Merritt Butrick as David Marcus in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
Merritt Butrick as Johnny Slash in "Square Pegs".
It’s a windy path from the last "Star Trek" movie to that short-lived 1980s sitcom “Square Pegs”, but here it is.
"The Wrath of Khan" leads to…
Merritt Butrick as T'Jon in the "Symbiosis" episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
It was 1982 and "Star Trek" was undergoing a re-boot after the successful but unpopular “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. It was decided the sequel would bring back one of the most fearsome enemies the Enterprise ever faced: Khan. Amid Captain James T. Kirk’s battle with Khan across the cosmos, he discovers he has a son – David Marcus…
…Square Pegs, Square Pegs, Square, Square, Pegs
David Marcus was played by Merritt Butrick, whose other prominent role of the period was none other than Johnny Slash on "Square Pegs".
And of course “Into the Darkness” re-imagines Kirk and the Enterprise’s first encounter with Khan.
The aftermath
"The Wrath of Khan" would become one of the best "Star Trek" movies of all time, while "Square Pegs" was cancelled after one season. Sadly, the linchpin of our two degrees of separation – Merritt Butrick – would die of an AIDS-related illness in 1989 at the age of 29. Before that, he became just one of a handful of actors to appear in the "Star Trek" movies and the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" TV series.
Well, today we hit another milestone on this blog. Although it really does not mean that much, March 31 was the day we hit 10,000 pageviews.
What does it mean?
It really is hard to tell who visits this blog, who reads it, and what people's impressions are. There are only a couple indicators. One is the comments, but I have discovered it is a long way from a having a thought to actually putting finger to keyboard. The counter is the other, but it is deceptive, because it counts all pageviews, including my own. That means every time I work on a post, I'm sure it bumps up the count.
I guess I could change the setting so it does not count my pageviews, but why do that? I find something encouraging, motivating, and even edifying about that number going up and up.
I guess I'll see you all when I hit another milestone, whatever that may be.
The Harlem Crowns came to town recently and it reminded me of the granddaddy of all those comic basketball teams – the Harlem Globe Trotters.
Not quite as seen on TV
Back in the 1980s the only basketball we saw on the rural cable network, or peasant vision, was the periodic appearances made by the clown princes of basketball, the Harlem Globe Trotters. Whenever they were on, it was part of CTV’s “Wide World of Sports”. They always made me laugh with the antics of Geese Ausbie, Curly Neale, Sweet Lou Dunbar, and Meadowlark Lemon. No one could dribble like Curly Neal, and no one could hide the ball quite like Geese Ausbie. I always wanted to see them, and I would get my chance when I was in junior high. They were coming to the Sportsplex in Lethbridge.
I had always been interested in the Globe Trotters. In junior high I had read a history of the team and their founder Abe Saperstein. Basketball was still in its infancy and teams still played in venues such as ballrooms. What was interesting was how the Caucasian, Jewish Saperstein was able to relate to his players, who were virtually all African-American. He told them he faced discrimination too, just a different kind.
No one could dribble a basketball like Curly Neal.
It was a really cool history. A lot of interesting people spent time with the Globe Trotters, such as Wilt Chamberlain, who went on to become one of the best NBA players of all time, and Bob Lemon, who went on to be a dominating fireball pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals.
My sister got the tickets and I was so excited. I was talking about it at school one day, and one of my classmates, named Roger Keeling, said he was going too.
The night came and it was a good time, but not at all what I expected. They were not the team I had seen several times on the Wide World of Sports. No Geese Ausbie, no Curly Neale, and no Meadowlark Lemon, although that was because by then he had left to form his own group, “The Bucketeers”. That’s when I discovered they were a regional team, and the Globe Trotters had several teams who made their way across Canada and the U.S.
No one had hair like Sweet Lou Dunbar.
Still, they performed their classic tricks: referees got made fun of; shorts got pulled down; a bucket of confetti got thrown; and they played their own versions of football and baseball. I had seen it all before on TV, but with bigger names. Nevertheless, it was still a good show.
At halftime I looked down and happened to see Roger. I went over and we ended up walking the Sportsplex from one end to the other, actually touching the wall at each end, before returning to our respective seats for the second half.
Parting thoughts
When I saw the Harlem Crowns play, it brought back memories of the Globe Trotters, who really were the pioneers of that kind of basketball. They really had their hey day when I was growing up, and have kind of been lost among all the other entertainment options now available. However, they are legendary, and cultural icons. More than anything else, they loved the game of basketball. At that time, they did more to promote the game than even the NBA, who really was just getting its act together. For all that, and the fact they still put on a good show, I'm glad I saw them.
Through all his wins and national championships, the true legacy of
Coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke men’s basketball team is the number of
players he coached who went on to become coaches and managers – and it all started with that
1986 team that came within a basket of winning their first national
championship.
That all came to mind last week during the first three rounds of March
Madness when Harvard once again pulled a first round upset, then Stanford upset
number two Kansas in the second round. Both teams were coached by Duke alumni
who played in that 1986 championship game against Louisville.
Duke forward Tommy Amaker in 1986.
Duke guard Johnny Dawkins in 1986.
My first game
Earlier that season, in the fall of 1985, I watched my first ever
college basketball game. We were visiting my brother in Calgary, which always
offered me the opportunity to escape peasant vision and watch cable TV. While
my family went shopping, I stayed in the basement and flipped on the TV.
There was a much hyped college basketball game that I had to watch. It
featured two of the best teams at the time: the Duke Blue Devils and the
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Duke was led by Johnny Dawkins and Tommy Amaker
and Mark Alarie and Danny Ferry, while Georgia Tech had guard Mark Price and
forward Bruce Dalyrimple. I used to carry around a notebook to write down
things I wanted to remember, mostly sports names and teams. I recall scribbling
the rosters of both teams, which is probably why I still remember those names
so easily.
Duke won that game, and would go on to have a magical run to the
championship, rated one of the best teams in the country. I followed them as much as I
could without cable TV, a regular newspaper, or sports magazines. My best
friend Chris Vining kept me in the loop too.
Peasant vision carried no college basketball, so I had no chance to
watch Johnny Dawkins lead his team into battle against Pervis Ellison and his
Louisville Cardinals, who were coached by the legendary Denny Crumm. Instead, I
recall hearing the news on that Monday night, on the late news, after I got
home from my after-school job at Gergely’s Greenhouse. We had a black and white
TV going at the greenhouse all day, so the next night, as I passed by, I saw
the highlights of the national championship game and Duke’s heartbreaking
three-point loss.
I just could not believe Johnny Dawkins and company had lost.
A legacy
That Duke team set the stage for a program that would become a regular in the Final Four, advancing in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992, winning the championship
those last two years. They would return again in 1994, losing to Arkansas for
the national championship, and have since won two more titles in the 21st
century.
Dawkins would go on to play for San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Detroit
in the NBA. When his playing days were done, he found a spot sitting beside
Coach K on the Duke bench in 1998 as one of his assistants until 2008. He would
eventually strike out on his own, coaching the Stanford Cardinal. His coaching
career to date has culminated with his Stanford team’s upset of Kansas.
Meanwhile Amaker coached Seton Hall, Michigan, and Harvard. Last year
his Harvard squad shocked number three New Mexico and this year upset number
five Cincinnati, before falling to number four Michigan State. Still, Amaker
has brought a winning culture to Harvard, that may dominate the Ivy League for
years to come.
There were others too from that 1986 team, such as Quinn Snyder, who
took Missouri to the tournament, Jay Bilas who was another assistant under
Coach K, Danny Ferry who was in management with Cleveland, San Antonio, and
Atlanta of the NBA, Billy King who is the GM of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and
David Henderson who was an assistant for Coach K before assuming the duties as
head coach of the University of Delaware for six seasons.
Parting thoughts
As for Coach K, he continues to patrol the sidelines for the Blue
Devils. His team was upset in the first round by unheralded Mercer, but I hope
he takes comfort in the fact the players he mentored into coaches have achieved
their own success – and started by learning at his side. That’s the true
quality of leadership.
They started the decade (the ‘80s) in a downward spiral, but ended it achieving as much success as they ever had before, and captured a new generation of fans in the process.
One of the greatest albums of all time.
Early memories
As odd as it sounds, when I really started listening to music in earnest back in 1984, I couldn’t tell you much about Fleetwood Mac. Sure, I had the heard the name, but I couldn’t name one of their songs or albums. My earliest memory is reading the back of a Rogie Vachon hockey card. It said that he listened to Fleetwood Mac. (Incidentally, another card from another season said Vachon looked like singer Sonny Bono.)
That all changed one night when I had the radio going on my way to bed. It was just about 11 p.m. on a weeknight and the station was LA-107 FM. Every weeknight at 11 p.m. they had a radio show called “Profile” on. This particular night they were featuring Fleetwood Mac.
It was all new to me. It was hard to listen. I had to keep the volume pretty low because of the paper walls in that farmhouse we lived in. I gathered Mick Fleetwood was the brains behind the band along with his friend John McVie, and his wife Christine McVie. Members came and went. One day, Fleetwood was out in California, scouting studios. He was in one and heard a demo from a band, who coincidentally was in the same studio. He liked what he heard and soon after asked American named Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stephanie Nicks to join the band. Those five would become the core of the super band of the 1970s.
Their first album would be “Fleetwood Mac” which yielded the hits “Over my Head”, “Say you Love Me”, “Rhiannon”, and “Landslide”.
“Profile” spent a lot of time talking about Fleetwood Mac’s mega-hit album “Rumours”. It was one of the best selling albums ever, even to that point in 1985. After that, Buckingham became more experimental. The result was “Tusk” which was still successful, but a huge letdown after “Rumours”. It sent the band into a tailspin. They eventually returned to a more traditional sound with the album “Mirage”. And that was that. I don’t really recall much more, other than Fleetwood Mac was so big their “Profile” was broadcast in two parts.
Stevie Nicks' solo album "Rock a Little". I own it on vinyl.
Solo turns
Much like my experience with the Eagles in the 1980s, I first heard pieces of Fleetwood Mac before the band itself.
It started with Christine McVie, who had a great solo album the self-titled, “Christine McVie“, in 1984 with two chart singles, “Got a Hold on me”, which reached number 10 on the U.S. charts, and “Love Will Show us How”, which peaked at number 30 in the U.S.
A year later, Stevie Nicks released a solo album entitled, “Rock a Little”, which I ended up buying the vinyl edition of through Columbia House. The singles I remember best were, “Talk to Me” (which peaked at number four), and “I Can’t Wait” (which peaked at number 16). When I went to my first high school dance in Grade 11, the song I heard when I entered the school was “I Can’t Wait.”
Is that really them?
Then, with time ticking down on my high school days, I heard this strange sound on the radio. It was kind of an odd-sounding song, but I liked it. I waited to hear who sang it, which often took awhile because deejays were not always diligent about announcing who sang the songs they played.
I could not believe my ears. Was it really Fleetwood Mac? I honestly thought they were done. Far from it. The song was “Big Love”, from the recently-released album “Tango in the Night”, and Lindsey Buckingham sang it. It was there my last semester of Grade 12 in 1987, and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. While I got ready to head off to university where my life would change forever, Fleetwood Mac released their second single “Seven Wonders” in June, which would peak at number 19. Then in August, they released “Little Lies” which climbed all the way to number four. I recall listening to “Little Lies” the first week we were living in res at the University of Alberta.
That would be the end of my Fleetwood Mac experience until I saw a recorded concert of theirs from 1994. It was absolutely fantastic, especially when Buckingham and Nicks sang “Landslide”. They seemed so in to it. Either they still felt something for each other, or they were incredible performers. I suspect it was the latter.
Incidentally, at Christmas that year of 1986, my brother gave me a copy of “Rumours” as a present. So part of the second semester of Grade 12 was also getting to know the ins and outs of one of the best albums of the past 20 years. It was awesome.
Parting thoughts
Fleetwood Mac will always have a special place in my heart. From the time I heard them on “Profile” right up until “Tango in the Night” was part of the soundtrack of Grade 12 and first year of university, Fleetwood Mac was always there. The musical stylings of Stevie Nicks still send a chill up my spine to this day.
Michael Weiss before the "T" when he played Dr. Mike Horton in the '80s on "Days Of Our Lives".
Not too long ago I finished watching the first season of “Blue Bloods” on DVD and what caught my eye was a recurring guest star, one of the suspected bad guys. He was played by Michael T Weiss.
That name may not ring any bells for some, but I recall a time in the mid-80s when he was still just Michael Weiss, no “T” yet. He played another Michael – Michael Horton on the daytime drama (AKA soap opera), “Days of our Lives”.
Watching Days
It really started when I was in Grade 11. At Christmas time that year, 1985, my biggest present was a brand new VCR. That summer, when I got out of school I started watching “Days Of Our Lives” regularly. I really liked the characters. So, after I figured out how to use that VCR, I started taping “Days”. I started watching it every night after school, but life got busier and busier, so I ended up watching a week’s worth on Sunday afternoons.
Pretty soon my mom was in on it with me, which was good and bad. I loved watching it with her on Sundays, but often she actually watched it during the day. Every so often she would let something she saw slip. This was long before the phrase “spoiler alert” was coined.
The show got more interesting as we watched over the next few months, as a bunch of new characters made their debut, including a mystery, bearded man with a collection of long-sleeved Hawaiian shirts.
Mike Horton with his love interest Robin Jacobs.
Mike Horton comes home
I clearly remember his first appearance. This man I know I had never seen, walks into the Horton household which is empty. He is scruffy, and a bit shady looking, as he helps himself to something to eat. This cannot be good, I thought.
Well, people return home and we quickly discover he is no stranger to Salem, but is in fact Mike Horton, a character that had been on the show since birth.
He is now a doctor, who assumes his new role at Salem General. He spends a lot of time with his sister Jennifer Rose Horton, who is still played by Melissa Brennan to this day. Soon, he takes an interest in Robin Jacobs, another doctor at the hospital. She rebuffs his advances because he can never truly be together: she is Jewish and he is a Gentile. It is an interesting story line that goes on for months and years (as they all do on a soap opera). Eventually, he does convert and I believe they do get together, but it doesn’t last.
The days after
Pretty soon, I was off to university and lost track of the plot lines of “Days”. Periodically, I did watch it, but by then another actor was playing Mike. Weiss actually played Mike Horton for almost four years, from 1986 to 1990, but I totally lost track in 1988 or so.
I would see Michael Weiss play other roles. He would go on to play a role in a short-lived summer replacement called “2000 Malibu Road”, then in the mid-90s played Jarod, who was “The Pretender”.
When I saw him on “Blue Bloods” it again showed me how soap operas can be such a great training ground for actors.
As March Madness approaches, I was thinking about the first tournament
I ever watched at length, and a guard from Vanderbilt who captured our
imagination with his last-minute heroics. His name was Barry Goheen, but a
friend who watched along with us dubbed him, “Crazy Whitey”.
Buzzer beater
It was the 1988 NCAA men’s national championship tournament, which was
best known for the heroics of Danny Manning and the Kansas Jayhawks who upset
the Oklahoma Sooners to win it all. That team was dubbed “Danny and the
Miracles”, and for good reason.
By the time Danny and the Miracles were cutting the nets down, another
hero had already begun to fade into memory. It was a few weeks earlier, when
the tournament was just getting going when Barry Goheen captured our
imaginations.
It was in the round of 32, and the underdog Vanderbilt Commodores
played the heavily-favoured Pitt Panthers. Pittsburgh led by three with time
running out. Me and my roommate Chris Vining were watching the game with a
buddy named Doug. He said there was no way Pitt could lose this game. Pitt hit
a foul shot to extend their lead to four points – a two possession game.
Well, Vandy’s guard dribbling hard, his head bobbing as he moved, went
straight down the court and put up a three. It went in to cut the Pitt lead to
one. It was actually two guys, the dribbler and the shooter. The shooter was Barry Goheen, and he was a junior.
“Look at Crazy Whitey go there,” Doug said.
We were now into this game.
Pitt had to foul to stop the clock. They did. Pitt made both foul
shots to go up by three.
Goheen went straight down the court and dropped another three at the
buzzer.
“Look at Crazy Whitey,” Doug, said mimicking his head bobbing.
We were heading to overtime.
The fact was, Vanderbilt was not a chump team. They had Wil Perdue, who
would go on to play for the Chicago Bulls where he was part of their first
three-peat. Perdue, Goheen and company, took control of overtime and beat the
Panthers by six. They were off to the Sweet 16.
Their magic ran out there, but Barry Goheen made an impression that
still lasts.
More magical moments
Wikipedia actually calls Barry Goheen, “one of the most clutch college basketball players in NCAA history…He
won a total of nine games during his career on last-second shots, often in some
of the most important games of each season…ESPN once created and aired a
half-hour special documentary summarizing Goheen's last-second basketball
game-winning heroics.”
As it turns out, Goheen had a lot of clutch performances left in him.
The next year, he hit a half court shot at the buzzer to beat Louisville, and
hit a buzzer beater to beat Georgia by two. That caps off a career that
included an amazing performance in his freshman year. The Commodores were playing
Tennessee, a major rival and, according to Wikipedia they trailed 58-50 with only 48 seconds left in the
game. Goheen individually scored seven points in the last 30 seconds of the
game, including the game-tying shot and go-ahead free throw in the waning
seconds, to beat Tennessee 60-59. Goheen was carried off the court by elated
fans.
Parting
thoughts
Barry
Goheen is a lawyer now, and by all accounts a successful one. Perhaps that is
what makes his accomplishments so amazing. He nevr became an NBA star. Instead,
he was a lot like the rest of us – an ordinary guy who did some extraordinary
things when he had the chance. Those are my favourite stories.
Every time I hear a song called “Take it Easy” by Andy Taylor, I am
transported back to a time and a place when I first learned what live music was
really all about. It wasn’t a concert or a documentary. It was a basement in
Duchess, Alberta, with a couple cousins of mine, and their upstart band.
Back in the summer of ‘86
Music has always been something I listened to, but never played. I
have always been impressed by those who can, but never more so than when I was 16.
It was a long time ago in a village far, far away (well at least a couple
hours).
Every summer I spent a couple weeks in Brooks visiting my family and
hanging out with my cousins. In particular, my cousin Fred. He was a couple
years older than me and always seemed to be doing cool things. He had his own
car, so we used to cruise the streets of Brooks and go out to Kinbrook Island
and sit near the lake. He was a fantastic artist, and we had visions of doing
our own animated cartoon – I’d write and he’d draw. And, by the summer of 1986,
he was in a band. That was probably the coolest thing he did. Not only did he
play bass and sing, but he drew his own album covers, concert tour posters, and
concert shirt art.
His band went through a variety of incarnations. At that point, he
played with our cousin Vince, who was a guitar player, and a fellow named
Trevor, who lived out in Duchess.
Drag race to Duchess
Fred always seemed to be the centre of the action. One day, he had
some guys over, including a guy named Carl who was sporting a new,
souped-up truck. They were going out to Duchess to see Trevor, because there
was a new song they wanted to try out. Fred and Vince took Fred’s car, and I
hopped in with Carl.
They had talked about how much speed Carl’s truck had. We followed
behind Fred until we got out on the open highway. It was raining, and a little
bit of lightning flashed. Fred sped up. Suddenly, Carl hit the gas and I could
feel the engine take off. Carl passed him in what seemed like a second, then
stopped just as quickly. We were at Duchess.
Take it easy
Trevor had taped a music video off TV that he really liked. While he
cued that up, Vince began warming up on his guitar, and Fred grabbed his bass.
They had been working on a song called “Snow White”, by Streetheart. Fred sang a
verse of that. I distinctly remember the phrase, “…People think you're peaches and
cream…”.
They were all ready to go, so Trevor played the video. It was “Take it
Easy” by Andy Taylor, who was a member of Duran Duran. Back in that period
various members of Duran Duran were doing their own projects, whether it was
John Taylor and company in Power Station or Simon LeBon and others in Arcadia.
“Take it Easy” was a catchy tune that was actually from the movie
“American Anthem”. It would be pretty forgettable, confined to the dust bin of
the ‘80s except for one thing: it starred Janet Jones, who not too long after
that would end up stealing hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s heart, and marry in a
ceremony broadcast on national television across Canada.
Fred, Vince, and Trevor played the video a few times. Then Vince got
wound up and started playing the song, pretty much the way he heard it on TV.
Pretty soon, Fred began to sing along. At one point they had to stop because
there were some words they could not understand. So they replayed that portion
of the video over and over.
That went on for more than an hour, and I was just enthralled. I was watching
these guys teach themselves a song. They were literally playing by ear, and it
was fascinating to watch. If memory serves, none of them could read music, so
this was what they had to do with any new song they wanted to learn. I was so
impressed.
Gary Busey as "Uncle Red" in the 1985 werewolf movie "Silver Bullet". I had the pants scared off me when I saw it.
Watch a movie – take your chances
Eventually, they got tired. One of them had brought a movie, “Silver
Bullet”. It was a horror movie starring Gary Busey, about werewolves.
Fred warned me that Carl was a prankster. He had a twin sister named
Carla (who was also dating Trevor), who loved horror movies, but got so into
them that she scared easily. One time, she was watching “Texas Chainsaw
Massacre” and he snuck behind her with a chainsaw and started it up. Another
time, she was watching this werewolf movie. Carl had a werewolf mask. He snuck
out and crouched down beneath a window right behind the TV. He waited a couple
minutes then jumped up behind it. Both times, his sister let out a
blood-curdling scream.
So I waited for something scary to happen. It did, but it really
wasn’t that elaborate this time round. Things went dark in a particular part of
the movie, and suddenly there was a bang on the window. It still scared the
crap out of me, because I was so wrapped up in the TV.
(In this small world we live in, Carl and Carla had a cousin who ended
up, just over a year later, becoming one of my best friends in university.)
Parting thoughts
That was the last summer I went out to Brooks. My cousins were moving
on and so was I. The following summer was my last at home before I went off to
university. We visited Brooks, and I even brought up the idea of staying a
week. But everyone had moved on. By then we are all “too busy”.
Whenever, I hear “Take it Easy”, I think back to a simpler time, when
life was all about music, movies, and hanging out with your friends. I was
really lucky because my friends were also my family.
To this day it still aggravates me that I missed most of the greatest
Grey Cup ever played. I had a meeting, and it ended just as the fourth quarter
was starting. I went back to my floor in res and saw my friend Kevan (we
pronounced it Key-van), freaking out, pacing back and forth sporting a
Saskatchewan Roughriders shirt.
Still, I was able to see live the wild way the game finished. I heard
people say it was the best game they had ever seen.
Eight years later, CBC replayed the 1989 Grey Cup, and everyone was
right. It is the greatest game I have ever seen. So much so, I have actually
watched it twice since.
It came to mind recently because this year’s Grey Cup was the first time
the Saskatchewan Roughriders played the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Grey Cup
since they waged war in that epic struggle 24 years ago.
Just like this year, the Riders had not finished first in their
division and were not expected to make the championship game.
How the West Was Won
The class of the entire league that season was the Edmonton Eskimos.
They were the first team in league history to win 16 regular-season games and
were virtually unbeatable. They had appeared in the 1986 and 1987 Grey Cups, and
in 1988 bolstered their team, plugging all weaknesses, in a blockbuster trade
with the B.C. Lions.
They awaited the winner of the West Division semi-final. For the first
time in three years, the Calgary Stampeders had made the playoffs. Saskatchewan
had had a much longer drought that ended in 1988. Now they looked to do more
than just make the playoffs.
The Riders won that game, earning a trip to Commonwealth to play the
first-place Eskimos. No one gave the Riders any sort of chance, even though
they had handed Edmonton one of their two losses that season.
It did not look good early, as Edmonton quarterback Tracy Ham marched
the Eskimos straight down the field for a touchdown, making it look easy, and
they led 10-3 after a quarter. Slowly the Rider defence took over, and the
offence got rolling as Saskatchewan rolled up 14 points in the second quarter,
to go into the dressing room at halftime leading 17-13. They added another 14
points in the third quarter and stifled the vaunted Eskimo offence, leading
31-20 after three quarters. The teams exchanged singles in the final 15 minutes
to give the Riders the 32-21 win, and their first berth in the Grey Cup since
1976, and the chance to win their first league championship since 1966.
Awaiting them were the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, owners of a 12-6 regular
season record, which was good enough for first in the east. They hosted the
Eastern Conference Final, defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 14-10 to become
champions in the east. They were just three years removed from their last Grey
Cup championship in 1986, and had seven all-stars going into the 1989
championship.
Where was I?
I actually was at Costco with my buddy Bruce Freadrich when the game
was going on. We listened to a bit of it on the radio on the drive home, but
Dana Dueck told me who won when we got back to res. It was absolutely shocking.
But, as I have said all along, the arrogance of some of the Eskimos led to
their undoing – and over confidence. Eskimos defender John Mandarich in
particular talked a good game, so it was great to hear the Riders shut him up –
and good.
The setting
The 1989 Grey Cup was held in a brand new facility, Toronto’s SkyDome,
which had opened just a few moths earlier, in time for baseball’s Toronto Blue
Jays to win their division and bring playoff baseball indoors to Toronto. Now
the cutting-edge facility with the state-of-the-art retractable roof was
hosting the biggest football game in the country.
SkyDome shootout
Donald Narcisser (#80) and Ray Elgaard (#81) celebrate Narcisses's touchdown.
The teams would combine for 83 points and one of the most thrilling
finales ever.
Hamilton had the early advantage moving into position for two Paul
Osbaldiston field goals. All the Riders could muster was a punt single from
Terry Baker, while the Tiger-Cats ended the quarter with a touchdown pass from
quarterback Mike Kerrigan to Tony Champion, to lead 13-1 after one quarter.
That connection between Kerrigan and Champion would be a harbinger of things to
come.
Saskatchewan’s offence woke up in the second quarter, as quarterback
Kent Austin connected with the dependable Ray Elgaard for the Riders’ first
touchdown of the game, closing the gap to 13-8. Hamilton responded as Kerrigan
hit running back Derek McAdoo for a touchdown and a 20-8 lead.
Jeff Fairholm (#18) celebrates his touchdown, which remains one of the greatest catches I have ever seen.
Then came, for me, the turning point and one of the best plays I have
ever seen. At least it’s my favourite play of all time. Austin went deep down
the left side to receiver Jeff Fairholm. Hamilton defender Lance Shields was
all over him. There were flags all over the field. Yet, with Shields pulling
back on Fairholm, he caught the ball and took it in for a touchdown. Penalty
declined, score 20-15. To me, that symbolized the resiliency and
determination of the Riders during that playoff run.
Hamilton again responded as McAdoo plunged in for another major to
restore their 12-point lead to 27-15. Before the half ended, Austin put
together another drive culminating in a pass to receiver Donald Narcisse at the
front of the end zone to cut Hamilton’s lead to 27-22 at halftime.
It was obvious halftime adjustments favoured the defences. The teams
traded field goals before Rider Mark Urness forced Osbaldiston to concede a
safety in the end zone to make the score 30-27 Hamilton. The Riders closed out
the quarter by taking the lead, 34-30, on a one-yard run by Tim McCray, after a pass interference call in the end zone.
That set up a wild, and unexpected fourth quarter.
Again the teams traded field goals to make the score 37-33 when
Saskatchewan kicker Dave Ridgeway added another three points to make the score
40-33 with just minutes remaining.
Kerrigan responded again, driving the Tiger-Cats, deep into Rider
territory. This is about when I came in to watch. He spotted Champion in the
end zone but seemed to overthrow him. Champion jumped high and hauled the ball
in, which was over his head and behind him. He landed hard on his side but held
on to tie the game at 40-40. It was later revealed he was playing with broken
ribs. It was absolutely incredible.
Overtime loomed now.
Austin took the ball and again moved his team down the field. I cannot
understand how Hamilton let him do that. Suddenly, with just seconds to go,
Ridgway was trotting onto the field to try a field goal to win the game. The
man known as “robo-kicker” was automatic from inside 40 yards, and made no
mistake. His kick split the uprights with just a few seconds left to give the
Riders the inexplicable 43-40 lead.
The Saskatchewan Riders celebrate winning the 1989 Grey Cup.
Saskatchewan still had to kick off though, and announcers Don Wittman
and Ron Lancaster cautioned that if anyone had a kick return trick up his
sleeve, it was wily Hamilton coach Al Bruno. He was out of magic though, and
the game ended.
In a game for the ages, the under dog Saskatchewan Roughriders had won
their second Grey Cup in franchise history.
Parting thoughts
You have to understand the mindset of the time to appreciate this
game. The Edmonton Eskimos were absolutely dominant, and easily could have gone
18-0. Still, they were the first team to win 16 regular season games. Observers
did note one of those losses was to Saskatchewan, so maybe the Riders had found
a chink in their armour. After the Riders beat the Eskimos in the Western Final,
it would have been easy to predict they would have nothing left for the Grey
Cup. But they did.
The other dominant thought was that, since the retirement of legendary
quarterback turned broadcaster Ron Lancaster, the Riders had been lovable
losers for more than a decade. My ex-girlfriend, a Regina native, demonstrated
it best when we watched a replay of the 1989 Grey Cup at her place in 1997.
It was the third quarter and I looked over to see her in the fetal
position.
“I’m tense,” she lamented. “If anyone can blow it in the replay, it’s
the Riders.”
Everyone in the country celebrated with the Riders in 1989. They were
literally the Bad News Bears of Canadian football.
All of this, and the sheer entertainment value of the game, makes it
the best Grey Cup ever. It really does.
Back in January I watched Canadian tennis player Genie Bouchard wage a
heroic battle with China’s Li Na in the semi-final of the Australian Open. It
was the first time in 30 years, and only the second time in history, a Canadian
women’s tennis player had advanced as far as the semi-final in a Grand Slam
tennis tournament.
Few people could name the last Canadian, but I remember her well. It
was Carling Bassett, and she brought a unique story of her own to the court.
An American game, a well-known family name
Back in the 1980s all the best women’s players were Americans, such as
Christ Evert-Lloyd, Tracy Austin, and Pam Shriver, or moved to the United
States and became American like, perhaps the greatest of them all, Martina
Navratilova.
Into this breach stepped a young, unknown Canadian. Many knew her last
name, “Bassett”, because her grandfather had been a broadcasting titan, founding
Baton Broadcasting which made up a good chunk of the Canadian Television (CTV)
network, and her father who dabbled in professional sports ownership. He tried
to bring a World Football League team to Toronto, and call it the Northmen, but
he faced enough opposition that he instead located the team in Memphis and
called it the Southmen. That enterprise failed, but Bassett was back in 1983
with the Tampa Bay Bandits, a team in the upstart United States Football League
(USFL). Needless to say, the Bassett family cast a long shadow for the young Carling.
Carling Bassett returns a serve back in the 1980s.
Success on the court
Bassett turned pro when she was 15, and rose through the ranks through the decade. In 1981, she won
the Canadian indoor title, and was ranked the number two junior player in the
world. By the age of 16, she was Canada’s top tennis player.
In 1983, Bassett made the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. She reached her greatest heights of success in 1984, when she reached the quarter-finals
of the French Open, then hit the height of her career, advancing all the way to
the semi-finals of the U.S. Open. She would reach the quarter-finals of the
French Open in 1986, and that would be the last noise she made in the Grand
Slam. She climbed as high as number eight in the world rankings.
She was named the World Tennis Association’s Newcomer of the Year in
1983, exactly 30 years before Bouchard won the same honour in 2013, and Canada’s
Female Athlete of the Year in 1983 and 1985. She retired in 1990.
In 1998, she was inducted into the Canadian Tennis Hall of Fame.
Teen sensation
It’s funny how much play Bouchard got when she answered “Justin Bieber”
to the question, which celebrity would she most like to date?
Yet, in her day, Carling Bassett was on the verge of becoming a teen
sensation of her own. That was fuelled in part by the fact her dad was a movie
producer, and her grandfather owned CTV. Still, she was a cute blonde with
personality and charisma. She modelled for the Ford Modelling Agency, starred in her
dad’s 1982 movie “Spring Fever”, and in 1984 appeared in an episode of “The Littlest
Hobo”.
That would be like Bouchard appearing in an episode of “Saving Hope”, “Heartland”,
or “Arctic Air”. I just can’t see it.
Parting thoughts
It was ironic that Christ Evert was in the broadcast booth calling the
Bouchard-Li match, because she was the one who beat Carling Bassett in the
semi-final of the 1984 U.S. Open.
But it is likely no one would make that connection because here in
Canada we so quickly forget. Carling Bassett may have been the greatest female singles’
tennis player this country produced, but no one knows it. But more than that,
she was a celebrity. I have read her described as the Anna Kournikova of her
day.
We have to do a better job of celebrating – and remembering – our
success.
