Most emotionally charged sporting event

Munich Olympics

 

Most emotionally charged I've been to in person? 1987 Providence-Georgetown, at the height of Hoya Paranoia. I've never heard the Dunk juiced up like this crowd was after PC fired threes left and right in the first half, and it hit another level early in the second half when the Hoyas started throwing bodies around and Rick Pitino basically told John Thompson it was go time (probably the closest I've ever seen to coaches swinging at each other in a basketball game). I wasn't sitting five feet from Pop Lewis when he drilled a three from the corner with two seconds left to give PC the upset.
I was at Game 6 of the '75 Series, but that Fenway crowd wasn't on from start to finish the way this Friar crowd was.

 

1a. would be when Iowa played Michigan in the first home game after Street's death. I was there for that one.

 

Never underestimate the potency of high school games in these discussions.

The two events I covered that probably affected me the most were both HS games...one game that benefited a terminally ill classmate and one played immediately after she died.

 

JB, thanks you for bringing up the Michigan game. There was no way I could mention that without thinking and getting choked up about it. There wasn't a dry eye in the state of Iowa that night when they handed his folks the game ball when they beat Michigan. Not to compare it to the Falcons being overwhelmed, but it was very similar for the Wolverines that night.

I thought Iowa was going to tear through the Big 10, until Illinois hit that 3 in the final seconds in Champaign to beat Dr. Tom and the kids. What's ironic (if you can help me out), wasn't the guy who hit the three Matt Heldman? Didn't he lose his life in a car accident several years later??

 

Rangers vs Sabres, 10/7/01, Madison Square Garden. The Sabres wear special "New York" jerseys, Mark Messier pays tribute to FDNY Chief of Special Operations Ray Downey and to the city's emergency services workers, then the Rangers go out and beat the Sabres in OT.

 

Mine would be a HS game... a six-overtime basketball game that decided the district champion. That has been the only sporting event I've ever witnessed where "both sides left everything they had on the floor" and it wasn't cliche.

 

The one that sticks out that I saw in person was when Missouri beat Oklahoma in football in 1983 and I helped carry an upright off Faurot Field. Another one (I don't remember the game details) was when I pulled Big Mo (the bass drum) to midfield and spun it around three times.

The most draining one was the kicked-ball game where Nebraska scored on the last play of regulation to tie Missouri, then won in overtime.

 

Agreed with high school.

When I was in high school there was a nasty dispute with our chief rival which led to the breakup of a very closeknit league. The chief rival was a nextdoor neighbor and the rivalry was carved around the steel industry in town. Being 20 years out from the close of the mill, the population losses fucking raped the rivalry of any quality it once may have had. The "game" meant a lot to the people in the two cities. My parents went to school at the rival and I went to church in the rival city. I knew a lot of people there, but when it came to the game all bets were off. We were enemies and our relationship was not ending in a civil manner.

I believe that was the very moment, I entered the sports journalism field. I put together a preview for our game day farewell to the series for the high school newspaper and later had to sell it at the opposing team's gate. Our mascot was on the cover devouring their mascot. I got lots of dirty looks from people I knew that day.

The game started off great for my school. We were shit all season and took a 7-0 lead on a trick play. I remember falling down 10 rows of bleacher stairs as the student celebrations took place. Then reality set in and we got our ass kicked. Both of cities went there seperate ways and the decline of the rivalry hastened the decline of everything else.

My senior year, a school tax failed, and big cuts meant the elimination of the sports program. With football zapped, a void opened up that was filled by a lot of destructive activities. Friends who played sports bailed to other schools. My own younger brother was sent to a private school to continue his education. It was a very fucked up time.

The other school crumbled even more harshly under the economic ripple of post-industrial trauma. No longer affiliated with a league, they struggled in a WPA-built stadium that was half condemned.

After I graduated and started college, not much energy went into paying attention to the alma mater. My school did start playing football again after a year of exile, but was worse than ever for those first couple of seasons back.

Realizing the mistake of their ways the two schools buried the hatchet and scheduled each other again. I missed the first few meetings, but as luck would have it a few years later, one of the games got called off on a Friday night because of lightning. I was not scheduled to work Saturday, so I picked up my dad and went to the game at "his school" - the first ever for the series on a Saturday night.

For that one night, it was like old times. People from my school bitched about the grass being too high (We had a speedy back who later did great things at Syracuse). There was that old guy I recognized from my youth blowing a trumpet in the stands. Old men stood on the decayed wall above the stands sipping whiskey from flasks. The Depression era stadium was filled with huddled-masses and a dinosaur from football days of yore rose to life, shitting upon all the faux passion I witnessed in modern rural and suburban football I was covering.

I flashed a lot of smiles that night, and remember sitting at a local dive bar after having a laugh with the rivals. We won, but it didn't matter. Our time as relevant forces in post-industrial America was coming to a close. Instead of rivalry, we now had kinship. But, I know soon all of that will be gone too.

 

Game 6, 2003 NLCS. I was in the house that night and doubt I'll ever feel the swing from high to low as far as the emotions of the crowd that happened that night. The franchise itself still hasn't recovered.

 

Was that the year they cancelled the NLCS with one out in the eighth inning?

 

Yep. Right after Bernie Mac declared a winner.