They don't call it a laptop for nothing.
Sometimes I forget the thing's not part of my anatomy, especially since I went wireless. I'll sit for hours in my living room recliner, the radiated warmth from the underside of my Sony VAIO eliminating any need to dislodge myself from the La-Z-Boy to light a fire.
Armed with both the laptop and the cable remote, I'll often simultaneously surf the World Wide Web and the Wide World of Sports. This might mean I'm making use of something as functional as real-time box scores for a Chicago Cubs game from www.mlb.com, or looking up arcane hockey on www.nhl.com. Other times I'll engage in recreational research on some of my more random, sports-related musings.
That's how it was one weekend afternoon during the waning days of college football bowl game season. Pondering a couple of recently popularized sports traditions, I decided to see if I could learn the origins of both the victorious coach Gatorade baptism and the loathsome "wave."
With the power of Google (www.google.com), it took me almost no time at all to settle the Gatorade issue. I learned that on Jan. 25, 1987, after a 39-20 Super Bowl victory over the Denver Broncos, New York Giants defensive tackle Jim Burt gave head coach Bill Parcells the inaugural dowsing. Yes, though it seems like it's been a part of American history since the Depression, the 15th anniversary is this Friday.
I then turn my energies to a more pressing bit of sports woolgathering, the task of bestowing blame on the miscreant responsible for that most vile of stadium traditions, "the wave."
Ok, I'll fess up. My utter disgust with the wave marks me a curmudgeon. It's a horrid display of herd mentality, not even pretending to relate to the only legitimate reason a multitude of fans have for acting as one body with a single voice: to cheer on the home team. It's a mindless distraction that takes longer to materialize properly than the lulls in the action it's designed to divert attention from. Ultimately, it takes fans' heads out of the game.
I wanted to know whose fault that is.
Will the real culprit please stand up?
The early search engine returns trigger a vague recollection of a claim I'd heard before. I find several sites referring to the University of Washington's Husky Stadium as the "Home of the Wave," with some sort of misplaced pride. Further research reveals more details. According to the university's propaganda machine, they can credit the precise date and pinpoint the responsible individual.
The school claims that on Halloween day in 1981, in the third quarter of Washington's 42-31 homecoming defeat of a John Elway-led Stanford team, the wave was born. There for homecoming, along with other past cheering luminaries, was '70s "yell king" and former "Entertainment Tonight" host Rob Weller.
According to reports, Weller, with assistance from former band leader Bill Bissel, failed in early attempts to generate a human wave that would have fans rising to their feet beginning with those seated in the lower tiers and working up toward the top of the stadium. What they eventually achieved was a stadium-encircling wave that differed from what we see now only in that once standing, participants remained on their feet until the circle was complete.
So confident is the university in its version of history that this past October, when Stanford returned to Husky Stadium for the 20th anniversary of that legendary day, Weller was brought back and honored for his alleged creation.
The story does not end there, however.
Many lifelong Kansas City Chiefs fans will be familiar with the name Krazy George. The balding, middle-aged man clad in jersey and shorts and armed with a drum and a raspy, tireless voice roamed Arrowhead Stadium for several seasons. The professional cheerleader also worked for the Minnesota Vikings and hired out for countless one-nighters at sporting events across the country.
From his Web site, www.getkrazy.com, George is waging a war of words with all of Huskiedom in defense of his paternity claim for the wave.
It's indisputable that on Oct. 15, 1981, 16 days before the Washington homecoming game, George was doing his mercenary rabble-rousing at a major league playoff game between the Oakland As and the New York Yankees at Oakland Coliseum. At this nationally televised sporting event, George claims to have led not only the first, but the first three occurrences of the wave.
The dates themselves lack controversy; therefore the only thing that remains is to verify the occurrence of an actual wave and not just some poor, pretending precursor. One can stipulate that the Weller wave was legit, because whether or not is immaterial. If the Krazy wave was real, then it holds the distinction, period. All that remains is to certify George's wave.
Short of getting our hands on the videotape from either Major League Baseball or NBC, we must rely on credible eyewitnesses. George offers no less respected a personage than veteran sportscaster Joe Garagiola.
Garagiola, who was working the playoff broadcast, recalled for the Dallas Morning News, "I remember during the game that all of a sudden the fans started getting up and then sitting down. As I remember, it looked the same or better than what they're doing now. Our producer, Don Ohlmeyer, was trying to get the cameraman to catch the Wave, but he (Ohlmeyer) kept pounding on him saying, 'Get it, get that thing.' I had never seen anything like it. It was super."
As far as I'm concerned, that's good enough for me. Garagiola would not lie he used to host "To Tell the Truth." Yet, the University of Washington stands firm. Says Pat Carroll, one-time Washington sports info lackey, "We're claiming it and we always will."
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