Tim's 'Heidi' Moment

I mentioned earlier that we played a few games over Christmas, one of which was Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit. There was a question in there that brought up a story by my Dad. I don't remember the question, but the story made us laugh and cringe. Before most of us were born (I believe Mike was alive then??), there was a Sunday night football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets, now known as the Heidi Game. To use a ka-ching phrase, basically what happened was that the game went on longer than expected, and when it was due to end at 7pm, NBC cut to its previously scheduled programming instead of allowing viewers to watch the end of the game. People were pissed. NBC got so many calls from angry football fans that the phone exchange crashed. I think the networks learned something that night: don't publish your phone number.

Cut to the Sun Bowl on CBS on Friday afternoon, a game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Missouri Tigers. Tim's a proud Beaver, and was super pleased that his normally 'doormat of the Pac-10' team was 1) ranked, and 2) in a bowl game. He came home from work at a reasonable hour (noon) just so he could watch his Beavers play some football. So we're watching the game, and things are close. The Tigers score, the Beavers score. It goes back and forth for most of the first half. Then, out of nowhere, Katie Couric comes on the screen for some 'breaking news'. CBS had just cut out of a bowl game to cover one of President Ford's funerals. Except that the news team was totally unprepared, and it was fairly obvious that they didn't know what exactly they were supposed to be talking about. There were cars driving up to the site, but that was about it. I assumed that the network would cut back to the game within a minute, after seeing that there was really nothing to see at the funeral. Nope. Katie and some other reporter stammered on for more than 20 minutes, finishing out the first half of the game. Tim was pissed. I don't remember the last time I've seen him that mad. He tried in vain to find CBS's phone number so he could help the rest of the Beaver and Tiger fans crash their exchange, but to no avail. He ended up calling our network provider, which gladly gave him their number, happy that he wasn't calling to complain to them. There were some colorful words that Kate did not learn that day, because she was napping. He never was able to reach CBS, but apparently some people did, because not long into halftime, they switched back to the game. And the Beavers won with less than a minute to go, 39-38. What a game.