THE PLAY: Miracles Do Happen

The Monday after the 1982 Big Game, The Daily Californian wrote, “On November 20, 1982 God was a Golden Bear.”

Along with a supreme deity on the side of the Cal football team that November day, there was also a prophet in the radio booth high above Memorial Stadium.

Known for his over-the-top, ecstatic, shrilling call for the last four seconds of the 1982 Big Game, Joe Starkey’s oracle-esque statement before the Bears’ final play against Stanford is often forgotten.

Or is just forgotten altogether.

After Mark Harmon hit his field goal to give the Cardinal a 20-19 lead with just four seconds left in the 85th installment of the Big Game, Starkey stated “Only a miracle can save the Bears.”

But Starkey couldn’t fathom what would happen next.

“That was kind of a great prediction at the time, wasn’t it?” says Starkey. “In fact, I didn’t even realize I had said that for awhile after the game. That was kind of a fluke that I would throw that line in there and I probably didn’t believe it myself at the time—that even a miracle could save them at that point. And then of course, it was a rather miraculous finish.”

That miraculous finish has come to be known as The Play—Cal’s desperate, last second, five-lateral kickoff return through the Leland Stanford Junior University Band to win the game. The Play gave the Bears a 25-20 victory.

But what may have made that game-ending play “The Play” was not so much what happened on the field as much as it was the way that Starkey described it. The famous call was actually sold for several years after the 1982 Big Game on cassette tape.

“That call was one of the greatest calls in sports, period,” says Barry Tompkins, a play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports Net and the man who did the television broadcast of the 85th Big Game. “It’s right up there with Russ Hodges making the call, ‘The Giants win the pennant.’ It’s probably even up there with Al Michaels’ ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ That was a case of Al saying exactly the right thing at exactly the right time and I think Joe did the same thing.”

Of course, since 1982, there have been other “miraculous” finishes to football games.

There was Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary to give Boston College a win over rival Miami. There was the Music City Miracle, where the Tennessee Titans scored on a last second kickoff to beat the Buffalo Bills in the 2000 NFL playoffs.

And just this year, there was The Play Part II, when Division III Trinity defeated Millsaps 28-24 on a 15-lateral play.

But if you asked Starkey, none of those can live up to The Play.

“There was a lot of excitement in that game, but again, it was just laterals,” says Starkey. “I don’t mean to minimize it, because what they did was fantastic. But you have to have those extra elements—the big time football program, with all the band issues, that set the Cal-Stanford game apart.”

Back in November of 1982, it was Stanford and its quarterback, John Elway, that had the most to lose.

Elway—a senior at the time—was in contention for the Heisman Trophy and with a win, could go to his first and last bowl game with Stanford.

Right before the The Play, Elway also orchestrated the first of what would become his calling card in the NFL—fourth quarter drives to win games.

Elway showed his penchant for his clutch performances as he completed a pass on 4th-and-17 from his own 13-yard line to lead the Cardinal to what should have been the game-winning field goal.

“Elway’s ability to succeed under pressure is something that showed up in that game and then continued throughout his professional career when he would stage comeback after comeback,” says Starkey. “It was sort of the beginning of his mystique as this remarkable talent that could win the game if you just give him a few seconds.”

What Elway wasn’t able to do was kill the clock and that gave the Bears four seconds to perform their miracle.

A miracle that wasn’t drawn up, but was more improvised.

“It wasn’t a scripted play that we worked on. The kind of unique dynamic was that the guys that were involved—Rich Rodgers and myself—were option quarterbacks back in high school,” says Kevin Moen, the player who scored the game-winning touchdown. “It was kind of the right mix of guys, with the right intent—and that was to not let the ball die.”

Of course The Play was not without controversy. Many associated with Stanford have called The Play the Screw of ’82. They cite two instances during The Play which they believe should have called the play dead.

Some claim that Dwight Garner’s knee was down before he pitched the ball back to Rodgers. There is also the question of whether or not the final lateral was legal.

But Moen disagrees, citing a digital video made by UC Berkeley students for the 20th anniversary of The Play as proof of The Play’s legality.

“I kind of reference that as our instant replay right there,” says Moen. “That confirmed The Play was good. And that last lateral by Ford, he was actually throwing the football over his shoulder. How you can construe that as a forward lateral, I don’t understand the physics of that.”

Even with the controversy, the band and it being Elway’s last game, many believe that The Play just adds to the tradition of the Big Game.

“There’s always something bizarre that happens in that game,” says Tompkins. “I’ve lost track to how many times that game has been won in the last 30 seconds. I think that The Play just adds to the lore rather than created the lore.”

But there is probably little argument that The Play is the greatest of any moment that took place in the 110 years of history of the Big Game.

Fox Sports’ “The Best Damn Sports Show” last year rated it as the “The Best Damn Play” in the history of sports.

ESPN’s Ivan Maisel—a Stanford alum—ranked The Play as the No. 2 greatest moment in the history of college football, behind Flutie’s Hail Mary.

And still, 25 years after it happened, it thrills even Starkey—the man who helped made The Play famous.

“Just last week, ESPN Classic ran it again and I found myself caught up in the game again,” he says. “It’s just amazing to see it as often as I have and still enjoy it so much. There were so many elements, and the game could have changed so many different times, and then the way it finished was amazing.”

Hey Mr. Starkey, don’t forget that it was also sensational, traumatic, heart rending, exciting and thrilling.

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