?Defusing A Rocket? ? A Lasting Memory From A Memorable CU Season
August 30, 2015 | Football
Ever had to defuse a rocket? I have, despite being anything but mechanically inclined. This simple dude from Missouri is no handyman; changing a light bulb stretches my skills. This defusing happened some time ago, with thousands of anxious onlookers present at a faraway place. It was an experience I will never forget.
What triggered the remembrance was sitting in a sandwich shop just south of the CU campus. It was the day my precious daughter was preparing to move into a nearby dormitory for her freshman year in Boulder. While awaiting further instructions about my labor duties from the Denver East High graduate and her mother, your scribe was enjoying lunch and reading that day's edition of the Colorado Daily.
On the back page was a copy of talented sports cartoonist's Drew Litton's 25-year commemorative poster of the Colorado Buffaloes' 1990 national championship season. Trust me, as television sportscaster and “Buff Guy” for KCNC-TV at the time, and an attendee of each game, it was a wild ride to college football's mountaintop.
My, how time flies. It was difficult to fathom a quarter century had passed since the Buffs bounced back from a disappointing 1-1-1 start to claim the school's only national championship with a 10-9 Orange Bowl victory over Notre Dame. My daughter had not even been born yet.
However, from the minute she was born seven years after CU's ascent to excellence, the talented child had immediate Buffaloes' indoctrination. “Dad,” she likes to joke often, “The CU fight song is the first song I can remember ever singing.” As an 18-year college freshman, it's one of the few times the blue-eyed beauty smiles in the direction of her old man. From an early age Rachel Nicole McIntosh had CU cheerleading outfits, pompoms and many visits to Folsom Field while father was “covering the Buffs.”
What the heck does this have to do with defusing a rocket before thousands of onlookers at a place far away from home? I'm getting there, promise.
THE CU FIGHT SONG is one of the best in collegiate sports. Short, sweet and powerful. During the almost 20-year run that started with Channel 4, with management instructing me to “Get in the Buffs' back pocket,” a favorite memory is flights home from road football games. Because the station was the “Home of the Buffs” at the time, this young sports journalist and a station photographer traveled on the team plane. Talented and deep, CU won often in hostile stadiums.
Tradition has it that the Buffs sing the team's fight song just before their charter touches down back in Colorado. Sometimes after those signature victories, the turbulence from the exuberance of “mission accomplished” threatened to break the plane into pieces. Seriously. Trust me, a bunch of big, strong and victorious helmet heads can wreak havoc on the interior of a plane. Everybody would have died happy.
Full disclosure; that time spent covering the Buffs was therapeutic in allowing a dude to live, vicariously, the college football experience through their triumphs and tragedies. That opportunity was there for me until a freak poke in the eye led to a crash to the floor and an end to an athletic future the senior year of high school. Following the Buffs wherever they roamed spawned wonderful relationships with players, coaches, staff and their families. Relationships that continue to this day and, I sure hope, last forever.
Sitting in that sandwich shop awaiting a text summons to scurry across Baseline Road and get back to unpacking, I continued to stare at Litton's wonderfully drawn illustration. The snapshots came flooding back, accompanied by this revelation: Despite the passage of much time, the passion for Buffs' football has not wavered. As Hall of Fame coach Bill McCartney would suggest, “There's been no daffy ducking!”
Which finally leads back to defusing a rocket.
During all those years of covering the elite program, I rarely watched a game from the press box. I loved being on the sidelines, close to the action and the fans. It offered an intimate exposure to what I missed, adding balm to the wound and advancing the healing.
It also gave me the opportunity on a tropical night at the aging Orange Bowl to inform a trio of Notre Dame something, at least for them, quite shocking. Their celebration was a tad premature.
BUFF FANS, YOU KNOW this play well. With less than a minute remaining in the game and CU clinging to a 10-9 lead, All-American punter Tom Rouen boomed a missile deep into Fighting Irish territory. To this day many are still puzzled why the Buffs didn't kick the ball out of bounds considering on the receiving end was Notre Dame's Raghib Ismail. He was known as “The Rocket” and considered at the time, without much debate, college football's most dangerous return man.
True to his reputation, Ismail dodged and weaved his way 92 yards into the Buffs' end zone on the south end of the tired stadium. More than 77,000 fans witnessed the play that, seemingly, had given Notre Dame the lead and would again deny the University of Colorado its only national title. The New Jersey native and two teammates were frolicking on their backs in celebration. They had not seen the flag thrown for an infraction. Somebody had to tell them. The duty fell into the lap of this knucklehead scribe.
Perhaps it will always be a source of debate – clip or legal block? What's certain is a sure tackler, Buffs' safety and special teams standout Tim James was preparing, before the clip, to corral Ismail. This much I know, in two decades of reporting on the good, bad and ugly of a football program, never was there a more timely (and bubble-bursting for the Irish) dissemination of information.
I was standing just outside the south end zone, polished shoes almost touching the back line. The clueless trio was within inches. I leaned over and tapped Ismail on the shoulder pads and sarcastically informed those gathered in a group hug, “Hey guys, there's a flag down there.” The eyeballs of the eventual fourth-round NFL selection ballooned to the size of softballs.
Ismail looked confused; “The Rocket” had been defused.
As the 2015 Colorado Buffaloes prepare for their third season under head coach Mike MacIntyre, who knows what kind of memories will emerge? I sure hope some have the staying power of that magical moment in Miami.
My daughter's a Buff now. I want to join her and bellow, “Shoulder to shoulder, we will fight....fight....fight... fight....fight!” with the gusto ever present during that incredible season to remember.
(Mark MacIntosh covered the Buffaloes during their National Championship season for Denver's Channel 4, KCNC-TV. He still lives and works in the Denver area and is an ardent CU fan.)
