Ralph Zobell: reflections and memories from 41 years

Ralph Zobell began his 41-year career at BYU in 1976 as an intern in the sports information office. The following year he was hired as one of the two full-time employees in that department.  

From 1977 to 2018, Ralph worked an amazing 1,068 BYU baseball games, 242 football games and 320 basketball games, not to mention countless other athletic events—including conference tournaments, bowl games, NCAA championships, and two College Baseball World Series. 

On May 19, 2018, Zobell worked his final BYU baseball game before retiring at the end of June. Through it all he was the consummate professional whose contributions to the sports information profession are immeasurable. But what is even more impressive are the lives of countless student-athletes, coaches and administrators Ralph has touched over the years. 

On Sept. 1, 2018 the BYU football team will take on the University of Arizona in Tempe. It will be the first BYU football season in 42 years without Ralph on staff. To pay tribute to an incredible career, we asked him to reflect on and share some of his favorite moments. Here they are in his own words…

“Give me Five,” is a popular phrase, especially in the world of sports and “High Fives.”

Expanding on that theme of five, here’s my list of “high fives” from my 41 years in sports publicity with BYU. I’ve changed my mind a couple of times over the years about these events.

So take a walk with me down memory lane as you read my list. It is categorized under subtitles: pinnacles, promotional ideas, NCAA championships, trips, runs/streaks, big plays, facilities, feats, and encores. 

PINNACLES 
1) National Football Championship — In 1984 our sports information offices were still located in the BYU administration building on upper campus, which meant I had the great privilege of getting to know President Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. The 1984 season was a whirlwind as SID Dave Schulthess and I would split duties as reporters came in weekly.

However, Schulthess and I spent more time away from the ASB, down at the Smith Fieldhouse and escorting media to other places on campus. I got to host Rick Reilly and Gene Wojciechowski who would go on to become big names in the sport media world. Seeing the Goodyear blimp hovering over the Holiday Bowl was, at that time, a symbol of the importance of the Michigan game.

2) The Heisman Trophy won by Ty Detmer in 1990 — The announcement of that award came poolside at the hotel in Honolulu where I pushed BYU President Rex E. Lee into the live TV shot while I hid behind the palm trees. A couple weeks later I made the first of two trips to the New York Downtown Athletic Club for the official presentation. 

It was surreal to be in the Downtown Athletic Club which had a copy of the Heisman Trophy on the main floor. On one occasion the night before the official presentation, past Heisman Trophy winners in attendance gather at a reception. I was encouraged by our hosts to secure autographs even though I first declined, but they said that was the purpose of that evening. 

I was impressed by the size and kindness of Leon Hart of Notre Dame and got his autograph along with others like Ohio State’s Howard “Hopalong” Cassidy, John David Crow of Texas A&M and Doug Flutie of Boston College. It was a thrill to stop by a local newsstand in New York to buy a first edition copy of Sports Illustrated on the cover, “Ty’s Prize.”

One of the spinoffs from Detmer winning the 1990 Heisman Trophy was having national newspaper USA Today contact me to write an article “Hyping the Heisman Trophy: promotion can get voters’ attention. I repeated in that article what I had often told media, “If I could have one wish, it would be to change the Mountain time. 

3) Winning of Outland Trophies by Jason Buck in 1986 and Mohammed Elewonibi in 1989 — Different strategies were used in the promotion of these Outland Trophy winners. Coach LaVell Edwards was again accurate in his prediction, so we promoted Buck with a black and white dollar bill replica, which co-worker Val Hale had learned about from the United States Secret Service, who also said reproductions could only be one-and-a half the size of a greenback. I made one specific suggestion to the “Jason Buck,” and that was the wording “E Pluribus Sack’Em.” I remember seeing the shocked look on Edwards face when he was told in the privacy of our offices that Buck had indeed won the Outland and I’ll never forget the dog-pile of Cougar teammates when they were told the news at practice.

With Elewonibi we had an inexpensive flyer which played off him being called Mount Mohammed and the saying “if the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain." The promotional things we did helped; however, I believe the key to Elewonibi winning the Outland came from a teleconference we arranged from the bowels of the Marriott Center.

I knew former Coach John Ralston had been at one of BYU’s football games as a pro scout and was impressed with Elewonibi. I knew Provo Daily Herald sports editor Marion Dunn, then president of the Football Writers Association of America, had known Ralston from their days at Utah State University. I knew Coach Edwards’ dentist DeVan Robins practiced in the Bay Area and that Ralston was also his patient. Edwards gave me Robins phone number. Robins gave me the phone number so I could teleconference Dunn with Ralston hours before the famed earthquake struck the Bay Area during the 1989 World Series. Dunn in turn sang Elewonibi’s praise when the FWAA board had its conference call and shazam Outland Trophy No. 2. 

4) Sports Illustrated football mission story — While many were worrying about BYU’s undefeated 1984 season going into the December Holiday Bowl against Michigan, I was helping plan visits for Sports Illustrated to Brazil (Don Busenbark), Bolivia (Scott Peterson), South Africa (Sean Covey) and Kentucky (Duane Johnson). These players, except Johnson, were featured in the August 1985 article in Sports Illustrated. Elder Neal A. Maxwell was in South Africa for one of those visits.

I worked with author Gary Smith to answer his questions and plan his visits once permission was received from the missionary department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I helped Sports Illustrated identify the 57 players who had served missions in the 1983 team photo accompanying the article. That article had a stunning photo of Elder Peterson doing a baptism at Lake Titicaca with gondola boats in the background that natives made from totora reeds.

5) BYU baseball No. 1 ranking — The Cougars wrapped up the regular baseball season ranked No. 1 after winning the 1983 Western Athletic Conference championship over San Diego State in a Provo playoff. That No. 1 disappeared after consecutive losses at the NCAA regional in Tempe, Arizona, where Arizona State’s slender Barry Bonds helped defeat BYU 19-11.

PROMOTIONAL IDEAS 
1) McMahon helmet — I sought equipment manager Floyd Johnson’s help in lining up items for the famed picture of Jim McMahon in the Heisman Trophy pose. For that photo, which ended up being circulated nationwide by United Press International, Floyd found me a pair of 1950 cleats and he specially sewed a Y jersey and made a chinstrap for the leather helmet I had received years earlier from my Grandpa Zobell. My Grandpa bought that helmet at St. Vincent de Paul when I was a boy. That helmet was later borrowed as a prop by the television series “Touched by an Angel,” and was on display the BYU Athletic Hall of Fame for a while.

2) Best Hands in the West — I knew 6-foot-6 basketball player Jeff Chatman had big hands and a seven-foot wingspan when he stretched out his arms, measuring from fingertip to fingertip. I followed up on an idea and traced his right hand for a promotion, knowing others would be astounded when they measured their own hand against Chatman’s. His handprint grabbed a sportswriter’s attention and caused them to take a second look at Chatman and Michael Smith for All-America consideration from the 1987-88 men’s basketball season. Chatman’s handprint was later duplicated for fans to measure against on the second floor of Legacy Hall.

3) Jason Buck — see No. 3 under the section Pinnacles.

4) Oates Bag — Nebraska’s Dave Rimington was the defending Outland Trophy winner in 1982 when we were promoting future Super Bowl center Bart Oates. We took a picture of then unknown Oates hugging a big bag of oats I borrowed from a local store, and then inside the envelopes we sent out to the voters, we put a sprinkle of rolled oats so when they opened the envelope oats would fall out. I joke that we got a lot of “feed” back from that one, but Oates did receive Second Team All-America honors behind Remington by several organizations.

5) Cuts Above the Rest — This was a 1989 eight-frame promotional featuring basketball player Michael Smith with a crew cut to match the hair in the mugs of past collegiate greats: Terry Dischinger, Cliff Hagen, John Havlicek, Tom Heinsohn, Bailey Howell, Bob Houbregs and Jerry West. 

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS 
1) 1984 — See No. 1 under the section Pinnacles. BYU became a verb used by critics in following years to describe teams who would go undefeated in the regular season in a quest to become national champions.

2) NCAA Golf Title at Stanford — In 1981 BYU won the NCAA men’s golf championship hosted by Stanford, the first outright title for Cougar athletics. BYU was in a position to win the title going into Saturday’s final round, so arrangements were made for Herald sports editor Marion Dunn to fly with me to Stanford. Cougars Dick Zokol, Keith Clearwater and Rick Fehr finished in the top 15 as BYU edged out Oral Roberts to win the championship by two shots with a four-round score of 1161. ORU led by eight strokes after the first round, but BYU came back with the best round of the tournament, a four-under-par 280 on the second day. A 296 in the third round gave BYU a one-shot lead. Led by the senior Zokol, the Cougars fired a closing round of 291 for a two-shot victory.

3) Hosting NCAA track championships — BYU hosted the NCAA track and field championships in 1967, 1975, 1982 and 1989. I got to help host the championships in 1982 and 1989. The first two NCAA meets hosted by BYU were at the oval which encircled the football field at Cougar Stadium. When the stadium expanded to 65,000 seats in 1982, it necessitated construction of the current track and field complex now known as Clarence Robison Field.

I won a steak dinner (never delivered) from Provo Herald Sportswriter Marion Dunn as we walked from the Helaman Halls converted press room to the track because he was convinced BYU football coach LaVell Edwards was going to accept the head coaching job at the University of Colorado. I had a hunch Edwards would remain true to his Utah Valley roots with his parents still living. UTEP of the WAC won the meet, partly due to titles won by Kenyan Suleiman Nyambui in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. The triple jump of 57-feet-7 and ½ inches by future Olympic bronze medalist Keith Connor of SMU still remains as an NCAA record.

In 1989, Louisiana State became the first institution to win both the men’s and women’s track titles in the same year. Soft-spoken future Olympic silver medalist Frank Fredericks, the fastest human I’ve known, earned All-America honors for BYU in both the 100 and 200 meters. Flamboyant sprinter Dennis Mitchell of Florida won the 200 meters. Olympic silver medalist Hollis Conway of Southwestern Louisiana took advantage of the huge high jump apron to set an NCAA record which still stands at 7-feet-9 and ¾ inches. TCU’s 4X100 relay time also remains an NCAA record.

4) College World Series and the Wilbur Snypp Award — Like the Cougars, I’d always wanted to get to the College World Series. BYU made it to the CWS in 1968 and 1971 and could have gone in 1958 and 1961, but withdrew because it potentially would have been forced to play on Sunday.

In 2017, I had the good fortune of being selected to receive the annual Wilbur Snypp Award at the CWS. At this nationally televised press conference, I was pleased that former BYU baseball coaches Glen Tuckett and Gary Pullins attended with some of my family. I was nominated years earlier for this honor, but thought I’d been long passed over. When our office manager told me of the phone called I needed to return, I remember her smile as she said, ‘it’s good news.”  Here’s a link to that press conference: http://byucougars.com/video/m-baseball/baseball-ncbwa-wilbur-snypp-award-winner-ralph-zobell

5) Men’s basketball championships — I was fortunate to attend three Final Four men’s basketball championships. First, I worked as a runner in 1979 when the University of Utah hosted the championship that featured Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. The 1989 championships at Kansas City was the only time I officially attended on BYU business as sports information director, invited by our national organization (CoSIDA) because All-American Michael Smith was being honored as the Academic All-American of the Year and my prime seat was two rows behind DePaul head coach Ray Meyer.

I attended again in 2017 when the Final Four was hosted in Phoenix where Tom Holmoe, Cougar director of athletics, was on the front row as a member of the NCAA Tournament Committee. The championship at Phoenix was memorable because I attended as a fan with my two brothers and BYU had been the only team prior to the title game to have beaten Gonzaga.

A fun aside from attending in Phoenix was when a Newsweek reporter mistook the Y on the shirts worn by me and my brothers as being from Yale. In his article, that reporter interviewed me and wrote: “Zobell has probably worked as many college athletic events as anyone in the building.”

TRIPS
1) Japan (twice) — Because of my mission to Indonesia, I was selected to join Church PR representative Charles Graves from New York City to promote the Silk Bowl in 1977 against the Japanese All-Stars. Before the 1977 season, we announced if the Cougars won the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), we would not accept the automatic berth to the Fiesta Bowl because the game would be played on Sunday. BYU finished 9-2 and tied for first place in the league with Arizona State, but the Cougars held the tiebreaker with a win over ASU.

Many among Cougar nation felt the team should be rewarded with postseason play, but at that time there were only 15 bowl games and BYU’s reputation wasn’t as well known. Our men’s gymnastics coach at that time was Greg Sano (Hiromichi Sano Kawada), who was from Japan and with his help, and that of the American Football Association of Japan, we were invited to the Silk Bowl.

BYU easily defeated the Japanese All-Stars in both Tokyo (61-13) and Nagoya during its 10-day stay. We worked hard in preparation for the 1977 Japan trip, getting press materials translated into Kanji before leaving Provo. I arrived a week before the team to promote the game and was featured at a press conference where I was told I must say that All-American quarterback Gifford Nielsen would be playing. I knew there was no way Nielsen could play after injuring his knee earlier in the season, but Japanese officials told me it would hurt ticket sales if I said otherwise. I hedged and when asked I said it would be a game-time decision and for them to ask Nielsen when the team arrived. Japanese newspapers (shim bun) featured a photo of Nielsen barring his knee to show a zipper scar when the Cougars landed.

The team rode the bullet train and surprised many with a speedy boarding in Tokyo and exiting that speedy transportation in Kyoto. I got to ride roundtrip from Nagoya to Osaka in a limo with a couple of the players so that we could do an interview there in a TV studio. When it came time to return home, the big BYU football players got bumped around by Japanese citizens on Christmas Eve at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo, so Cougars interlocked arms to stay afoot to get to their flight home.

In 1978, it was decided BYU would finish the regular season by playing UNLV before we knew the Cougars would represent the WAC in the first-ever Holiday Bowl against Navy. The BYU-UNLV game was played in the Yokohama Bowl, a stadium built to accommodate a baseball team. When I was shown the baseball press box where I could work during the game from the end zone, I told officials I would rather sit outside on the 50-yard-line. Deseret News reporter Lee Benson sat by me in the stands at the 50-yard-line and spotted for me with binoculars, while I feverously recorded statistics on my lap. BYU defeated the Rebels, 28-24.

2) Slovenia — In the summer of 1994 I got to accompany the BYU’s men’s basketball team on a 16-day, five-game, three-country tour to Italy, Slovenia and France. Prior to the five games played in Slovenia, the group toured parts of Italy and learned the difference of a basilica compared to a cathedral (note, when I went with BYU’s football team to play Notre Dame in football, its cathedral had later changed to a basilica). The team had two semi-private sacrament meetings on respective Sundays at hotels in Italy and France. 

3) Australia — Colorado State was the host school for our 1987 victory over the Rams in Australia, 30-26. The game was played on a rugby field with no crown. The team attended a stake conference where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke, teaching a lesson, among others, to the Cougars to pronounce Melbourne as “Mel-bun.”  The BYU travel party flew home in three installments due to financial constraints encountered by the Australia group. The Australian writer from Associated Press came to the press box where my CSU counterpart and I were calling out statistics as we peered through our binoculars. That Australian writer could also hear sportscaster Paul James broadcasting the game nearby and asked, “Is he watching the same game you are?”

4) Cotton Bowl — Cotton Bowl festivities were well underway by the time I arrived in Dallas. Some were concerned about the absence of KSL radio announcer Paul James, for whom I summoned team doctor Darrell Stacey during my pregame routine at the Utah game when the voice of the Cougars complained of heart pain. Cotton Bowl personnel creatively decorated our hotel rooms whenever we were away for practices or official activities. To get to the old Cotton Bowl press parking, buses weaved amidst a sea or purple-clad No. 14 Kansas State fans through Texas State Fairgrounds. 

We let the media know when the BYU football team would arrive back in Salt Lake City and were greeted by thousands of wall-to-wall jubilant Cougars fans that created a line from the airport gate all the way to baggage claim (these were pre-9/11 airport days). BYU finished the season ranked No. 5 with a 14-1 record.

5) Alaska and Maui — I has always hoped to go to Alaska some time in my life and the opportunity came when I was assigned to cover the Great Alaska Shootout in 1994. After the Cougars beat Oklahoma State, they took a day off on Thanksgiving Day. I drove the media to Portage Glacier while the men’s basketball team dined at a local church. When I returned to the hotel, players were calling my name in the hallways as they wanted a ride to a grocery store because most businesses in downtown Anchorage were closed. The Cougars beat Louisville the next day before falling to Minnesota in the championship.

Attending the Maui Classic for basketball in 1992 was a thrill because not only did BYU upset No. 9 Oklahoma coached by Billy Tubbs, but the Cougars beat Memphis State with Penny Hardaway. A lot of celebrities attend the Maui Classic and my wife got an autograph from Magic Johnson when I dropped her off at our hotel before returning to the arena in Lahaina. After this tournament concluded, we then joined the BYU contingent on Oahu for the 1992 Aloha Bowl against Kansas, played on Christmas Day.

RUNS & STREAKS 
1) Baseball’s #mustachemafia — The 12-game win streak during mid-season of the 2016 campaign saw BYU baseball ranked in the top 30 for nine-consecutive weeks, peaking at No. 21. That streak began against Samford in Birmingham, Alabama, and included a three-game sweep at Kansas and a four-game sweep in the home opener against Niagara in Provo.

While the 23-game winning streak in 1983 is the longest in BYU baseball history, the 2016 streak was the most fun because it was punctuated by a mustache-mafia movement on the team. The 23-game winning streak of 1983 came to an end by UNLV in Provo mid-season when the Cougars had a 37-6 record and BYU ascended to be ranked No. 1 going into the NCAA Tournament in Tempe, Arizona.

2) 1987-88 Men’s Basketball — The BYU’s men’s basketball team with All-Americans Jeff Chatman and Michael Smith was undefeated to start the 1987-88 and won its first 17 games before losing 102-83 at Alabama-Birmingham. Prior to the UAB game, the Cougars were ranked No. 2 and 3 in the respective wire service rankings. Many believe had BYU knocked off Alabama-Birmingham on the road, it would have been ranked No. 1 the following week.

3) Football at UTEP — It seemed like the shot heard around the world when a 14-game BYU win streak came to an end in 1985 as UTEP upset No. 7 BYU 23-16 that October evening in El Paso. Were it not for that upset, BYU would have won 24-consecutive games against the Miners. Were it not for that loss versus the perennial WAC cellar dwellers, Cougar fortunes would have soared weeks later when BYU upset 10-0 Air Force Academy with 11 different bowl representatives watching in Provo. That loss broke BYU’s 25-game WAC winning streak and was the first time LaVell Edwards had lost to the Miners.

4) Beating Utah in football — The nine-game winning streak (1979-1987) that came in the middle of the 19-2 record BYU compiled against Utah from 1972 to 1992 may not compare to the record the Utes compiled from 1922-1971 of 38-9 when the U of U had the advantage; however, those 19 games came at one of the high-water marks of Cougar football. I remember witnessing the post-game tirade of Ute Coach Wayne Howard after Marc Wilson broke the NCAA passing record and a hot-air balloon sailed over the bleachers, bending the south goal posts in the fourth quarter in a 38-8 win.

5) Losing streak — Lest everything look positive, one of the low points I experienced was the 1-25 season for BYU’s men’s basketball season in 1996-97. The Cougars lost 21-consecutive games in that season under head coach Roger Reid and interim coach Tony Ingle. Through this trying season there were friendships forged. Years later, it’s been rewarding to see seven-footer David Anderson and Matt Montague shine as leaders in their church callings in Colorado and my own Orem neighborhood, respectively.

BIG PLAYS
1) Triple plays — I witnessed three triple plays in my 41 years covering BYU baseball. The first was F9-3-5 in 1998 against Southern Utah in Provo. The second was 5-4-3 in 2009 against New Mexico in Provo. And the third may have been the most dramatic because it was unassisted by Andrew Law in the 2011 Mountain West Conference Tournament against host San Diego State. Scored as a 6-U-U-U, with one out in the books from the infield fly rule, Law completed the triple play with the bases loaded. He alertly tagged the Aztec runner returning to second base, and then ran down the SDSU runner who tried to advance, then reversed course and retreated back to first base.

2) I personally didn’t get to witness Danny Ainge’s legendary length of the court winning drive against Notre Dame in Atlanta because, but I was on hand to report on junior Kevin Nixon’s 54-foot winning shot in Ft. Collins, Colorado, to defeat UTEP, 70-71, in the 1992 Western Athletic Conference championships game. Reserve guard Mark Santiago was plowed over on the out-of-bounds play that initiated Nixon’s buzzer-beater.

3) I was on the sidelines to open the 2015 football season at Nebraska when Mitch Mathews made his game-winning TD catch in a 33-28 BYU victory. That win was the first time Nebraska had lost a home-opener in 30 years. It actually was my first time being at a football game as a fan as I sat high up in Memorial Stadium eating runzas with my two brothers, one of my sons and a nephew. I volunteered to help our office staff with post-game interviews and had no clue Taysom Hill had been injured for the rest of the season until after the game.

4) K.O. Kealaluhi TD catch right in front of me in the 1996 Pigskin Classic vs. Texas A&M for a 41-37 victory. I left the press box at Cougar Stadium to ready for postgame duties and was waiting in the southeast corner as Steve Sarkisian lofted a 46-yard, game-winning touchdown pass with a minute remaining to Kealaluhi. While others were cheering in and around the end zone, replays of that catch so that I maintained my neutral press box decorum with hands at my side, showing no emotion. But inside I was happy we had won the game.

5) Two of the best plays I witnessed happened in Hawai`i, the first in 1980 when the Cougars won 31-13 and the second in 1984 when BYU won 18-13. In 1980, QB Jim McMahon was ailing with a bad shoulder and went back to punt, snaring a high snap and booted it left-footed to avoid the ensuing Rainbow Warriors rushing towards him. In 1984, safety Kyle Morrell did a complete aerial flip on third and goal to grab the UH quarterback by the back of his shoulder pads for no gain. When Associated Press came calling at the end of the 1984 season to have a representative on its All-America squad from the undefeated Cougars, I used this play to justify Morrell being named to their team.

FACILITIES 
1) The expansion of LaVell Edwards Stadium in 1982, back when it was known as Cougar Stadium, was monumental for the football program. When I started as an intern in 1976, BYU changed from hosting five to six games a season. With an expanded stadium, it made the unthinkable possible with the likes of Notre Dame, Penn State, Miami, Texas A&M, etc., coming to Provo.

2) Miller Park being built in 2001 was a dream come true for BYU baseball and me personally. After sitting outside, wearing as many as eight layers of clothing to stay warm, during my first 23 seasons, it was awesome to have such an amazing facility with a state-of-the-art press box. We are grateful for the sizeable donations of Larry H. Miller and his wife Gail, boosters/alums Sy and Betty Kimball (for whom the press box is named) and former player David Decker, who made the principal donation to the artificial turf installed in 2018. The one-of-a-kind combined baseball/softball facility brought about the era of night games at BYU, too.

3) In 1985, our office moved from the Smoot Administration Building (ASB) where we had been housed as part of BYU’s public communications team, to a newly-built annex on the northwest outside corner of the Smith Fieldhouse (SFH). The new location gave us more autonomy and put us closer to coaches and players. 

4) Indoor Practice Facility was completed in the fall of 2003 and brought a new dimension to BYU athletics. The football team could work out on colder days and get in more practice time, especially in preparation for bowl games. BYU students also benefited from the facility for intramural play. From 2003 to 2017, BYU’s baseball team held partial practices and intersquad scrimmages there as well.

5) The Student Athlete Building consolidated most of the offices for the BYU athletic department in August 2004. A centerpiece of the SAB is a three-story Legacy Hall featuring 34 display cases for awards like the Heisman and Outland (for football), Eastman and Wooden (for men’s basketball) and Haskins (men’s golf) Trophies, 21 wall displays and 13 video kiosks. The athletic administration and football offices moved from the Smith Fieldhouse along with the training room and principal weight room and accommodated an academic learning center for athletes as well as a home for the Cougar Club.

FEATS
1) The “Miracle Bowl” TD catch of Clay Brown from Jim McMahon in the 1980 Holiday Bowl 46-45 win over Southern Methodist University was a feat I didn’t personally witness because I was in the hotel room in Knoxville, Tennessee with the BYU men’s basketball team. The voice of the Cougars, Paul James, recreated the game for about a dozen of us who were there with the basketball team at the Volunteer Classic. KSL didn’t have the rights to broadcast the Holiday Bowl, so James phoned KSL for the game update because we could not watch the Mizlou broadcast in Knoxville. Indelible in my mind is the voice of Ray Scott with the call, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. And yet I saw it.”

2) No. 1 Miami came to Provo in 1990 as the defending national champion, but was defeated 28-21 by BYU before a Cougar Stadium-record crowd of 66,235. Quarterback Ty Detmer adroitly side-stepped a pair of Hurricane defenders to collided into each other as he threaded one of his three TD passes and 406 passing yards to propel him to his eventual Heisman Trophy. The Cougars soared as high as No. 4 by the end of the month before losing at Oregon.

3) Peter Kendrick vs. Hawai`i — BYU’s double-header on May 18, 1981, when the 5-foot-8 sophomore Peter Kendrick pitched back-to-back victories against his native Hawai’i Rainbows to win the WAC Baseball Championships in Provo, is a great memory. His 257-pitches in 16-consecutive innings led to a two-game defeat over sixth-ranked Hawai'i to win the WAC title. While the little lefty's statistics for the day were impressive, the legendary quality of his performance came in his durability. Kendrick pitched seven complete innings in the Cougars' 11-4 victory on game one, followed by nine complete innings in the second game, to clinch the league title with a 3-1 win. "PK" as he was affectionately called, surrendered only one extra base hit among the 12 hits he allowed in the doubleheader that day. 

4) Michael Brooks of LaSalle scored 51 points in triple overtime on December 1979 as BYU won the championship game of the annual Cougar Classic, 108-106. Brooks set a new Marriott Center Record for points, field goals and field goal attempts as those remaining from a crowd of 22,791 fans chanted “Michael, Michael” when the all-tournament team was announced.

5) The incredible run of All-American wrestling citations won by the Hansen brothers from Tetonia, Idaho. I got to be on the tail end of this run with Brad (1996 BYU Athletic Hall of Fame inductee). I missed the All-American bouts with his brothers Mike, Laron (1986 BYU Athletic Hall of Fame inductee) and Mark, but was there with David, Brad and Ronnie—all of whom won Western Athletic Conference titles.

ENCORES
1) Playing at Notre Dame where I got to visit the hallowed campus three times. Twice for football games in 1992 when they were filming the movie “Rudy” and 1994 when the Cougars won defeated the Irish 21-14; and during the 1985-86 basketball season.

2) BYU’s first NCAA Baseball Regional under the new format at Texas in 1979 when the Cougars lost to the Longhorns in the finals after beating Lamar and Pan American.

3) Trip to Alabama for a three-game baseball series in 2000 was a highlight for me as former BYU baseball coach and director of athletics Glen Tuckett gave us a guided tour of the campus where he served as interim director of athletics from 1995-96.

4) The NCAA Baseball Regional at Florida State in 1994 when BYU lost to FSU in the tourney that was rested from Sunday play after the Cougars beat Kansas and Central Michigan. It was a 10-win season for 5-foot-3 soft-tossing lefty Jorge Jaime.

5) The nationwide telecast at Fresno State in 1988 when I got to wear a headset as a statistician for a demanding ESPN producer in a game the Cougars lost, 7-3.

Principal among these memories are the people; the coaches, athletes and fans. As we have “high-fived” down memory lane, I now take a grateful bow and bid you farewell with my five fingers and a wave goodbye. –Ralph R. Zobell