I think that 1999 game against UT was under the portable lights.
That 1997 season was pretty bad...3 and 8 with a loss to Kent. No wonder there was no excitement going into 1998. 2000 was a weird year...my dad died in 97, mom in 99 and my brother in Nov 2000. Falcon football was my weekend escape...with nobody in the place I could sit wherever I wanted...take as much space as I wanted...and just breathe a little. It was cheaper than a shrink and probably more helpful.
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
So sorry to hear Flipper. I went through unfortunate things a while back and they always say to find a lot of happy diversions to help get you through it. For me, it was just fishing/boating a lot with friends....and things got much better.
I remember what the Doyt was like before renovations (maybe 2006?) and I sort of miss the old bleachers...and a few games I had went to it was nice to get those seats right behind the team see them up close. Good stuff. At P5 programs you need to sell your first born to get those types of seats.
Thanks...it was long ago and happier days are upon us..besides..things brightened for us a great deal on 11/15/2001...a year and a week after we buried my brother David...my daughter Laurel was born. One door closes....
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
I was a student from the fall of '89 to the spring of '94, but I was on the cross country team and didn't have much time to attend games. After that I started a teaching job and coached cross country, again eating up my Saturdays.
1990 was the last year of the Ankney era, and the lone star player was All-America punter Chris Shale. My roommate had a general-topics column in the BG News and among the only things he ever wrote about sports was "it says something about your football team when your best player is at a position that underlines failure." So there wasn't a whole lot of excitement. Either '89 or '90 was the first night game at the Doyt because they needed a gimmick to get people to come. A lot of my friends went through the turnstile for the free t-shirt and went back to the dorms.
Given those low expectations, the campus was kind of shocked by the '91 MAC win and everyone was excited. Timing of the Cal Bowl was such that the town had emptied out a lot by the time it was played, but I was still in the dorms with a few of my friends. I remember it was a late come-from-behind win with heroic catches by Mark Szlachcic. After the win, an on-field interviewer asked Szlachcic if he thought he'd be declaring for the NFL draft a year early. "Sledge" just laughed at him and walked away.
The bar on East Wooster that was at various times SamBs, M.T. Muggs, and Quarters had quite a fun time after that game. The bartender dared the crowd to go out to the Doyt, tear down the goalposts, and bring them back. The crowd did just that, the bar had everyone sign them and put them up in the rafters.
'92 was much the same. I may have helped carry the goal posts down Wooster and Main streets after the Las Vegas Bowl win, depending on whether the statute of limitations has passed. I took a few classes with some linemen and they were organized, efficient, hard-working people. But it was very obvious that once life started to wear down Blackney, it all went to hell.
FWIW, from what I heard at the time, Blackney tended to deal with his wife's condition with a bottle of alcohol. The worse she got the worse his dependency became. That explains, at least in part, the lack of discipline of the team in his waning years. He had too many things to deal with and he chose the wrong way to deal with them.
BGFan wrote:FWIW, from what I heard at the time, Blackney tended to deal with his wife's condition with a bottle of alcohol. The worse she got the worse his dependency became. That explains, at least in part, the lack of discipline of the team in his waning years. He had too many things to deal with and he chose the wrong way to deal with them.
Bg fan,
I wish i could say you were wrong on this, but i was told by an EXTREMELY valid source that this was a large part of problem. I didn't mention it as i figured mention of his wife's condition was enough. But yes, your info on this was correct. Its too bad that a solid coach wound up this way. Though i think he eventually nwent to an asst. job at Maryland with Ralph Friedgen
( sp.?).
Education our Challenge, Excellence our goal. (look it up)
BGFan wrote:FWIW, from what I heard at the time, Blackney tended to deal with his wife's condition with a bottle of alcohol. The worse she got the worse his dependency became. That explains, at least in part, the lack of discipline of the team in his waning years. He had too many things to deal with and he chose the wrong way to deal with them.
This makes me sad. This is the type of thing where the administration needed to step in to rectify this problem, and I'm not talking on the field issues. It's simply amazing to me that he was actually able to build success after his wife suffered the aneurysm - so really - his coaching ability wasn't the core of the problem.
But, maybe the administration did try to step in and offer support to him and his family while he held down the HC job? We will never know.
This has been a great thread. I've only read about Blackney and never was really, truly a witness to that era of BG football.
