Normally I'd put this in the Wam, but I'm breaking the rule today because the memory is so nice.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series exploring what Washington’s home-field advantage is capable of being, and what UW is doing to regain the goose bumps inside Husky Stadium.
By Mike Vorel, Seattle Times
Three decades later, Walter Bailey still sees the sky.
James Clifford hears the hum inside Husky Stadium, a roar so unrelenting it barely seems real.
Dave Hoffmann feels his organs shake inside his skin, dancing at a party with 73,333 friends.
On Sept. 19, 1992, No. 2 Washington hosted No. 12 Nebraska in Husky Stadium’s first night game since 1985. The year before, a red-clad crowd in Lincoln, Nebraska, had watched Washington score 27 unanswered points in the second half of a 36-21 win, then saluted the Huskies with a standing ovation upon their exit.
Now, the stage was set at a sold-out Husky Stadium, as the reigning national champions stormed out of the northwest tunnel — embarking on perhaps the loudest college football game ever played.
“Welcome to Husky Stadium in Seattle, Washington,” bellowed play-by-play broadcaster Ron Franklin on ESPN. “They are standing and chanting and cheering. They’ve been doing that for a couple of hours now, Mike Gottfried.”
“Both these teams are really fired up,” responded Gottfried, his color commentator. “The crowd is just unbelievable, with the noise here in the stadium.”
On the north and south sides, purple and red stretched to the sky.
And the sky followed suit, a Montlake mirror.
“When the sun started to set, I swear to you, it was like a purple haze over the stadium,” recalled Bailey, then UW’s senior cornerback who snared an interception in the second quarter. “It had this little reddish-purple sky. It was just kind of freaky-eerie beautiful, ready for Husky football to fully display a special moment in time for us as a team.
“I wouldn’t say I was star gazing. I just remember that, the way the sun set and the way it looked. Before we really got going, there was just this beautiful ambience across the stadium. It was beautiful, and it was exciting, man. It was electric.”
There’s evidence. Midway through the first quarter of Washington’s 29-14 win, Franklin introduced reporter Adrian Karsten — who was wearing headphones and holding a black “Realistic Sound Level Meter” along the sideline.
“Forget about jet engines,” Karsten said. “We’re getting up close to 120 decibels. That’s in the danger-of-impairment area.”
The meter topped out at 133.6 decibels — the highest number ever recorded at a college-football game.
It was an environment that nearly defies description.
“ ’Deafening’ is not the word. It was almost so loud that there was this ominous feel,” said Clifford, UW’s former linebacker and current Mariners director of strength and conditioning who contributed 13 tackles and two tackles for loss that day. “There was a play — I’ll never forget it — I stripped the ball and the ball came out, and I dove on it and recovered the fumble. But nobody even knew there was a fumble.
“Normally everybody’s yelling, ‘Ball out! Ball out!’ Thank goodness one of the officials saw it, because nobody could hear anything at all.”
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series exploring what Washington’s home-field advantage is capable of being, and what UW is doing to regain the goose bumps inside Husky Stadium.
By Mike Vorel, Seattle Times
Three decades later, Walter Bailey still sees the sky.
James Clifford hears the hum inside Husky Stadium, a roar so unrelenting it barely seems real.
Dave Hoffmann feels his organs shake inside his skin, dancing at a party with 73,333 friends.
On Sept. 19, 1992, No. 2 Washington hosted No. 12 Nebraska in Husky Stadium’s first night game since 1985. The year before, a red-clad crowd in Lincoln, Nebraska, had watched Washington score 27 unanswered points in the second half of a 36-21 win, then saluted the Huskies with a standing ovation upon their exit.
Now, the stage was set at a sold-out Husky Stadium, as the reigning national champions stormed out of the northwest tunnel — embarking on perhaps the loudest college football game ever played.
“Welcome to Husky Stadium in Seattle, Washington,” bellowed play-by-play broadcaster Ron Franklin on ESPN. “They are standing and chanting and cheering. They’ve been doing that for a couple of hours now, Mike Gottfried.”
“Both these teams are really fired up,” responded Gottfried, his color commentator. “The crowd is just unbelievable, with the noise here in the stadium.”
On the north and south sides, purple and red stretched to the sky.
And the sky followed suit, a Montlake mirror.
“When the sun started to set, I swear to you, it was like a purple haze over the stadium,” recalled Bailey, then UW’s senior cornerback who snared an interception in the second quarter. “It had this little reddish-purple sky. It was just kind of freaky-eerie beautiful, ready for Husky football to fully display a special moment in time for us as a team.
“I wouldn’t say I was star gazing. I just remember that, the way the sun set and the way it looked. Before we really got going, there was just this beautiful ambience across the stadium. It was beautiful, and it was exciting, man. It was electric.”
There’s evidence. Midway through the first quarter of Washington’s 29-14 win, Franklin introduced reporter Adrian Karsten — who was wearing headphones and holding a black “Realistic Sound Level Meter” along the sideline.
“Forget about jet engines,” Karsten said. “We’re getting up close to 120 decibels. That’s in the danger-of-impairment area.”
The meter topped out at 133.6 decibels — the highest number ever recorded at a college-football game.
It was an environment that nearly defies description.
“ ’Deafening’ is not the word. It was almost so loud that there was this ominous feel,” said Clifford, UW’s former linebacker and current Mariners director of strength and conditioning who contributed 13 tackles and two tackles for loss that day. “There was a play — I’ll never forget it — I stripped the ball and the ball came out, and I dove on it and recovered the fumble. But nobody even knew there was a fumble.
“Normally everybody’s yelling, ‘Ball out! Ball out!’ Thank goodness one of the officials saw it, because nobody could hear anything at all.”
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