For no good reason and a laundry list of lousy ones, football’sgreatest play is dead.
The fumblerooski has passed away quietly at age 27, the victimof embarrassed coaches and clueless officials who for years haveconspired against the most ingenious bit of deception since theTrojan horse.
The play was so outlandish — it called for the center to placethe ball on the ground so a guard could scoop it up and run whilehis teammates went the other direction — there was no way todefend it.
The self-important NFL, which doesn’t allow such foolishness,banned the play in the early 1960s. But the fumblerooski wasn’tmade famous until the late ’70s, when Nebraska coach Tom Osbornestumbled upon it while watching film of a Texas high schoolrecruit.
“We practiced it all year long,” said Kelly Saalfield, theCornhuskers center who got the fumblerooski phenomenon started in1979 during a nationally televised late-season game againstOklahoma. “We actually ran it twice in that particular game. Buteveryone totally missed the first one that didn’t work, includingthe (TV) cameras.
“The play (Cornhuskers guard) Randy Schleusener scored on is theone everyone remembers. I’ve won a few beers in the bar on thatone.”
The beauty of the fumblerooski was when it worked — and italmost always worked — some jelly bellied lineman had the honor ofchugging untouched and breathless into the end zone.
Longtime Torrey Pines High coach Ed Burke, who always has had ataste for trickery, couldn’t believe what he was seeing as hewatched that 1979 Oklahoma-Nebraska game live.
His eyes lit up like a Roman candle when saw Nebraska run it toperfection.
“I said to myself, ‘We’ve got to put that puppy in,’ ” saidBurke, whose teams scored so many times on the play over the yearshe lost count. “Every year, we had guards saying, ‘Coach let me bethe fumblerooski guy.’
“We had a lot of fun with it, but the officials didn’t.”
Seems most refs have the sense of humor of a kumquat.
They couldn’t stand the fumblerooski. Made them look likestooges. They would be so fooled by the play, they would lose sightof the ball like everyone else. So they would blow the whistleright in the middle of the darn thing.
Other times, they wouldn’t know it when the play went haywireand would miss a half-dozen infractions. It got so bad they made arule that coaches had to tell the officials when they were going torun the play.
“Even after we told them they sometimes had trouble followingit,” Burke said.
Jerry Diehl, assistant director of the National Federation ofState High School Associations, explained the reason for hisorganization’s ban of the play recently to the Los Angeles Timesby, in a dizzying bit of misdirection, saying the fumblerooski wasboth seldom-used and a burden for officials.
Then there’s this: “It eliminates confusion in a ballgame,”Diehl said about the ban, which goes into effect this fall.
By Diehl’s reasoning, the forward pass is the next play to bedecreed off limits. Pass interference can be a pesky rule tointerpret. Why burden the poor, overworked officials with suchdifficult judgment calls? Banning the fumblerooski because it’s tooconfusing makes as much sense as outlawing Tabasco sauce becauseit’s too hot or playing hockey on ice because it’s tooslippery.
The voice of reason in all this comes from the 49-year-oldSaalfield, who has a thriving career as, of all things, a footballofficial. Saalfield works games for the Big 12, Arena Football andNFL Europe, none of which allow the fumblerooski.
“I say more power to coaches who find a way to fool the otherteam,” Saalfield said.
Alas, Saalfield was not consulted when college football bannedthe fumblerooski in 1993 or when the high school federation killedit for good this January.
Unfortunately, we have seen the last of football’s most glorioussight, linemen with all the grace and elegance of a hippopotamuslumbering for touchdowns on running plays designed solely forthem.
“Oh God, I would start getting butterflies and my legs wouldstart seizing up,” said former Torrey Pines guard Brian Batson, whoscored three times on fumblerooski plays during the 1992 season.”It was like seeing dollar signs. You were so fired up as a linemanto touch the ball.”
We’re going to miss mud-stained trench warriors like Batsongetting their unlikely shot at glory. We’re going to miss coacheslike Osborne and Burke being rewarded for having a sense of flairand an endless imagination.
Farewell, fumblerooski.
It was a great run.
Contact sports editor Loren Nelson at (760) 740-3551 orlnelson@nctimes.com. To comment,go to nctimes.com.
