05/06/2005: "Maybe it really doesn't exist"
OK, I will eventually get off the topic of The Play. But I'm searching everywhere to try and find the Stanford audio. In that process I found this from and interview with Joe Starkey:
"Normally in TV and radio," Starkey says, "when you know it's the last play of the game, you don't call it as it occurs. You wait until it's played out, then give a recap. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to stick with it."
Maybe the Stanford guy didn't even call the play. I'd still like to hear his "recap".
Also in that interview:
"One colleague of mine was in his car at a red light when he heard me calling out Cal’s last play," says Starkey. "When the light turned green, he didn't move, and neither did any of the other cars at the intersection. It was obvious everyone was listening to the same thing; he said the light changed twice before anyone moved."
Another friend driving home during The Play, Starkey remembers, tried to pull over to listen to the broadcast, but was so distracted by what was transpiring that he ended up in a nearby ditch.
No matter where they were listening, football fans all over Northern California were able to share in the jubilation, thanks to Starkey’s thorough and emotionally charged description, which concluded with these words: "From here in Berkeley…where the serenading, and the songs, and the music, and the parties will go on late into the night as people years from now... will say they were here today for what has to be, as of this moment, the greatest Big Game in history."
