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N0KFQ > TODAY 28.10.15 16:40l 65 Lines 3199 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 71561_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 28
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JE7YGF<N9PMO<N3XPD<N0KFQ
Sent: 151028/1434Z 71561@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.64
1922
Princeton-Chicago football game is broadcast across the country
On October 28, 1922, hundreds of young men gather around radios
in Western Union offices, speakeasies and a Princeton University
physics lab to hear the first-ever cross-country broadcast of a
college football game. Telephone lines carried a play-by-play of
the matchup_between Coach Amos Alonso Stagg's formidable Chicago
Maroons (frequent Big Ten champs in those days) and the
well-regarded Princeton Tigers_from Chicago's Stagg Field to
radio receivers up and down the East Coast. After Princeton's
unlikely victory, her fans were just as unruly as they would have
been if they'd seen the game for themselves: They thronged the
town's main street, lit bonfires and stole into Nassau Hall to
ring the University's bell, a celebration usually reserved for
victories over Princeton's Big Three rivals Harvard and Yale.
Athletic contests were among the first live events that radio
stations broadcast, and they were definitely the most popular.
Station managers and advertisers could always guarantee an
audience for horse races, baseball games and boxing matches. But
early broadcasts of college football games were almost always
local ones, and they weren't quite live_typically, a reporter in
the stadium pressbox would wire or telephone a detailed account
of the events on the field to the station, where an announcer
would re-enact the play-by-play, sometimes with sound effects,
for the radio audience. The first live broadcast of a college
football game didn't happen until 1924, when announcers Edwin
"Ty" Tyson and Leonard "Doc" Holland broadcast the
Michigan-Wisconsin game right from the stands at Ferry Field.
But even in this secondhand form, the radio gods could hardly
have picked a more exciting game for the first long-distance
transmission of a college football matchup. Princeton took an
early lead, but then Chicago fullback John Thomas scored three
consecutive touchdowns. Chicago kept its 18-7 lead until the
fourth quarter, when Princeton's Howdy Gray picked up a fumble
and sprinted 42 yards for a touchdown. Minutes later, Gray's
teammate Harry Crum scored his second touchdown of the day, and
Princeton was winning again. But Stagg's team didn't give up
easily: The Maroons kept pushing until they were just one foot,
and one down, away from scoring the game-winning touchdown. But a
determined Princeton defense kept Thomas from scoring again, and
the Tigers won the game.
"The wonders of wireless technology were never better
exemplified," one Princeton alum wrote, and it was true_college
swells and middle-aged sports fans listened breathlessly to the
reenacted play-by-play, eager to find out how the game would end.
The New York Times reported that the town of Princeton was filled
with listeners, all "cheering madly one minute, groaning hoarsely
the next." The Tigers kept on winning_they went 8 and 0 in the
1922 season and beat Harvard and Yale to win the Big Three
championship_but their victory over Chicago, broadcast over the
airwaves for all to share, was perhaps the sweetest.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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