The Play's the thing...

This coming Saturday, November 19, my alma mater, UC Berkeley (Cal) plays arch rival Stanford, and once again memories of “The Play”, 29 years ago, are in the news.

It was Nov. 20, 1982. The Big Game, Cal vs. Stanford, was being played that year at Cal's Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif.

It was a quarterback shootout of sorts between Cal sophomore Gale Gilbert and Stanford senior John Elway. When Elway completed a fourth-and-17 to set up a supposedly game-winning field goal and the Cardinal went ahead 20-19, four seconds remained on the clock. The Play was a kickoff return that covered 57 yards, involved an impromptu five laterals, at least a couple of questionable calls (or non-calls) by the referees, and the entire 144-piece Stanford marching band, including an unsuspecting trombonist, who was run over by Cal player Kevin Moan, who scored the winning touchdown. It was the only Cal football game that I would ever attend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfebpLfAt8g

John Donovan of CNNSI captured “The Play” in his wonderfully written piece November 21, 2002. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/2002/11/21/the_play/

He weaves insights and commentary on some of the players and coaches of that day, and what they are doing now. As this week we learned of criminal behavior at Penn State University, one paragraph tackled my senses – paragraph 58 of Donovan’s 73 paragraphs.

The paragraph explains what happened to the player who made the fifth and final lateral to Moen. Writes Donovan: “The fourth player, (Mariet) Ford, who made the fifth and final lateral to Moen, is serving 45 years to life at the California State Prison at Solano for the 1997 murders of his 3-year-old son, his wife and the couple's unborn child.”

Fast forward to a March 2011  Sports Illustrated/CBS News investigation on the criminal background of college football players. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/02/earlyshow/main20038160.shtml

Through an exhaustive series of background checks, the probe discovered that seven percent of the 2,837 players on the magazine's 2010 top 25 pre-season football rosters had been in trouble with the law. More than 200 players had either been arrested or formally cited by police. Thirty-nine percent of those who'd been arrested had been charged with serious crimes such as assault and battery, domestic violence, burglary, cocaine possession or DUI.

CBS reporter Armen Keteyian noted: "Another startling number…only two schools in our sample did any kind of regular criminal background check on their recruits."

Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports told CBS News, "I think as a general population, these are going to be stunning statistics to try to absorb, and policy changes will hopefully come about as a result."

Back to Mariet Ford. He had no prior convictions.

A San Francisco Chronicle version of the Ford conviction story focuses on Ford's financial woes, infidelity, and temper as setting the scene for the murders. http://panachereport.com/channels/hip%20hop%20gallery/Murderous1.htm. A blog assembled by investigative journalist Gabriel Baird suggests there is a possibility that someone else -- a drug addict-burglar -- committed the murders.

 http://marietford.blogspot.com/.

It is one thing to ponder if Ford's final lateral was illegal or not in The Play against Stanford 29 years ago; it is another to ponder whether or not he is guilty of murdering his wife and 3-year-old toddler and unborn child, then committing arson to cover up the crime.

In any case, while many Cal football fans will cherish the memory of The Play, it pains me to see what became of Mariet Ford and his family. Whatever the truth may be -- whether Mariet Ford is guilty or not, the ending of the story is so very, very sad.