Stinnett, © 1982 By Robert Stinnett Photo: Robert Stinnett, © 1982 By Robert Stinnett Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Recalling Big Game's big play 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The aforementioned seven men all had their lives affected by The Play or they left their stamp on it - or both.

The prelude

At 6-4, the Bears owned a better record than the Cardinal (5-5), but Stanford was considered a slight favorite because of its quarterback, someone by the name of John Elway. If Stanford won, it would go to the Hall of Fame Bowl in Birmingham, Ala.

Rose spent the night before the game having dinner at Fisherman's Wharf with a Hall of Fame Bowl representative.

"I had not even contemplated the possibility this could be John Elway's last game," Rose said. "I just assumed that John Elway ... was going to shine as he would and that, if nothing else, he would be the difference in the game."

The late-season play of quarterback Gale Gilbert boosted the Bears' confidence. "He had just come into his own and he just was blossoming," McCasey said. "As great as Elway was ... he was going to be challenged by Gale, I guarantee you."

McCasey was wrestling with a different challenge. He was supposed to pick the Bears' Player of the Year before the Big Game, so Melo's crew could shoot the interview at Cal's Friday practice. But at a luncheon early in the week, first-year head coach Joe Kapp put a kibosh to that plan.

"We don't make that decision until we've played all 11 games," Kapp told McCasey.

Tribune sports editor Bob Valli made the decision to use Stinnett at the Big Game because the paper didn't have a photo of the Axe after the Cardinal's win the previous November.

Stinnett's sole assignment: stick with the Stanford rally committee.

"That was all I was to do," Stinnett said. "I was not to do game action, just stay with the rally committee, which I did. There was a young student and woman, and they had the Axe chained to them. Wherever they went, I went."

Lopez and I each had been working at KPIX for about a year; he as a photographer, I as a sports producer. Having graduated from Cal in 1981, I knew where Memorial Stadium was. Lopez did not.

Said Lopez: "I was so new to that that I needed you to tell me how to get to" the stadium.

Moments before The Play

McCasey's plan: Meet the camera crew in the north tunnel with a minute left in the game. If it looked as if the Bears would win, the crew would get set in the Cal locker room. If it appeared the Bears would lose, the crew would stay on the field.

"I'm looking at the scoreboard," McCasey said, "and it's 4th-and-17 (for Stanford at its 13-yard-line). And I'm saying, 'OK, let's head upstairs and set thing up.' So, up we go."

As McCasey and crew make their way to the Cal locker room, Elway connects with Emile Harry on a 29-yard completion to keep the Cardinal's hopes alive.

"At that point," Rose said, "you would have assumed that would have been the game changer. That would have been the play that would have stuck in Stanford lore and would be the reason that they went to the (Hall of Fame Bowl) and would be one of the final signs of greatness from John Elway."

Elway and the Cardinal rapidly marched downfield, reaching the Cal 18, setting up Mark Harmon for what appeared to be a game-deciding field-goal try. Meanwhile, McCasey had returned to the north tunnel.

"And oh my God, (the kick is) going right through the uprights; I could have damn well caught that thing," McCasey recalled. "And I said, 'Uh oh, better get (the crew members) out of the locker room.' Run up, 'Hey guys, we've got to break down. We've got to get back down on the field. Stanford's just won the game.'

"Now they're cussing at me. They're madder than hell - and I don't blame 'em."

In the TV truck, Melo already had released one of his on-field camera crews to McCasey; now Melo instructed another one to get set to interview Stanford head coach Paul Wiggin.

"So, I only had two 'up' cameras," Melo said, "the wide-coverage camera and the tight shot, covering what we thought was a game that was pretty much over."

Folks younger than 25 might not realize this, but in those days, not every game was televised. Melo, Tompkins, Liebengood and company were doing a "live-to-tape" telecast that would air the following day on KRON (Channel 4).

Said Tompkins: "It was filled with, 'Due to time constraints, we move ahead to action further in the game.' "

KRON was the only Bay Area station with access to the telecast footage. The other three main local stations - KTVU (Channel 2), KPIX (Channel 5) and KGO (Channel 7) - sent news photographers to get their highlights.

After Harmon's field goal gave Stanford a 20-19 edge with four seconds left, the KGO photographer began packing his gear to hustle downstairs for interviews. The KTVU and KPIX photographers remained focused on the field.

As Harmon and the Stanford kickoff unit prepared for the final play, Lopez was preparing as well.

Said Lopez: I was thinking, 'OK, there's one play - and all you can do is lateral the ball.' So, I'm thinking (the) basic rule of sports photography is you follow the ball. Everything else really doesn't matter."

The Play

Stinnett had held his ground near the south end zone. That's where the Stanford rally committee was.

"I still stayed right there because the Axe had not been passed yet," Stinnett said. "I was following Bob Valli's orders."

Under normal circumstances, Rose would have left the press box soon after Harmon's field goal to help orchestrate postgame interviews. He chose to stay in the box because "it just so happened that was my last day on the job because I had already accepted a job with the L.A. Express" of the fledgling United States Football League.

Said Lopez: "I went pretty tight on the ball when it was kicked off, tighter than I normally do. I remember the guy caught it and I think I squeezed in a little tighter because it really is, What are you going to do with that ball?' And at that point, I knew - from a little high school football and other stuff like that - one guy ain't going to run it all the way back."

As the four Bears - Kevin Moen, Richard Rodgers, Dwight Garner and Mariet Ford - began lateralling their way downfield, the Stanford band began moving onto the southwest portion of the field.

"All of a sudden, I noticed things didn't look right," Stinnett said. "There were heads bobbing up. I didn't know what was going on at all; I had no idea. So, I just put my camera up."

The fifth and final lateral went from Ford to Moen near the Cardinal 25.

"You can see my camera kind of jerks," Lopez said, "because it was such a quick lateral over the back of his head. I saw the guy coming to hit him, but I didn't see anybody around he could throw it to. Because I'm pretty tight at this point. If I stayed a little wider, I would have seen it, but I couldn't see it.

"I just kind of followed the ball quickly and he's going in the end zone, and the next thing I know, I see a trombone player in the end zone. And pow, he hits him. It was like, 'Oh, great shot.' "

Said Stinnett: "Body language tells you a lot. That took about five seconds for Kevin Moen to come through the band and sort of leap in the air and sail over.

"He didn't hit me, but he hit the trombone player - and all the time I'm following him with the camera, so I'm getting that whole sequence."

Meanwhile, Tompkins and Liebengood were trying to describe this theater of the bizarre.

Thanks to the fact fans have become so familiar with the video and the fact Cal radio play-by-play announcer Joe Starkey so brilliantly captured the moment once the officials acknowledged Moen's touchdown indeed did count ("the most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!"), Starkey's call has become part and parcel of The Play.

In reality, of the four professional calls that day - Cal radio, Stanford radio, Cal TV and Stanford TV - Liebengood most accurately nailed The Play as it happened.

Tompkins smartly made reference to the Bears trying to employ a rugby-style return, but he made the mistake of saying the penalty flags on The Play would nullify the touchdown.

Liebengood's version: "There it is. That is Moen. He pitches it out to Rodgers. That's going to take care of the clock, so they've got to score here. This is Garner. My goodness, Rodgers is still alive. Stanford players on the field. Whoa, what's going on here? Markers down. This is incredible. Moen is going to score."

Said Lopez: "The whole stands were rocking. It was hard to keep a shot because the stands were rocking when he went into the end zone. I tried to stay on him. You see me zoom out a little. That's because the place was shaking."

Moments, hours, days after The Play

McCasey, you'll remember, once more was returning from the Cal locker room to the north tunnel. He missed witnessing The Play, but saw plenty of the ensuing chaos.

"All of a sudden," McCasey recalled, "I just see this sea of humanity going from my left to my right, meaning going from the Cal side of the field to the Stanford side of the field. And I'm going, 'What the hell is happening?' "

Rose admitted to some initial mixed emotions. "You can't be a cheerleader when you're a PR person, anyway," Rose said, "but you're certainly closely affiliated with your program, and I knew there was a lot at stake here, in terms of a bowl game and John Elway. ...

"But as I saw it unfold and I saw that this Play was going to stand, it was kind of strange being with the losing team. There was somewhat of a feeling of exhilaration because I knew ... immediately this was going to be something that was going to last a lifetime. ...

"This is incredible, unbelievable and we were there to be part of it. It was history."

Still chronicling that history - the officials huddling, signaling the touchdown stood, fans swarming the field and the players - was Lopez with his video camera in the press box.

"For me, the event was going on," Lopez said. "It wasn't over yet. This is still going on. This is part of that game. So, I'm not going to miss anything."

The KTVU photographer had stopped rolling during The Play.

On the field, Stinnett was trying to make sense of it all.

"I knew that I had something," Stinnett said, "but ... I still didn't really know what happened. I knew nothing about the laterals ... but I knew it was the winning touchdown. I did know that because of the cannon on Tightwad Hill."

When McCasey heard the cannon signifying the touchdown, he sent the beleaguered camera crew back upstairs to the Cal locker room. Soon thereafter, he met Kapp racing up the tunnel.

Said McCasey: "I said, 'Joe, Joe, we've got to pick the Player of the Year.' I mean, think how stupid this was, but I didn't see what happened. I had no idea what was about to unfold for the next 12 months of my life.

"And he says, 'Whoever scored the touchdown! Whoever scored the touchdown!' "

McCasey and Lopez soon would be in the beyond-boisterous, ultra-ecstatic, filled-to-the-gills Cal locker room. Rose's task: get to the Stanford locker room to coordinate postgame interviews.

"A number of players and coaches ... were just really in disbelief," Rose said. "They really had not accepted that they'd lost the game. They genuinely felt that it still was going to get overturned. They still believed that - and they were vocal about it. They were angry about it."

Wiggin and some of his assistant coaches refused to meet with the media until they had seen a replay - or seven - of The Play. The only possible way to do that in those days was to see it in Melo's TV truck, situated beyond the press-box walls of Memorial Stadium.

The Stanford coaches "were kind of in a state of shock," Melo said, "and just trying to figure out what happened, because they didn't really have a good view of it, either. Then they talked amongst themselves. It was mostly a reaction of being astonished."

"They watched the replay over and over," Rose said. "I can remember just the first time it was replayed - and I think it was (assistant coach) Ray Handley - he was so emotional that he was yelling at the top of his lungs. And I won't repeat all the words he used, but he really felt that Stanford had been jobbed."

McCasey's job still included interviewing Cal's Player of the Year. Someone mistakenly had told him Ford scored the touchdown. Ford, who'd put together an excellent season, probably would have been McCasey's choice, anyway. Thinking that Ford had crossed the goal line - and heeding Kapp's preference - McCasey picked Ford for the honor.

A while later, McCasey received a jolt.

Recalled McCasey: "I said, 'Mariet, you scored the touchdown.' He says, 'No, no, no. I didn't score it. Moen scored it.' I said, 'Moen? Oh my God, Kevin Moen scored the touchdown.'

"I said, 'Oh well, I'm going to catch hell for giving (the Player of the Year) to Mariet.' Joe (Kapp) totally forgot he ever told me to pick whoever scored the touchdown - and I never reminded him."

From a balcony outside the Cal locker room, Kapp wound up leading fans in cheers. Lopez captured that moment and many others in the locker room.

"It was pretty amazing," Lopez said. "The energy was unbelievable. You could feel it. ... I felt more energy in that locker room than I ever felt at any pro level, with people winning the Super Bowl or the World Series."

No team has lost a Super Bowl or World Series under more unfathomable circumstances than Stanford did in losing the 1982 Big Game. After Wiggin and his assistant coaches watched replays of The Play in Melo's truck, they and athletic director Andy Geiger made their way close to the Cal locker room. They wanted McCasey to take them to the officials' locker room.

McCasey obliged.

"They march right in there," McCasey said. "They made their spiel. They were upset. They were talking, 'You can't do this. This is wrong,' slamming their fists on the floor. 'People's lives are at stake' and 'Jobs are at stake.' "

After a few minutes, McCasey recalled, one of the assistant coaches said, "Oh, forget it. We're not going to change their minds. Let's go."

McCasey wasn't quite done with the officials. After he left their locker room to return to Cal's, members of the media were requesting to have a pool reporter interview referee Charlie Moffett. By Pac-10 rules, that pool reporter was the home team's SID. In other words, John McCasey.

"I asked him the basic questions," McCasey said. "Charlie was just the greatest. He was so good and so relaxed and confident."

Stinnett and Lopez were pretty confident they'd done their jobs well - but they naturally professed to a little doubt.

"You think you know how you shot it," Lopez said, "but you're not really sure until you play it back and see it, because what's in your mind and what actually comes on tape sometimes are not ... the same."

Because The Play took place as the sun was setting, Stinnett feared he might have some problems with the exposure.

"I really didn't know what it was until I got back to the Tribune," Stinnett said "and developed the film. And then I saw I had this remarkable picture. I didn't even remember that I had (Moen) flying in the air - or that I had the trombone player (Gary Tyrrell) on the ground."

Lopez had to wait a while before he could see the fruits of his labors. He actually had to cover the Utah State-San Jose State game that night.

"I was exhausted," Lopez recalled, "and I had to drive to San Jose and I'm like, 'I have to shoot this game?' "

McCasey saw Lopez's footage before Lopez did. After about two hours, McCasey - who still hadn't witnessed a second of The Play - left the locker room and went to Melo's TV truck to get a glimpse of a replay.

Well, Melo and his crew not only had spent plenty of time showing The Play to the Stanford coaches, they then spent what Melo remembered as more than a hour doing replays for members of the media, who either hadn't seen The Play or had seen it - and didn't know how to describe it.

Melo described the media members as "panicked."

So after all that, when McCasey requested a replay from the truck, he said the response was, "In unison, in the loudest you could imagine coming out of a production truck, 'Hell, no. We're not playing it again.' "

McCasey went up to the press box and finally saw Lopez's footage on the KPIX newscast.

"My mouth just dropped," McCasey said, "and I said, 'What the hell just happened? What the hell just happened?' "

What happened the next day was the local and national media became transfixed with The Play.

"My memory tells me that I had 37 phone calls that day to go over everything," McCasey said, "and I'm the guy who didn't see it."

Rose had left Stanford for Southern California.

"I was very happy that I was out. My assistant, Steve Raczynski, was the man who inherited all of it. ... I was kind of glad I was gone at that point. It was hard."

On the Monday following The Play, The Chronicle used a frame grab of Lopez's footage. He'd been receiving congratulations from co-workers and friends. He was about to receive a memento.

"I got to the newsroom about 4 o'clock in the afternoon," Lopez said, "and the news director got everybody together and they brought me in the middle and they gave me a plaque with The Play from The Chronicle.

"I still have it at home, wrapped in plastic. It says, 'Great job, Al.' ... Then it started really sinking in."

That sinking feeling didn't leave the Cardinal any time soon. Ask Liebengood. He emceed the football team banquet about a month after the Big Game.

"I made some jokes about The Play," Liebengood said, "and that did not go over well. They were still, still smarting - everybody. It bombed. Whatever I was saying, it was like, 'OK, I guess you're still smarting.' ...

"It was not gone and forgotten."

The Play and the ensuing 30 years

Though The Play became something of a cottage industry around Cal, it did pose a problem or two for McCasey for the following season.

"When you went on a road trip in '83," McCasey said, "all (the other teams' media) wanted to talk about was the five laterals."

A year later, McCasey joined the Pac-10 and was responsible for many football telecasts. Almost any time a crew prepared for a Stanford game, it would request a copy of The Play to insert into that telecast.

"Oh, the Stanford people would just go crazy," McCasey said, cognizant that those Stanford folks were aware of his Cal background. "I know they thought that I was ... giving it to 'em."

And, as fate would have it, 19 years after leaving Memorial Stadium, Rose returned to become Cal's SID (what is now known as a media-relations director).

At various Big Game functions thereafter, Rose got to know Kevin Moen and Gary Tyrrell and Joe Kapp.

Said Rose: "Joe Kapp and I became - not that we went out - pretty good friends. I love Joe."

In the past three decades, Tompkins has been one of the most prominent announcers for boxing and for West Coast college football and basketball.

"You just hope that you say the right thing at the right time," Tompkins said about calling historic moments. "I've been fortunate to be able to do that in a couple of instances, like when Ray Leonard beat Marvin Hagler and when Mike Tyson won the championship. I'm saying the right things at the right time, but (for The Play), I didn't. It was just that simple."

Liebengood has taken pride in his call - "I guess knowing that I handled that probably puts me at peace with anything that I've done" - but hasn't received much recognition for it.

A few years ago, he was watching ESPN Classic, which was airing the '82 Big Game telecast called by Liebengood and color analyst Gordy Ceresino. Liebengood's daughter-in-law was at his home, and he figured he could impress her.

Said Liebengood: "I said, 'Here, I want you to come in and watch this.' It was Gordy and me. It was our telecast. And then they got to (Harmon's field goal), and they put in Starkey's voice.

"It was like, Are you kidding me?"

There's only one still photographer connected to The Play, Robert Stinnett.

"I think the pride that I have in it is that I recognized what was happening," Stinnett said, "because you couldn't ask 'em to, say, 'Go do that again.' It was my training as a news photographer - because that's what we did, fires and murders and accidents and all those kinds of things. You're trained to get the unusual."

Stinnett retired in 1986. He's certainly cognizant of what his work in the '82 Big Game meant to his career. "On my gravestone, they'll have something about it."

In the short term, Lopez's brilliant video footage of The Play helped him reach the top of the ladder in terms of which KPIX photographers received the plum sports assignments. "From then on," Lopez said, "I started shooting tons of sports."

And though Lopez left Channel 5 nearly two decades ago to work on his own, he knows - and is thankful - that The Play stands front and center on his resume.

Some time ago, he met the niece and nephew, both in their 20s, of KPIX news producer Molly McCrea.

"I've gotten some Emmys," Lopez said. "I've done national shows. I've done '20/20,' 'Dateline,' '60 Minutes,' and they said, 'You shot The Play?' "

Cal: Jeff Tedford and Kevin Moen once were teammates.

Stanford: Standout linebackers will have their hands full Saturday. B8