Bigger, faster, stronger. (More compassionate?)
It was probably 1938 or 1940, when Dad took me to Orono to watch the Maine Black Bears play the University of Rhode Island team. I wasn’t really much of a football fan, but I loved the boisterous crowds of maybe 3,000, and the prospect of ice cream and those riotous “push-ball” games at half time was a real draw.
The old stadium (behind Oak Hall?) was intimate and I was possibly only 100 feet from the powder blue-clad URI player when he seemed to attempt to vault his Black Bear opponent – I got a real good look. When he flipped over and came down headfirst, I didn’t expect a problem. But suddenly the howling mob went deathly quiet as if a switch had been flipped – the only sound was the scratch of a match as Dad relit his pipe. It was my first exposure to “the sounds of silence.” The game continued after the departure of the ambulance.
This all came back to me Monday night as I watched a probable crowd of 65,000 sit in stony silence for nearly half an hour following another horrific clash of football stars. I guess we’ve made progress; this game did not continue. Eighty years later and we are bigger, faster, stronger and blessed with thoughts and prayers and a vastly enhanced medical science.
Bananas (the UMaine mascot) would be pleased.
Stacy Stevens
Yarmouth
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