Most emotionally charged sporting event

[Beef03]

With last night's reopening of the Super Dome (I swear if I hear or read Home Sweet Dome again I will go postal) it got me thinking, what is the most emotionally charged sporting event you watched or vivdly remember?
Is it last night's game, the 2001 World Series just months after 9/11, the 2002 Super Bowl, for some reason I'm stuck on post 9/11 games, but I think I get my point across.
For me it is the 1999 Bonfire game between the Texas A&M Aggies and the University of Texas Longhorns. It had it all, the devestation, the emotion, and the underdogs who desperately needed a boost scoring a dramatic win over their arch rivals who were also class all the way during the game. Never forget it, even have it on tape. To me that game holds more impact than the return to the dome.
What games or sporting events stick out in your mind?

 

[Angola!]

Game 3 of the 2001 World Series was pretty cool, especially because Bush showed up - even if I didn't like him. The crowd that night was nuts, especially with the Yankees trailing 2-0 in the series. It was one of my favorite games of that Series, even though the next two games were much more dramatic.

 

[D-3 Fan]

I'm going local with two moments, since everyone will write about the major sporting events.

1. The Iowa-Michigan State basketball game after Chris Street's death in a car accident in 1992. The Hawks were getting routed until Acie Earl and Val Barnes rallied the team from 17 down and sent it into overtime. Iowa went on to win, and the emotion on the Iowa bench is something that stays in my mind everytime.

2. Iowa-Ohio State (football, 1991). This is ironic to bring this up because both teams are playing this weekend in Iowa City. After the Iowa team lands in Columbus, they learned of the campus shootings back in I.C.. With the decals stripped and wearing all-black helmets, they took the field against the Buckeyes in Columbus. Iowa won, 16-9.

 

[Dude]

It wasn't a great game (Miami won by at least 30) and it happened about 10 days before Sept. 11 so not a lot of people remember it, but when Adam Taliaferro ran onto the field in 2001 before a PSU-Miami game, that was breathtaking.

(And no, I don't drink blue Kool-Aid.)

 

[Armchair_QB]

A really good non-USA centered one would be the 1956 USSR-Hungary water polo match at the Melbourne Olympics. It took place shortly after the Soviets invaded Hungary.

The match was called early due to fighting and blood in the water.

Maybe some of the oldtimers remember this. Spnited, did you cover it?

 

[HoopsMcCann]

It's not ironic. [/pet peeve ... ****youalanis :]

you beat me to it

 

[D-3 Fan]

There was fighting in water polo? No way!!! Why did my parents have me twenty years later????

 

[Gutter]

A really good non-USA centered one would be the 1956 USSR-Hungary water polo match at the Melbourne Olympics. It took place shortly after the Soviets invaded Hungary.

The match was called early due to fighting and blood in the water.

Maybe some of the oldtimers remember this. Spnited, did you cover it?

Good one...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_In_The_Water_match

 

[D-3 Fan]

It's not ironic. [/pet peeve ... ****youalanis :]

you beat me to it

Like rain on your wedding day,
Like free advice that you already paid...
Who would it thought it figures?

 

[PeteyPirate]

East Carolina beating Miami in Raleigh was pretty emotional. ECU was underwater thanks to Hurricane Floyd. The region still has not fully recovered from the devastation from that storm. When the Pirates won, they tore down the goalposts at N.C. State for the second time in school history.

 

[5A]

East Carolina beating Miami in Raleigh was pretty emotional. ECU was underwater thanks to Hurricane Floyd. The region still has not fully recovered from the devastation from that storm. When the Pirates won, they tore down the goalposts at N.C. State for the second time in school history.

I remember that one. I wasn't there, but I had some friends who lived in Greenville that were and said they'd never seen anything like it.

 

[slappy4428]

Tractor pull at the Brown County (MN) Fair... aint nothin like it for miles...

 

[DocTalk]

Munich Olympics

 

[terrier]

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.

 

[JBHawkEye]

I'm going local with two moments, since everyone will write about the major sporting events.

1. The Iowa-Michigan State basketball game after Chris Street's death in a car accident in 1992. The Hawks were getting routed until Acie Earl and Val Barnes rallied the team from 17 down and sent it into overtime. Iowa went on to win, and the emotion on the Iowa bench is something that stays in my mind everytime.

2. Iowa-Ohio State (football, 1991). This is ironic to bring this up because both teams are playing this weekend in Iowa City. After the Iowa team lands in Columbus, they learned of the campus shootings back in I.C.. With the decals stripped and wearing all-black helmets, they took the field against the Buckeyes in Columbus. Iowa won, 16-9.

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

 

[BYH]

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.

 

[D-3 Fan]

I'm going local with two moments, since everyone will write about the major sporting events.

1. The Iowa-Michigan State basketball game after Chris Street's death in a car accident in 1992. The Hawks were getting routed until Acie Earl and Val Barnes rallied the team from 17 down and sent it into overtime. Iowa went on to win, and the emotion on the Iowa bench is something that stays in my mind everytime.

2. Iowa-Ohio State (football, 1991). This is ironic to bring this up because both teams are playing this weekend in Iowa City. After the Iowa team lands in Columbus, they learned of the campus shootings back in I.C.. With the decals stripped and wearing all-black helmets, they took the field against the Buckeyes in Columbus. Iowa won, 16-9.

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

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??

 

[Double J]

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.

 

[Cadet]

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

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.

 

[dooley_womack1]

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.