Manure Drop Never Raised A Stink

Pranks have long been a staple of college football rivalries, but few can match the attempted manure drop that backfired on UCLA students nearly four decades ago.

Prior to the 1958 USC-UCLA game, several UCLA students rented a helicopter, loaded it with manure and tried to dump the load on the statue of Tommy Trojan.

However, the chopper couldn’t fly low enough to do the job properly and when the smelly cargo was let loose, most of it was sucked right back up into the helicopter, covering the passengers.

Big Game flops

California is coming into the Big Game with a record-setting senior quarterback who is destined for the National Football League.

That should make Stanford feel good about its chances Saturday against Cal quarterback Pat Barnes.

For more than a half-century, Cal and Stanford have been turning out quality quarterbacks by the bucket load. But most of them wind up on the losing side in the Big Game their senior years.

If you don’t believe it, just ask John Elway or Craig Morton. See how Steve Bartkowski did. Or Frankie Albert, Jim Plunkett, Joe Roth, or Mike Pawlawski. John Brodie lost as a senior. So did Gary Kerkorian, Troy Taylor, Dick Norman, John Paye and Gale Gilbert.

All except Roth, who died shortly after his senior year, played in the NFL. Three of them Plunkett, Bartkowski and Elway - were the first player taken in the draft. Albert, Brodie and Morton went in the first round, and Roth would have.

Beavers flooded out

Monday’s and Tuesday’s record rainfall flooded Oregon State’s Parker Stadium turf under several feet of water in places, and sent the Beavers into McAlexander Fieldhouse for the first time in at least six seasons.

Oregon’s depth chart lists starting quarterback Tony Graziani (knee) and No. 1 tailback Saladin McCullough (hamstring) as questionable for Saturday’s 100th Civil War game, but both returned to practice Tuesday.

Coach Mike Bellotti expects both to start.

Oregon is ninth in the Pac-10 in rushing (137.8 ypg), but has run for 545 yards in its past two games.

Ten years later, Cecil can gloat

Every now and then, a couple of Phoenix-area businessmen named Jeff Van Raaphorst and Chuck Cecil will get together, talk football and have a pretty good time.

Like a lot of local college football fans, they might even bring up the day in 1986 when Cecil just happened to find one of Van Raaphorst’s passes in the Arizona end zone.

They might recall how Cecil took the interception 107 yards downfield for a touchdown that gave the Wildcats a 21-point lead en route to a shocking 34-17 victory over Van Raaphorst and the previously unbeaten Sun Devils.

Cecil might mention that he also intercepted one of Van Raaphorst’s passes the year before to seal a 16-13 UA victory.

And, if he really wants to go back in time, Cecil can always throw out that nugget about their high school days in San Diego, when Cecil played for Helix High School and floated over the middle to pick off one of Van Raaphorst’s passes for Grossmont High en route to a blowout win. But, Van Raaphorst says, they will always manage to laugh about it.

“I know Chuck. I like Chuck,” Van Raaphorst said. “As an ex-player, you chuckle about those things because you had a chance to settle them on the field.

“Fans live and die for those things, because they can never settle it, but players don’t.”

Unbeaten ASU and Arizona meet Saturday under similar circumstances, with the Sun Devils listed as eight-point favorites.