Badger Bounce Pass

The other day Chris Earl sent me a link to an awesome YouTube video. For those of you unfamiliar, it's of the Bounce Pass. I'm glad he did - I've read a lot about the Bounce Pass over the years but have never actually seen it.

To recap: trailing late in a 1982 game against Illinois at Camp Randall, coach Dave McClain called for a bounce pass. Quarterback Randy Wright took the snap and threw the ball backwards to wide receiver Al Toon. By design, the ball bounced, which was meant for the defense to relax. Toon scooped up the pass and threw a strike to tight end Jeff Nault for the go-ahead touchdown.

The Badgers missed the extra point, and Tony Eason drove the Illini down the field for the winning field goal: 29-28 Illinois.



Watching the play a couple times, what is interesting to me is that the Illinois defenders don't exactly stop playing when the ball bounces. Three of them keep running toward Toon, two of them looking ready to make a tackle. Also, another Illini defender strips Nault of the ball right after he gets into the end zone, I wonder if that part of the play would be reviewed nowadays.

I believe this is the only Badger loss that made the Top 25 games in Camp Randall history. Because of the Bounce Pass, many people don't remember the Badgers actually lost.

Too bad the poster, likely an Illinois fan, talks over it a couple times with immature comments. He calls the play "bullsh!t," when anyone would agree it was perfectly legal. Your team won after a fluky play, man, just enjoy it.

You're in the Hot Box - hello! Chris Earl update

Earlier this year, I was on a conference call where we were mapping out the layout of a new website. Someone on the other end referred to one zone in the center of the site to the "hot box." To which I silently mouthed "Hello!"

If you lived in Madison in the fall of 1996, loved sports, and had nothing to do on Wednesday nights, you were watching cable access TV, specifically The Hot Box with Chris Earl.

I had gotten to know Chris in the spring of '96, when along with Schwalbach and some others we studied reporting in Journalism 206 with Steve Lorenzo. Steve was one of the best teachers I ever had, and he did a great job with the class. Studying under Steve was what I imagined it would have been like to attend a small, liberal arts college. Chris wrote a story about the health merits of running a marathon that was quite compelling.

Chris did a little writing for the Cardinal, and we bumped into each other around Vilas Hall quite a bit. When he stopped by the office one day to ask me to be on his new show, I said "Hell yeah!" Chris did a great job with the show, moderated a small roundtable - which included Steve Mann, and I believe Eric Gitter - and took calls, including ones from my roommates. When the caller was patched through, he would great him with "You're in The Hot Box - hello!"

One time he threw Gitter off the set for a seemingly minor infraction. Afterward we'd go to Steve's place (Steve was easily the most polished of the group) and watch the tape, good times. One time Chris walked into the gas station while Corbett was working; Corby, who had never met him, yelled "You're in The Hot Box!" to which Chris, instead of running, replied "Hello!"

Through the magic of LinkedIn, I reconnected with Chris last week. Turns out he's now a TV news anchor at WEAU in Eau Claire after sports stints in Duluth, Topeka, and Madison.

Also, as you may have read in On Wisconsin, the UW alumni publication, Chris has also published a couple of books: Gotcha Down, about greed and competition at fictional Wisconsin State and The Interim, about an unlikely basketball coach at the same school. Have to admit, I haven't read them, more of a non-fiction guy, but I owe it to Chris to pick them up now. It might be too late for Christmas gifts, but not Kwanzaa, so give Chris's website a look, www.chrisearlbooks.com.

In a sense, he's living the dream - who among us Cardinal sportswriters in the mid-'90s didn't fantasize writing a book at some point in our lives? It's early, and it still might happen, but Chris did it already. He also has a wife of nine years and two children.

Show of hands, who watched The Hot Box?