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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2007 > November > 10 > Entry
Orange Bowl Memories: Goodbye to an old friend
I went down to Miami last month with my wife and we visited an old friend of mine for the very last time. When we go back next year, she’ll be gone.
I’m talking about the Orange Bowl, a stadium that means more to me than any in which I’ve ever been.
We worked our way through the same busy Little Havana streets I used to traverse almost every autumn weekend for 16 years. We stopped along the way at a little bodega with an outdoor counter for a sweet jolt of Cuban coffee and some croquettas and then we finally pulled up to the 70-year-old horseshoe of a stadium.
The place was closed , but I found an open gate and soon we were tromping through the visiting team’s tunnel and out onto the field, where I just looked up and around, letting the past come flooding back.
In the early 1970s — when I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears sportswriter, not far removed from my small town Ohio days — the Orange Bowl was where I was introduced to big-time sports, press box camaraderie and the bless-my-luck prospect of free hotdogs at every halftime.
To me, the Orange Bowl was heaven on earth.
I would cover the Dolphins here for good chunks of two decades, same with the Miami Hurricanes. Covered Super Bowls, too, the yearly Orange Bowl extravaganza, Friday night high school games, the Florida A & M Rattlers’ annual Orange Blossom Classic, one of the greatest world title fights I ever saw, pro wrestling, pro soccer and even a Prince concert when the little electric gnome turned the place into the “Purple Bowl.”
I remember my first wondrous look out the open east end zone — past the scoreboard and over the palm trees — at the downtown Miami skyline.
I can remember chuckling as I watched the big, fat linemen from the pro teams up north wilting in the afternoon heat of October, their bench catching all the sun while their jumbo sideline fan — similar to the one that cooled the Dolphins across the field — “mysteriously” wasn’t working.
And I remember the way the Hurricanes’ crowds — and those of the Dolphins, too — would stomp their feet in double time on the old metal stands until the racket became so loud it seemed they were about to shake loose the bolts and beams until the grand old stadium would come tumbling down.
And now, all these years later, the landmark place is about to fall.
When Miami hosts Virginia tonight, it will be the Canes 473rd — and final — game in the Orange Bowl. They are moving 16 miles north to the antiseptic Dolphins Stadium with its luxury suites and other top-dollar amenities.
The Miami Dolphins made the same move 21 years ago and even the fabled Orange Bowl Game left here in 1996.
After tonight, about all that’s left for the place that hosted 14 national title games, five Super Bowls and six decades of Orange Bowl Classics are three games involving Florida International University and a high school all-star game in January.
After that the Orange Lady — now rusted and sagging and leaking — is scheduled for demolition.
Tonight, a bunch of former players and coaches plan to make a tunnel onto the field through which this version of the Hurricanes — not quite the world-is-ours bunch of the ’80s and early 90s that won an NCAA-record 58 straight games here — takes the field.
I wish I were there.
This is where I watched the curly-headed Bernie Kosar scamper like a daddy long legs spider, where I watched Ottis Anderson carry an entire Miami team on his back, where I got caught in the crush of jubilant players as Jimmy Johnson was carried off the field after his Canes won the national title.
Four years earlier, on that January night in 1984, I had been standing on the sideline, right at the goal line, when Howard Schnellenberger’s Canes won the embrace of a stadium, a city and, finally, the entire world of college football.
For years, the Miami teams I had covered would get drilled by the football powers from up north. The crowds were small, the players battered and the magical moments few and far between.
Then came that Orange Bowl night that no Canes’ fan will ever forget. Nebraska scored in the closing seconds to come within one. Huskers coach Tom Osborne decided to go for the win and Miami safety Kenny Calhoun batted down the pass giving the U its first of what is now five national titles.
This is also where I covered some of the great Dolphins teams and would sit with coach Don Shula in his cramped dressing quarters after games, and try not to ask — in what he described in his unwavering jutting -jaw way — a “horse shit” question.”
It’s where I saw bent-nosed Larry Csonka bull for touchdown after touchdown and where I watched gunslinger Dan Marino emerge as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever.
It’s where I witnessed Kellen Winslow Sr. turn into a real life Rocky Balboa in arguably the greatest NFL game ever, the San Diego Chargers’ overtime victory in a hot, muggy exhausting 1982 playoff contest with the Dolphins.
Thanks to the Orange Bowl Classic, this is where I first interviewed Bear Bryant, had my last interview with Woody Hayes and where I nearly got run over by Ralphie, the buffalo mascot of Colorado.
It’s where I saw a Miami team get flattened in an instant by the Flutie Miracle of 1984. I was standing there at the back of the west end zone — sportswriters used to be able to roam the field near game’s end — as Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie lofted that 46-guard Hail Mary that Gerard Phelan, just a few feet in front of me, gathered it in for the stunning 47-45 victory
For me, the losing moments have left as many indelible memories as the winners.
This is where I sat for 45 minutes in the dressing room with veteran Dallas Cowboys tight end Jackie Smith after he’d dropped a sure touchdown pass in Super Bowl XIII, a miscue that unfairly has turned into the the mantle of an all-time Super Bowl goat.
It’s where — 25 years ago this Monday night — I sat up against the ring apron and watched my friend, Alexis Arguello, fall right in front of me after that 14th-round rampage by Aaron Pryor in their junior welterweight title fight.
I can think of dozens and dozens of stories here, but let me give you just one last one.
In 1979, Csonka , near the end of his career, returned to the Dolphins for a season. After a road game in Cleveland, Bill Reinke — a photographer who worked with me at The Miami News and, later, here in Dayton — joined me, Csonka and Csonka’s pal Squeaky Williams for an off-day hunting trip on Csonka farm in Lisbon.
Csonka and I hit it off well and a few weeks later in a game, he crashed into the end zone for a touchdown and got poked in the eye.
He stumbled off the field, hands to his face — the crowd hushed — and lumbered into the dressing room. Soon after, there was a loud speaker announcement for a doctor to head to the dressing room.
I grabbed a brief case, headed down the elevator and got to the dressing room door where a young security guard held out an arm of resistance.
“Didn’t you hear the call for a doctor? I said impatiently.
The guy lifted his arm and let me in as the game raged on behind us. I went to the training room, where Csonka was sitting on a table. An assistant trainer was there, but I came up and looked and that’s when Csonka, although in pain, managed a shake of the head and a smile.
Just then, Dolphins’ owner Joe Robbie — who, it appeared, had been on a long tail-gate party of his own in his private box — walked in with the team’s security advisor, who knew me and, without a big display, tried to get me out of the room.
We circled the table a couple of times and finally I stepped lively toward the door, only to have Robbie stop me. I thought the jig was up, but instead Robbie asked:
“How’s he going to be?”
I told him there’d be some blurred vision, but his trainer had it under control. As I headed out the door, Robbie said, “Doc, thanks a lot.”
“Anytime,” I said disappearing out the door. “Anytime.”
I thought of that moment as I stood out there on the field last month. It made me laugh and then it made me sad.
I knew “anytime” was now “never again.”
Comments
By Candie
November 10, 2007 7:37 PM | Link to this
I lived in Miami for 15 years during the wonderful Coach Schnellenburger/Miami Hurricane’s days. Your column brought back fond memories. I was in the Orange Bowl when Miami beat Nebraska and that is my fondest of all my Miami memories. Thanks for the great story.