Reflections of a winning team
Written by Frank Kurtz, Sep 17, 2012, 0 Comments
I pulled into the parking lot across Himes Avenue on the northeast corner of Raymond James Stadium last Thursday night.
A glance around at the flags of South Florida, the setting sun and the Big East whipping in the wind atop Ray Jay gave me goose bumps as I recalled the greatest moment in South Florida football history: the West Virginia game.
It was my sophomore year; the Bulls were going into the Friday night contest to be nation-wide broadcast on ESPN2, 3-0 and ranked 18th in the Country against West Virginia, who were fifth-ranked and 4-0.
The West Virginia Mountaineers had revenge on their minds after the Bulls upset them in Morgantown the previous year.
I had no classes that fine Friday in late September so I had arrived with friends before parking lot attendants went on duty, which meant the most coveted space on the Monopoly board: Free Parking.
As the shadows got longer and the pile of empties got larger, the Herd of Thunder began emanating from the stadium, warning us that game time was approximately twenty minutes away, which translated to: finish this one and grab a roadie.
Walking over to Ray Jay, it was obvious there would be quite a crowd. To this day, that game marks the record home crowd of 67,012.
Stepping off the sidewalk toward the gate, we came upon a group of W.Va. fans loudly butchering John Denver’s “Country Roads.”
We just walked past the group singin’ Mountaineers into the Stadium.
We hiked up to the last row in the upper bowl. The view of the field and downtown Tampa was spectacular.
The Bulls scored a touchdown in each of the first three quarters and ended up winning the game 21-13.
The home fans rushed onto the field in celebration.
We made our way back to the parking lot and listened to the post game show on the radio as we waited for traffic to slacken up.
When I returned to Campus Lodge, and walked into my apartment, ESPN2 was re-airing the game, so I watched us roll over West Virginia again; did you know that it is actually an illegal State? More on that another time.
