Earliest Football Memory

That game is probably one of the clearest in my memory because the comeback caused my dad to jump and almost fall in the bleachers.

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Can’t give enough stars for the “dad to jump and almost fall in the bleachers” comment. My father’s been gone for (OMG) 13 years now, but I can relate to that!

I had been to games in other stadiums, but my first Ute game was in September 1973. Utes beat UTEP 82-6. Steve Odom ran wild.

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It’s all kind of hazy, but I think my first game was YBU in 1978. We beat them by 1. My parents were YBU grads and we had season tickets. I had a lot of friends that played there as well so I was a bit torn as a youth.
But as I got older and my hair got longer I grew to despise TDS.

One of my favorite memories was the SDSU game in 1993 with Jamal Anderson and Marshall Faulk. It was a slug fest and the running backs really put on a show.
I sat in front of Jamal’s parents and his sister at the 40 yd line on the visitor side. His mom was relentless the entire game with the visitors. Kept calling their HUGE poly long-snapper “Shamu”!

Jamal had 156 yds to Faulk’s 146. We won at the very end.

The Greatest Utah Football Games Ever: October 30, 1993 - Utah vs. San Diego State (utahfootballcountdown.blogspot.com)

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Randy Gomez was the QB, I remember it well. He went on to have a looooong career in AAA baseball, a little too small to make it to MLB.

One of my friends was on the Ute baseball team as a pitcher, and there was some kind of throwing competition where Gomez was throwing with the baseball guys. “It wasn’t even close. That guy had amazing arm strength”.

Legendary HC Bill Yeoman - inventor of the Veer option - of University of Houston was impressed with Gomez in our game there in the Astrodome. “If he was 6-2 he’d be an all-America. Of course if he was 6-2, he’d be at USC.”

Funny story about how Gomez got his name - his dad is / was actually Samoan, and after he moved from the islands to Cali, wanted to change his last name to fit into the neighborhood a little better.

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The Jamal versus Marshall battle was one of the more memorable games of that era. Five lead changes in the fourth quarter with Utah coming up on top at the end. 2 special running backs going at it and both were destined for NFL careers

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Most of my earliest game memories center around the giant jug of hot chocolate my mom would bring, and throwing a ball with my dad on the way to the stadium. Walking in those tunnels just below field level was pretty cool too.

I was in 5th grade for the 95 season, and we were among the few hundred left in the stands for the final minutes against Air Force. What a game.

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My wife and I started taking my son to games when he as about 30 months old. He’d sit on my lap, without moving the entire game and study everything that was going on. Truthfully, his favorite part was the Marching Band at halftime.

As he was a toddler, we were often late arriving. Walking through the tunnel on the west side to get to our seats, after the game had started was thrilling for him. I’d hold him up and let him watch the action from the window in the tunnel as long as my arms would hold our.

The security guys mostly came over to chat with us and share in the fun.

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My wife and her girlfriends spent a lot of time walking through those tunnels. She loved those white pants.

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Then you should keep wearing them!

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I went down to the tunnel during a cold game and saw Manny Hendrix, soon after he hung up the cleats with the Niners.

I bought Manny a hot chocolate and thanked him for the great BB memories and said it would be cool if he came back to the U in some capacity. (He’s still at the U!)

He had some cool stories about playing with Kelvin Upshaw and the others, and some NFL stories. I asked him what the worst injury he had playing FB. “Broken finger”.

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My father took me to see the utah state game Merlin Olsen’s senior year. It was right after a snowstorm and people were throwing snowballs. The next year my dad took me to the ucla game.

When I was in sixth or seventh grade,my best friend and I had the job running onto the field to get the tee following kickoffs. My friends older brother was the team manager.

Summer after junior year in hs, I worked on the grounds crew. Our assigned area was the football stadium and the area around einer Nielsen. We mowed and weeded the wooded area at the south end that you see in the photo above, but they would not let us touch the field itself. We used to eat lunch in the shade under the trees at the south end.

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