Foul Weather Fans
The weather could be bad at Kenan Stadium on Saturday.
That’s not meant as a deterrent. In fact, it’s meant as encouragement. That’s right–I think you should sit in the pouring rain, with water dripping into your shoes, and wear clothes that are still a little damp several days from now.
Doesn’t it sound glorious?
Kenan Stadium is one of the most beautiful places in America to watch a college football game. But some of those postcard sunny days can start to melt together in your memory. The rainy/cold/terrible weather games, you never forget.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of bad weather Tar Heel games (I can already hear my dad telling me I forgot the freezing cold Peach Bowl in Atlanta in 1983). But it is a list of the five most memorable bad weather Carolina football games I can remember since I began regularly attending games in the mid-1980s. Will Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech be added to this list? It looks like a good possibility, which means anyone who turns down a chance to sit in Kenan is turning down a chance to have a story to tell for decades to come.
Sept. 30, 1989: Navy 12, Carolina 7 at Kenan Stadium. What I’m about to say is a bold statement–this might be the worst football game in Tar Heel history. These were two very bad teams, playing a very bad game in very bad weather. Mack Brown called it “one of the lowest times of my life,” and he might be underselling it. It was the first time in THREE YEARS that Navy had beaten a Division I football team. Brown wrote in his book, “I went out to my car and just sat there and cried.” That’s how bad it was. The next day’s Washington Post described Carolina as “almost totally inept on offense,” which was generous. Tar Heel quarterbacks combined to complete 9-of-32 passes. This game might be worth a blog entry all on its own.
But here’s the thing: almost 30 years later, I still vividly remember sitting in Kenan in a driving rainstorm. I have a friend who attended that same game and we often refer to it as a “badge of honor” game–as in, if you sat there for this game, then you have a permanent Tar Heel fandom badge of honor.
Nov. 9, 1991: Clemson 21, Carolina 6 at Kenan Stadium. Someone will undoubtedly correct me if I’m wrong, but my memory is that the Tar Heels played an exhibition basketball game before this football game, and then the hearty among us hiked over to Kenan Stadium, where the wind chill was 11 degrees. Lights had only been added in the late 1980s, so night games were still somewhat of a novelty. The thrill quickly wore off in the cold, as we came to two realizations: 1. Clemson was a lot better than Carolina. 2. Frostbite is uncomfortable. The cold was heightened by rain that occasionally threatened to turn to snow and/or sleet. Announced attendance was 31,000.
Dec. 19, 1998: Carolina 20, San Diego State 13 in the Las Vegas Bowl. Here is what you think when you sign up to go to the Las Vegas Bowl: Oh! Fun! It will be in Las Vegas and we will get to see the Strip! Here is what actually happens: the stadium is in the middle of the desert in what apparently is a wind tunnel. And it’s not one of those winds that is mainly a cool breeze. It’s a gritty, dry wind that left me picking sand out of my clothes for days after the game. Fans were wearing sunglasses not to fight the sun, but as a form of eye protection.
Carolina gained 196 yards total in the game and won. That should tell you something about a day when the wind gusted up to 48 miles per hour. Decorated Tar Heels like Ronald Curry and Brandon Spoon played in this game, and yet head coach Carl Torbush correctly said afterwards, “I would have voted for (punter) Brian Schmitz for MVP.”
The punter for MVP of a bowl game. These are the kinds of things you only see in bad weather games.
August 25, 2001: Oklahoma 41, Carolina 27 in Norman. From the top of Oklahoma’s press box, you could see for what felt like hundreds of miles in every direction across the flatlands of the Sooner State. That meant we had a terrific view when what looked suspiciously like a tornado began moving towards the stadium. And while the Tar Heels were mounting a comeback under the direction of Darian Durant, the weather–which had started the day at an angry 99 degrees–got progressively worse, with lightning crackling across the gray clouds.
The game was paused in the third quarter for the referee to check with National Weather Service officials, who were undoubtedly sitting nice and dry in their offices. The game then continued, only to see the skies open near the end of the fourth quarter.
Sept. 29, 2012: Carolina 66, Idaho 0 at Kenan Stadium. It still amazes me that 32,000 people sat in a monsoon to watch the Tar Heels beat the Vandals by 66 points. Granted, by the second half, there was nowhere close to that many people present. But if you attended this one from start to finish, you have your own Badge of Honor game.
And we haven’t even gotten to numerous games that could’ve been on this list, such as the 2002 loss to Miami of Ohio (NINE Tar Heel turnovers) in a rainstorm, or any time you’ve melted in Columbia watching Carolina and Pretend Carolina, or the fog in the 1993 Gator Bowl that left some fans in the stadium unable to see the field. Feel free to add your own below; when you sit outside in horrible weather for three hours, you deserve permanent bragging rights.
Will Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech be so damp and so uncomfortable that it should be added to this list? If we’re lucky, it will.
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