The events described below actually happened as described. OK, so a few
names have been modified to protect innocent next-of-kin. Return with us now to
a familiar place in a far, far different time.
FORTY YEARS? Can it really be? Well, of course it can, and it is. We were
students once, and young. Forty-freakin' years ago.
One of the watchwords on campus during Vietnam sixties was the term
"relevant" as in relevant education, relevant discussions, relevant
issues. If you took "irrelevant" classes such as economics or business
law you were derided as a capitalist tool. I mean, what are those subjects going
to do for you? Better to get a "relevant" education in Kiln Safety and
Earthenware Craft.
Or Macrobiotic Cookery 1A and 1B (Lab).
Or Social Justice and the Lyrics of Woody Guthrie. You know, relevant stuff.
In the fall of 1968, my pals and I were up-to-here with
"relevance". We'd endured too much of it - Assassinations, Vietnam,
the Democrats in Chicago. What we craved was a massive infusion of the
gloriously irrelevant.
Mostly, we craved beer. No surprise that on a clear and promising Saturday
morning in mid-September, 1968, down on Elizabeth Street in San Jose, in the
heart of the student ghetto that was the urban campus of a pre-university era
San Jose State College, we prepared for the Stanford Game. We were primed.
Beer? Check. Dates? Check. Tickets? Check. Beer? Check. Enough gas in the VW
bus? Check. Hey, at 29 cents a gallon, we bought it by the quart. Beer? Yeah, we
got that. Bought it by the half-quart, too.
First stop: Theta Chi fraternity, 123 South 11th Street, two blocks from our
"Liz Street" bungalow. Pre-game breakfast with our resident brothers,
several of which were not present. They were at the San Jose Hyatt House sharing
breakfast with their Spartan football teammates in preparation for their own bus
ride to Stanford Stadium. We, on the other hand, were preparing to take our own
bus ride.
It was the rites of autumn in the heart of Santa Clara Valley -- the
beginning of fall semester at "State" and the return of 20,000
students, many of them blonde, tanned, attractive and female.
Fraternity-sorority rush was in full flower, classes were under way, a haze of
burning cannabis and unburned hydrocarbons filled the campus air, propelled by
the gentle late-summer breezes. It was not yet "Silicon" Valley but
the orchards were fast disappearing.
The Mexico City Olympics would start in a few weeks and we were excited by
the prospects for fellow Spartans Tommy Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans. We
were known as Speed City long before the emergence of methamphetamine. We had no
idea how prominent Smith and Carlos would become in the wake of these Games.
Neither did they.
But our social business at hand at this moment was not the relevance south of
the border. It was the momentous irrelevance about to unfold just up U.S. 101 in
Palo Alto. We were in full throat for the football season inaugural for both
schools. It was Stanford, it was warm and sunny, it was on ABC-TV and we were
psyched.
We knew "they" would be pretty good, led by a promising sophomore
QB who prepped at James Lick High. Just up East Santa Clara Boulevard from the
dank and venerable taverns we knew so well. Yes, we'd heard of Jim Plunkett. We
knew all about his wide receiver, Gene Washington. Couple of our frat bro's grew
up with Stanford running back Howie Williams. We knew fullback Greg Broughton,
whose girlfriend was a DG at State. And we knew about their recruits who seemed
to all come from Catholic schools in L.A. and Orange County and who were bigger
and faster than most of our guys who were their classmates.
The body-mass differential was conspicuous right from the TV introductions on
the sideline. Joel Stonebraker (Servite, Anaheim) was a shade over 200 pounds
and was one of our starting guards. The other, Wayne Murakami (Delta J.C.,
Stockton), maybe outweighed him by a thigh pad and a mouthpiece. John Abernathy,
our center, was barely 200 with his uniform on. All Theta Chi brothers, they
drew our boisterous exhortations as their names were called out. They didn't
hear us.
For Spartan fans, this would be the first of back-to-back humiliations at the
hands of despised Stanford. The following year's mismatch would be, shall we
say, equally uncompetitive. I'll come back to that.
Another TC brother of ours, Al Saunders, would on this day have the worst
game of his otherwise respectable career as a Spartan defensive back giving up,
what, about eight hundred yards in receptions to Gene Washington? Yep, torched.
Plunkett threw long. He threw short. He threw underneath. Down the sidelines,
across the middle, post patterns and flag patterns. Made no difference. He could
have been back at James Lick scrimmaging against the San Jose High JVs. Probably
would have seen a fiercer pass rush.
Okay, we pull out of the frat house parking lot around 11:30 that morning,
gravid with beer and doughnuts, and head north on 101. I can't remember what was
playing at the Moffett Drive-in, which was the halfway-point landmark on the
drive to Palo Alto, but the new flick everybody talked about was 2001: A Space
Odyssey. My girlfriend and I had seen it that week. I thought it was amazing.
She thought it sucked. Summed up our relationship. Housemate and frat bro Jack
Snelling wheeled the VW bus in an era long before designated drivers.
Fortunately, brother Snelling was not a big imbiber. He smoked a lot of weed.
Into Mexican mushrooms, too. The "relevant" kind you didn't get in
restaurants. Ron Sobel, housemate #2, and his date, rounded out the passenger
list. Damn, but I can't remember her name.
We pulled into the stadium area and parked beneath fragrant eucalyptus and
shady oaks. We trudged up the ancient concrete steps, my last such ascent as an
undergrad, lugging several large containers of Olympia, Coors and Pabst Blue
Ribbon. Half-quarts. Beverage Nazis at the gates were still decades in the
future. Greeting us on either side of the aisle was a festive horde of bronzed,
brawling, beer-barfers, otherwise known as fellow San Jose State male students,
and their equally strident co-ed companions, in various stages of inebriation.
It was South 11th Street transplanted to Sections QQ readying itself for an
afternoon of Circus Maximus.
Beer being what it is, and my consumption of it being what it was, inspired
me to make more than my share of affectionate greetings to co-ed acquaintances
in the rows we passed while looking for empty seats. Just friendly gestures, of
course, but by now the girlfriend was acquiring that "how can I make this
day unpleasant for him" look on her face. I deftly extricated myself from
what could have been an awkward scene, exchanging greetings with male
compatriots who surrounded us. Right about that moment the crowd noise and our
jeering of the LSJUMB, Dollies and Prince Lightfoot saved me. For good measure,
TC brother Marty Prentice and his girlfriend, the lovely Edie Symes, stumbled in
with an entourage of her sorority sisters and phalanx of squires. Edie was the
ultimate attention-magnet or, this case, deflector: she owned a couple of assets
that, uh, overshadowed, so to speak, any liabilities she may have had. I made it
point to avoid ogling Edie thereby inspiring a semblance of goodwill from the
girlfriend.
Both teams took the field. The TV introductions commenced. Arthur P. Barnes
conducted the National Anthem. Cannon fire. Kick-off. I was really looking
forward to see if this kid Plunkett was as good as advertised. He was even
better.
I began looking forward to the USC game the next month in Palo Alto,
envisioning a vanquished John McKay and O.J. Simpson.
Back to Section QQ: The beer stayed cold, Plunkett but Washington stayed
red-hot. How ugly did it get from our vantage? We split at the start of the
fourth quarter and watched the final minutes on TV back on Elizabeth Street.
Beer was still cold.
Final score: Stanford 68, San Jose State 20. The tally did not reflect the
lopsidedness of the lopsidedness. For the sons and daughters of Sparta, this one
was butt ugly.
That night I joined roommate Sobel for a medicinal pub-crawl through campus
watering holes. We wound up at Pizza Haven on South 10th for digestive brewskies.
Which was akin to going to Der Weinerschnitzel after an all-day hotdog-eating
contest. Next, a drop-in visit to console our gallant brother, battered
left-guard Joel Stonebraker, who was nursing his welts, abrasions, and shredded
ego. An English major, he looked in vain for literary allusions to try to make
sense of the unspeakable carnage.
"We knew they were gonna score points," he hoarsely recounted as he
stared off into space. "But, sixty-eight? Sixty-eight points? "
I could hardly wait for USC. Talk about relevant.
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