A “YMCA” World Record

By Brad Gallagher:

Christmas has just passed, the leftovers are being consumed, the decorations are being taken down, the gifts are being put away, and bowl games are being watched. And I, being one of those people who likes to to listen to music while performing any and all of the afore mentioned activities, am listening of one of my Christmas gifts. It is a double album set of classis disco hits that was gifted to me by my daughter Haley, titled “Now That’s What I Call Music! Disco”. The first album is colored “Opaque Hot Pink” and the second “Opaque Sky Blue”. Very appropriate for music from the disco era.

While listening to the first song on the blue album, and watching a bowl game, I was reminded of an interesting bowl game which took place a few years back that was one for the record books. It was a contest between Oregon State and Pittsburg, two teams that were known for their ability to rack up points during the regular season, however, on this particular occasion there were no records made for high scores. On the contrary, this game almost broke a record for lowest score.

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It was December 31, 2008 on the campus of UTEP in El Paso Texas. It was the 75th annual “Sun Bowl”, and it featured the Oregon State Beavers against the Pittsburg Panthers. Oregon State was designated as the visiting team, which meant they were supposed to wear white uniforms, but they decided to buck the system and wear their school color “orange” instead. This fashion statement, however, cost them. They were penalized for it on the opening kickoff by means of the loss of one of their timeouts. Though that was a rough penalty to take, in the long run it didn’t really matter since they were the only team to score that day, and they went on to win the game 3 to 0, a game in which there were a combined 5 turnovers and 20 punts. It was the second lowest scoring Sun Bowl in history, second only to the 1940 game between Arizona State and Catholic University which ended in a 0 – 0 tie. And it went on to become known as the worst bowl game ever.

But the halftime show was much more interesting. It even broke a record. You see, the halftime show was a performance by “The Village People”. They were all there, the Police Man, the Construction Worker, the Soldier, the Native American, the Cowboy, and the biker guy dressed in all leather, and they had a plan. They had prearranged with the news media to get the word out that at this halftime show they were going for the world record largest “YMCA” dance. The fans came prepared and most of them spent the weeks prior to the game practicing the dance. And when the group started the song all of the fans in the stadium stood up and danced and sang along. It was quite the site.

The previous record for the number of people doing this dance all at the same time was set 7 years earlier at a minor league baseball game with a crowd of 13,588 people. At this Sun Bowl game, however, that record was shattered with a crowd of 40,148 people dancing and singing “Y-M-C-A” complete with all of the hand motions.

So, while the game was rather boring, the halftime show made up for it and was even said by many to be the highlight of the day. Pittsburg linebacker, Scott McKillop, said this after the game: “I guess the joke was ‘I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out,'”. ”It’s honestly like, ‘I went to see ‘YMCA’ and a football game — if you want to call it a football game — broke out.'”

And the fun didn’t end when the game was over. Verne Lundquist was the play-by-play announcer for CBS at the game that day and in an interview he spoke about how he remembered the party at the hotel after the game: “We have a big postgame party. [The Village People] were in the same hotel. And there were quite a few of us who got overserved. When they walked into our party, everybody went nuts. Particularly me. There’s a picture that exists — thank God it’s not on the internet — of me dancing with the Indian with the headdress on. We had our arms around [each other]. My wife [Nancy] had to witness all this.” Overall, Lundquist called the action at more that 11 Sun Bowl games, but none as memorable at this one.

The song “YMCA” was released in October 1978 and has remained popular to this day as part of many events such as wedding, sporting events, parties, and many other functions. Surprisingly, thought, it never reached #1 on the US charts. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1979, and has sold more than 12,000,000 copies world wide over the years.

So now you know. One of the most boring bowl games ever that was also one of the most exciting. Come back and see me again right here at AS THE STORY GOES.