The Night Luv Ya Blue was born
Written by davemundy, Sunday August 02 2009
As a sportswriter I've covered a lot of different events -- but it was as a fan in the stands I witnessed the birth of Luv Ya Blue.
Over the years I’ve had the privilege of covering some great moments in sports – state championships, NCAA basketball tournaments, college bowl games, pro and Olympic boxing.
But no single moment I’ve ever witnessed stands out more than
During my freshman – and only -- year at the
Alas, she was hung up on someone else, so I was just her drinking buddy.
Jackie had somehow gotten season tickets to the Oilers and, since I shared her passion for the team I got invited to attend a few games. I wore my gorilla mask, hoping to get on TV occasionally, and we would swill beer and scream ‘til we were both hoarse.
On this particular Monday night, however, we got powder-blue pom-poms as we came through the turnstiles. Something was definitely up. When we got into the stands, we saw magic happening all around us – fifty thousand people all waving those pom-poms, and every time they played that Oiler fight song – the cheesiest fight song ever created, and literally stolen from the Dallas Cowboys – the place went nuts.
And the magic only got better.
The 7-4 Oilers were in the thick of the hunt for a playoff spot and that night were playing the 8-3
Moments into the fourth quarter, A.J. Duhe broke through the Oiler line and decked Dan Pastorini in the end zone for a safety, nearly causing Jackie to die on the spot.
(Jackie had a major thing for Dante, which may explain why I never had a chance with her. That, or the fact that I could drink beer and dip snuff at the same time. As Robert Earl Keen once noted about snuff users, I never had to worry about long relationships.)
As the clock ticked down under five minutes,
But Griese wasn’t finished. He marched
But linebacker Steve Kiner had different ideas. He picked off a Griese pass at the
As we look back on it now, we often overlook Kiner’s heroics – after all, in the end, his was the play that sealed the victory for
Needing a first down to run out the clock, coach Bum Phillips called a simple pitch play to Earl, who’d already carried 27 times that night. Earl took off toward tackle, then saw a hole and darted through. All of a sudden, he was free and clear. Although visibly exhausted already, he out-footed cornerback Curtis Johnson and raced 81 yards down the sideline for the score that pretty much made things official.
We were sitting in the opposite end zone, watching the play come to us. At first, both Jackie and I said something stupid, like “What the hell are they running outside for? Stay between the tackles and run the clock … and GO EARL, GO!”
If you have never experienced having a gorgeous woman leaping into your arms and hugging you like you’ve just won the lottery, you’re really missing out on things. We both wound up drenched in beer, but it was worth it. You can look back now on pictures of that scene and see what happened in the Astrodome, but it was nothing compared to having been there.
Griese chunked another touchdown pass on the game’s final play, but by that point it was all academic. The Oilers won, 35-30, and in the hearts of every
Although the Oilers made it to the AFC Championship game twice in the next couple of years, then again with Warren Moon and the run-and-shoot, that Monday night game will forever be viewed as the high-water mark of professional football in
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