A brief history lesson in Wash. U. sports malfunctions

| Senior Sports Editor

One of the most notable moments in last Sunday’s Super Bowl occurred just 1:32 into the third quarter, when half of the lights in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans went out. It took 34 minutes for the crews there to fix the problem and get the game going again.

While it’s impossible to predict this kind of thing happening in the Super Bowl, the fact that it happens at all in sports isn’t too surprising. In fact, similar incidents have affected Washington University sporting events in the past.

The Millstone Pool in the Athletic Complex, for instance, was recently out of commission for five days after a light bulb blew up and parts of it fell into the pool. The pool, according to Facilities Manager Andrew Koch, had to be drained and washed in a process that took 48 hours and used between 400,000 and 500,000 gallons of water.

The malfunction forced the swim and dive teams to move a designated home meet on Jan. 26 to Principia College in Elsah, Ill.

In football, a slight power outage occurred on Sept. 4, 2004, during a game against top-ranked Mount Union College. Mount Union, which has won 11 NCAA Division III national championships, typically brings a large media contingent to its games, and the amount of power being sent through the press box led to multiple blown fuses in the scoreboard, according to Sports Information Director Chris Mitchell.

“We had about every plug filled in that press box,” Mitchell said. He likened it to the typical amount of media in the box “times about four or five. It was a packed house in there, and we blew the fuses.”

Going back a bit further, Associate Athletic Director Joe Worlund brought up a game that took place right after some field renovations.

“We had re-sodded the football field, probably in the ’90s, and the sod didn’t take, and it was so loose that we moved it to Lindenwood [University],” Worlund said.

Worlund also recalled attending a game that was played at the former site of Christian Brothers College High School—a site that is now Wash. U.’s South Campus in Clayton—though he couldn’t recall the year or the exact reason for the move.

In a similar vein, Mitchell mentioned a game at Rockford College on Nov. 5, 2005, which was abruptly called with 11:31 remaining (with Wash. U. winning by a score of 14-5) in the game due to lightning and darkness.

“It was a terribly played football game. The weather was awful,” Mitchell said. “[But] it was just weird that the game stopped with almost a quarter left.”

The indoor teams have had their issues as well. Worlund, an assistant volleyball coach in the ’90s under Hall of Famer Teri Clemens, recalled an NCAA regional final volleyball match against Trinity University that took place in either 1994 or 1995.

“We were hosting a volleyball regional, playing in the Field House, and it was raining, and it was leaking so bad that we actually took the court down and set it back up in the Rec. Gym,” he said. “We didn’t set up any bleachers. All the fans that stayed just stood around the court and watched.”

Men’s basketball coach Mark Edwards recalled an incident against Case Western Reserve University back in 2004—one that, similar to Sunday’s game, possibly turned the momentum in the game.

“Case was on a run and had a big lead on us, and they hit a jump shot, and it broke the rim. It cracked in two and fell down,” Edwards said. “It took 20 minutes to replace, and we went on a run and blew them out.”

Finally, Mitchell also mentioned a situation somewhat similar to what happened on Sunday, from a men’s basketball game in December 2005 at Blackburn University.

“Someone actually turned off the lights at halftime,” Mitchell said. “It took them about 20 minutes to warm up. Similar, kind of, to what [the NFL players] went through.”

Student Life cannot confirm rumors that the Bears spent their break stretching on the floor and/or giving each other pep talks while they waited for the lights to come back on.

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