Meeting Recap for Nov. 14, 2011
If you weren’t at this week’s Rotary meeting, don’t worry about it. I mean, you didn’t miss much – just some football talk, and historic cheers, and marching bands, and coaching legends, and audio replays of the greatest final play in college football history, and some good jokes, and some Rotary history, and Big John Frisch doing a masterful job as emcee (gee, that’s a shocker) – as the club resurrected its historic “Big Game” meeting, cast in its new mold of “Rivals Day”.
Taking place a stone’s throw from Hornet Stadium at Sac State’s Alumni Center (thanks to fellow Rotarian, Jennifer Barber, who had keys to the joint and snuck us in), the wine reception traded the usual piano playing for a slightly more robust sound, courtesy of the Sac State Marching Band (nothing will kick start your Monday like a drum line playing the rumble!), and then we lowered the decibels for Gary McDonald’s thought of the day, followed shortly thereafter by John (Machine Gun) Kelly’s well earned 3 minutes of air time as Sponsor of the Day.
Next up was Thom Gilbert (& Sullivan), who was beckoned to the podium by President Ken to update us on the club’s own rivalry (Sac Rotary vs. Point West in the blood drive, of course), where we’re holding on to a slim lead (108 pints for the home team, 97 for the visitors), but need everyone to get out there and lose a pint this week, as those morning-meeting ne’er-do-wells are starting to cut into our lead! Lose some body weight AND get a donut – what’s not to like?
Feeling generous (or would that be “not generous” – let us ponder – ok, pondering over) President Ken spared the gathered throng from any tithing this week, and quickly put the meeting’s destiny into the capable hands of Past Prez John Frisch, and it was all football, all the time from there.
Starting with some Rotary history, Sir John advised that the “Big Game” meeting tradition started in the club in 1930, and was a Cal vs. Stanford affair for decades, as many of the Rotarians of the day had matriculated from one institution or the other. Then, when both schools started to establish entrance requirements and Rotarian enrollment declined precipitously, the Big Game meeting morphed into the more parochial Sac State vs. Davis grudge match, before becoming the new, more expansive “Rivalry Day” meeting of today, where we’ll now celebrate any football rivalry you’d like
Master Frisch held a quick, “college furthest East” contest (since you don’t have to go very far West before you’re swimming), and it was a tight contest for awhile –with Randy Burton of Rutgers, Herb Rodebaugh of Temple, and Miles Snyder of Yale in the running – until John McIntyre threw down his University of Maryland – at Munich, and that took care of business.
J-Frisch sprayed a few quips around the room (describing how going through college at Cal was the best seven years of his life), posed some trivia questions to the crowd (such as “What do you get when you drive through the USC campus slowly? A diploma.”), and reported solemnly that the USC library had caught fire, and both books were lost (but they hadn’t been colored in yet, so it was ok). I’m sensing that Big John is still not quite over those close losses to USC when he spent his fall weekends as an Offensive Tackle for Cal.
You want speakers? We got speakers. First up was Sac State head coach (and one of the best Quarterbacks ever to hail from our fair city), Marshall Sperbeck, who talked briefly about the upcoming clash with Davis this weekend, and then legendary UC Davis coach, Jim Sochor, essentially gave us two talks for the price of one.
For those not in the know, Coach Sochor took a UC Davis football program that had not produced a winning record in 15 years, then proceeded to turn it around and into a national Division II power that won 18 straight league titles, played in the D-II national championship a couple of times, the D-II playoffs many more times than that, and did it with class.
His first speech (the planned one) centered on his years at Davis, the history of the Causeway Classic, and some interesting ruminations on other football rivalries. His second one (the spontaneous one) occurred during the Q&A session, when he relayed how he instilled a culture of excellence, integrity and respect that was exhibited by every Davis football team that ever played for him. After hearing speech #2, there was little doubt why the UC Davis football program was so successful and respected during his time (and after).
Oh, think that was the end of the meeting? Wrong-O. For, after giving Coach Sochor his due props, to the podium strode Past President -- and former Stanford cheerleader -- John Hamlyn, who led us all in the famous “Ax” cheer to great applause (I’d recite it here, but it would run six pages). In a classic self-intro line, Past Prez John declared “I turned 75 last week and I’m still with it – thank you Kiwanis for all you’ve done for me!” That’s how Past Presidents’ roll.
Surely the meeting ended here, you say. Oh, but I say not, for as a grand finale, filling the room was the radio broadcast of the most famous final play in college football history, Joe Starky’s memorable announcing of the “Trombone Play”, in which, against all reasonable probability, Cal pulled out a win over Stanford on the final play of the game – a kickoff (after Stanford took the seemingly insurmountable lead on a touchdown on the previous play) that involved 5 laterals, and the Cal receiving team winding their way through the Stanford band (who had entered the field, thinking the game had ended) to score the winning touchdown, with the final insult being the Cal ball carrier’s mowing over of a Stanford trombone player just after entering the end zone. Definitely worth YouTubing.
Ok, that’s it. There wasn’t any more after that. See, you didn’t miss much. Well done, John Frisch -- Rivals Day could not have been brought back in any finer fashion. JBW