Fumble on a kneel-down? I've seen a few other crazy things

Brian Fulp was astounded.

The Lake City coach had never heard of a team losing a football game when all that was required was a quarterback kneeling down to run out the clock.

Yet it happened last Friday, as Madison stole a 21-19 victory that left Fulp and others pretty close to speechless.

The Wolves bobbled a snap on the kneel-down play, Madison recovered and scored with 10 seconds remaining — despite trailing 19-7 with three minutes to play and Lake City in possession.

My first reaction to that story was feeling sick for the Lake City players and staff, imagining that long trip home from Rexburg after suffering an almost impossible loss.

My next thought, though, was that I felt as astounded as Fulp.

Why?

Because I wasn’t there.

Throughout a fairly lengthy career writing about sports events, I’ve somehow attracted bizarre plays, unthinkable endings and all those things that — as Fulp said — you’ve never imagined could happen.

It’s almost amazing that I didn’t make the trek to Rexburg.

YOU MAY suspect I’m exaggerating here.

Nah.

I’m going to concentrate on high school games and tournaments since this happened to Lake City — but also because we wouldn’t have space for the full list of wild and wacky goings-on.

Seriously.

Remember the Stanford-Cal game that ended with four laterals on the last-second kickoff, with the Cardinal band on the field and the Cal return man running over a trombone player?

Sure, I was there.

John McEnroe causing a riot in the press area at Wimbledon, a rumble that escalated to fisticuffs?

Yep, I was ducking the flying chairs.

I’ve seen a major-league pinch runner race home directly from second base, uh, ignoring third; sat terrified in a roof-top perch during that World Series earthquake of 1989; and sure, I’ve seen an NFL return specialist fumble one kickoff and dribble another one out of bounds — mostly because he’d been guzzling beer in the press box just 20 minutes earlier.

He was hammered, which recalls another time…

Wait, no time to go on here.

So let’s just talk about prep oddities.

The very first live event I ever covered was a garden variety track meet in suburban Kansas City. Completely out of nowhere, a kid from Wyandotte High broke the national record in the javelin throw.

Except…

No one was remotely prepared for such a heave, so the javelin area wasn’t large enough — and this guy’s spear stuck squarely into the surrounding track during an 800-meter run.

Miraculously, there were no injuries — but what a story.

While I was sports editor of a paper in Decatur, Ill., I decided to report on a small-school playoff game in the rural town of Macon.

After the first touchdown, a boy with a really strong leg kicked the extra point into a soybean field — and the officials couldn’t find another ball, basically because the ref had locked himself out of his car.

Dozens of people thrashed through the soybeans to retrieve the original ball — and spotters were placed in that “field of dreams” for each additional placekick.

NEEDLESS to say, I love seeing stuff like that.

Heck, I’d have been thrilled to see Friday’s kneel-down fiasco if it had just happened to Madison instead of Lake City.

There’s a limit, of course.

For instance, I was interviewing a volleyball coach during practice when a wild shot smacked him on the side of the head — and knocked him out.

Only briefly, thank heaven.

Oh, and since I did high school rankings for a time, I’ve had my tires slashed and once was mailed an immense load of cow poo wrapped in aluminum foil.

It goes with the territory.

And then there was the state hoops tournament in Illinois where both the boys and girls teams from tiny Teutopolis were favored for an unprecedented double.

However, it turned out — a bit shockingly — that the girls star was pregnant. Well, maybe isn’t wasn’t so shocking when you consider that the boys and girls teams had been traveling together all season on endless bus rides.

Ah, those dark miles in central Illinois…

Amazingly, the Wooden Shoes (yep, that was the school’s nickname) won both championships despite the drama.

Shouldn’t there be a movie about those twin victories?

Kind of a rom-com, and we’ll just call it: “Shoes.”

ACTUALLY, a better movie subject might be the 5-foot-5 Navajo youngster who took time out from competitive bull riding to sink enough 3-pointers that his Monument Valley team made it to the Arizona state finals.

That barrage and whole atmosphere created by those thousands who traveled from the rez to make whole tournament magic just left us all breathless.…

And guessing how far he really COULD hit his longest 3-ball.

Several suggestions involved spots in the parking lot.

No wonder he could whip up on those poor bulls.

To sum up this partial recounting…

If you show up at enough games, matches and meets, you really will see it all.

Poor Coach Fulp and his Lake City kids no doubt are still processing that.

Hey, maybe the next last-second miracle will go their way — but if not, it’s still a great life lesson.

Take it from the Boy Scouts and…

Be prepared.

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball once monthly during the offseason.

Email: [email protected]