May 1, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when a stadium full of excited sports fans pressed downhill against inadequate crowd control, tragedy struck in an instant. Michael Brin—a player on the field that day and now an emergency physician—shares his harrowing story of the infamous University of Wisconsin stampede and its aftermath.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. In nineteen ninety two,
Michael Brynn was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin
in Madison. He earned a spot as a walk on
to the University of Wisconsin football team. Midway through the
nineteen ninety three season, as the Badgers were starting to
demonstrate just how good a program they'd become, an epic
(00:32):
game was played at Camp Randall the Wisconsin Holmes Stadium.
Here is doctor Michael Brinn himself to tell us the
story of what is known in Wisconsin as the Camp
Randall Stampede.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's nineteen ninety three. I was a pre med student
who was given a chance to walk on to play
for the University of Wisconsin Badger's football team. We had
come off the disappointing year in nineteen ninety two, so
that nineteen ninety three teen was different. We started hot.
We knew that we had the chance to reach all
the goals that we had set before us in the
beginning of the year, and that was to win the
(01:06):
Big Ten and get to the Rose Bowl. We've always
had some of the craziest, rowdiest, most loyal fans anywhere
in the country, let alone the Big Ten our test.
The next obstacle that we had in our way to
prove that we were the real deal was the University
of Michigan Wolverines. Michigan was the perennial powerhouse in the
Big Ten, getting to the Rose Bowl the year before
(01:27):
winning the Big Ten. They were in our way. The
game comes and we're ready for it, and this is
the place they called the camp. Everybody on that team, offense, defense,
special teams, we were clicking. It was probably one of
the most exciting games I've ever been a part of.
I still remember Terrell Fletcher making a little cut in
the backfield and scoring a long touchdown to really put
(01:49):
us ahead for the end of the game. You're talking
took to the backfield to direct the back of much
At the end, Michigan now has the ball. The game's
coming down to the last minute. They have a chance
to come back and do something, but now it's our
defense is turned to make the stand. The clock is
ticking and then finally a SAT managers take over. Clock
(02:13):
ticks down and at the end you look up and
you see Wisconsin victorious and the inmates are set to
take over. Cambrians. Dad, we have now slain the giant.
Everybody celebrated, So now the students want to charge the
field and they want to jump onto the field with
us to celebrate the end of the game. We go
through a tunnel that's right through our student section. As
(02:33):
we're walking up to our tunnel, something is wrong. We
were realized some lives might be in danger. The police
were initially told don't let the students in. Don't let
the students in. So now the people at the top
of the student section don't know that. They can't hear that,
so they're pushing down. They want to get down onto
the field to celebrate as quickly as possible. Thick metal
railings were the only thing that really stood between the
(02:53):
student section and getting onto the field, and now it
becomes a wave of humanity. Now the way to the
sheer weight of all these students trying to come down. Unfortunately,
when that happens, the people at the bottom, they don't
have time to get out. Wave after wave of people.
They're piling onto each other because the people at the
top don't know what's going on at the bottom, and
(03:14):
the people at the bottom can't move and they are
stuck under five ten, twenty one hundred one thousand people.
All of a sudden, right in front of me, I
see two of my teammates, John Hall and Brent Moss
picking one of our students. They're picking her over a
fence because she was pinned against the fence and she
couldn't get out. And she looked at them and said,
(03:36):
I can't bring So I grabbed her leg and helped
her over, and Brent and John go and they start
helping somebody else. And she looks up at me and
she says thank you, thank you. And I look at
her and I say, get out of here, get to
the tunnel, get safe, get somewhere safe. I was great
friends with two girls, Jen and Marcy. I knew where
they sat. All of a sudden, I realized that they
(03:57):
could be in trouble. I climb up that tunnel wall
to the other side of the stands where I knew
that Jen and Marci were sitting. As I climb over
the wall, it was just bodies. There were people everywhere.
We need help. This is a life and death situation.
I looked down and I could see a young girl.
Her face was blue purple, and it didn't look like
(04:21):
she was breathing. What was laying in front of me
was someone who I thought was dead. I jumped right
next to her. I wait to see if she's breathing.
I wait to see if there's blinking, if there's anything
there wasn't. I knew the basics of CPR, and the
first one was airway, so I started the mouth's mouth.
I brought my head down towards her, and we got
a couple breaths, and it looked like it started stimulating
(04:42):
some breathing. At that point, we started seeing some movement
in her chest wall, a little flicker of a light
that was starting. There were a couple other people that
were there, saying what can we do? What can we do?
They were trying to help. They were holding her hand,
they were talking to her. There's nothing more for me
to do. They're helping her. And I look down towards
the field and I'm probably about fifteen twenty rows up.
(05:05):
As I look down, I see some of my teammates
still in their pads, still in their uniform are offensive
lineman Joe Panels, Brian Patterson, Tyler Adams, Joe Rudolph, and
our team dentist George Warren. They're dragging them out of
those bottom rows where they were just laying and strewing
on the ground. All of a sudden, I hear one
of our equipment managers yell over said, Hey, brind we
(05:25):
got to get back in the locker room. Get into
the locker room. Grabs my helmet and we start going
in there.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
What takes your people heading your way?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And as I walk into the locker room, can't really
comprehend the fact that I think I just saw someone
die in front of me. Now the only thing is
what happened to them? Did I do enough? The focus
was now on the students. It was now on what
just happened and what else can we do? I see
(05:58):
Joe Rudolph, you know, one of our starting offence alignment,
had buried in his lap in tears, and nobody knew
what to do with this. We just beat Michigan, and
yet in a moment, it didn't matter. The only thing
that mattered was our friends, was our fellow students, was
a University of Wisconsin, was that community that meant so
much to us. After the game, I made sure that
(06:22):
my friends Jenn and Marcy were okay. You know, I
call them up and you know. I find out they're fine.
They got out quickly. They were actually on the field. Thankfully,
My friends weren't involved. Who else was involved? What else
was going on? Our Sunday is typically a day to
work out, loosen our legs after the game, and I
get called emergently back into our offices, so they bring
(06:42):
me out. The word got out that first girl, Amee
who was pulled over the fence. She reached out and said, hey,
number three helped me. My story then now takes off.
How does a football player know how to do CPO? Fully?
I became a focus, and I say thankfully because we
(07:04):
still had football to play. We had Ohio State that
next week. I become the focus because I'm not going
to get on the field against Ohio State. I was
a scout team player, so I can take some of
that focus away from my team and let them get
back to what they need to focus on. But it
wasn't going to happen until we knew what happened with
these students, what happened with our friends. Coach Elverrez brought
(07:25):
a whole bunch of people in to give us an
update on everybody, and they had told us that eleven
people went to the hospital in critical condition, but nobody
had died. And when they said that, and when we
all heard that, sitting together, a weight lifted from our shoulders,
A weightlifted saying, all right, I didn't have to do
anything more. I did what I could. My friends, our community,
(07:50):
They're going to be okay. I was informed of where
a couple of these critical patients went. I went out
and I got a single flower. I got a rose,
and I went to the hospital around the corner where
I knew some of these patients work, and I went
to the front desk and I introduced myself and I said, hey,
I'm on the team. I know that some of these
victims came here. You don't have to give me any info,
(08:11):
but I just want to give someone this flower, just
to let them know that we're still thinking about them.
I'll never forget the person looked at me and said,
they're gone, They're all home, nobody's left. I've never felt happier.
The last person had been discharged the day before. Everybody
(08:34):
was home. The understanding that everybody who was so amazing
for us, that gave us that spirit, that gave us
that will to push forward. When nobody else believed in us,
they were going to be okay. The team pressed on,
we won the Big Ten. We knew what we needed
(08:54):
to do when we got to that Rose Bowl, but
our job wasn't done. So now we had that next
step and to the Rose Bowl, and at the end
of the year we came out on top. That ninety
three season will be remembered for so many reasons. It'll
be remembered for who we were, accomplishing more than anybody
(09:18):
thought we could, by coming together as a group, and
by loving each other and playing for each other and
trusting each other as much as we did. And it'll
be remembered for heroism. It'll be known for a group
of people that came together to try to help each
other at a moment of need, and nobody backed off,
nobody flinched. My little role on the University Wisconsin football team,
(09:43):
as small as it may have been, I think I'm
one of the luckiest people in the world to have
gone through something like this, not alone, but together as
a group, and to look back with pride, pride in
that we showed our love, we showed our caring, we
showed our will, and we showed that we won't flinch,
(10:04):
and we showed the will of a group of people
that truly believed in each other and part of a
community that is thriving now.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by one of our regular contributors, John Elfner, who's a
high school history teacher in Illinois. By the way, if
you teach history, even if you don't, we love our
listener contributions. We have all kinds of folks out there
who know their towns, know their family's story, and know
America's story. Send them to our American stories dot com.
(10:36):
The story of the Camp Randall's stampede here on our
American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. In nineteen ninety two,
Michael Brynn was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin
in Madison. He earned a spot as a walk on
to the University of Wisconsin football team. Midway through the
nineteen ninety three season, as the Badgers were starting to
demonstrate just how good a program they'd become, an epic
(00:32):
game was played at Camp Randall the Wisconsin Holmes Stadium.
Here is doctor Michael Brinn himself to tell us the
story of what is known in Wisconsin as the Camp
Randall Stampede.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's nineteen ninety three. I was a pre med student
who was given a chance to walk on to play
for the University of Wisconsin Badger's football team. We had
come off the disappointing year in nineteen ninety two, so
that nineteen ninety three teen was different. We started hot.
We knew that we had the chance to reach all
the goals that we had set before us in the
beginning of the year, and that was to win the
(01:06):
Big Ten and get to the Rose Bowl. We've always
had some of the craziest, rowdiest, most loyal fans anywhere
in the country, let alone the Big Ten our test.
The next obstacle that we had in our way to
prove that we were the real deal was the University
of Michigan Wolverines. Michigan was the perennial powerhouse in the
Big Ten, getting to the Rose Bowl the year before
(01:27):
winning the Big Ten. They were in our way. The
game comes and we're ready for it, and this is
the place they called the camp. Everybody on that team, offense, defense,
special teams, we were clicking. It was probably one of
the most exciting games I've ever been a part of.
I still remember Terrell Fletcher making a little cut in
the backfield and scoring a long touchdown to really put
(01:49):
us ahead for the end of the game. You're talking
took to the backfield to direct the back of much
At the end, Michigan now has the ball. The game's
coming down to the last minute. They have a chance
to come back and do something, but now it's our
defense is turned to make the stand. The clock is
ticking and then finally a SAT managers take over. Clock
(02:13):
ticks down and at the end you look up and
you see Wisconsin victorious and the inmates are set to
take over. Cambrians. Dad, we have now slain the giant.
Everybody celebrated, So now the students want to charge the
field and they want to jump onto the field with
us to celebrate the end of the game. We go
through a tunnel that's right through our student section. As
(02:33):
we're walking up to our tunnel, something is wrong. We
were realized some lives might be in danger. The police
were initially told don't let the students in. Don't let
the students in. So now the people at the top
of the student section don't know that. They can't hear that,
so they're pushing down. They want to get down onto
the field to celebrate as quickly as possible. Thick metal
railings were the only thing that really stood between the
(02:53):
student section and getting onto the field, and now it
becomes a wave of humanity. Now the way to the
sheer weight of all these students trying to come down. Unfortunately,
when that happens, the people at the bottom, they don't
have time to get out. Wave after wave of people.
They're piling onto each other because the people at the
top don't know what's going on at the bottom, and
(03:14):
the people at the bottom can't move and they are
stuck under five ten, twenty one hundred one thousand people.
All of a sudden, right in front of me, I
see two of my teammates, John Hall and Brent Moss
picking one of our students. They're picking her over a
fence because she was pinned against the fence and she
couldn't get out. And she looked at them and said,
(03:36):
I can't bring So I grabbed her leg and helped
her over, and Brent and John go and they start
helping somebody else. And she looks up at me and
she says thank you, thank you. And I look at
her and I say, get out of here, get to
the tunnel, get safe, get somewhere safe. I was great
friends with two girls, Jen and Marcy. I knew where
they sat. All of a sudden, I realized that they
(03:57):
could be in trouble. I climb up that tunnel wall
to the other side of the stands where I knew
that Jen and Marci were sitting. As I climb over
the wall, it was just bodies. There were people everywhere.
We need help. This is a life and death situation.
I looked down and I could see a young girl.
Her face was blue purple, and it didn't look like
(04:21):
she was breathing. What was laying in front of me
was someone who I thought was dead. I jumped right
next to her. I wait to see if she's breathing.
I wait to see if there's blinking, if there's anything
there wasn't. I knew the basics of CPR, and the
first one was airway, so I started the mouth's mouth.
I brought my head down towards her, and we got
a couple breaths, and it looked like it started stimulating
(04:42):
some breathing. At that point, we started seeing some movement
in her chest wall, a little flicker of a light
that was starting. There were a couple other people that
were there, saying what can we do? What can we do?
They were trying to help. They were holding her hand,
they were talking to her. There's nothing more for me
to do. They're helping her. And I look down towards
the field and I'm probably about fifteen twenty rows up.
(05:05):
As I look down, I see some of my teammates
still in their pads, still in their uniform are offensive
lineman Joe Panels, Brian Patterson, Tyler Adams, Joe Rudolph, and
our team dentist George Warren. They're dragging them out of
those bottom rows where they were just laying and strewing
on the ground. All of a sudden, I hear one
of our equipment managers yell over said, Hey, brind we
(05:25):
got to get back in the locker room. Get into
the locker room. Grabs my helmet and we start going
in there.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
What takes your people heading your way?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And as I walk into the locker room, can't really
comprehend the fact that I think I just saw someone
die in front of me. Now the only thing is
what happened to them? Did I do enough? The focus
was now on the students. It was now on what
just happened and what else can we do? I see
(05:58):
Joe Rudolph, you know, one of our starting offence alignment,
had buried in his lap in tears, and nobody knew
what to do with this. We just beat Michigan, and
yet in a moment, it didn't matter. The only thing
that mattered was our friends, was our fellow students, was
a University of Wisconsin, was that community that meant so
much to us. After the game, I made sure that
(06:22):
my friends Jenn and Marcy were okay. You know, I
call them up and you know. I find out they're fine.
They got out quickly. They were actually on the field. Thankfully,
My friends weren't involved. Who else was involved? What else
was going on? Our Sunday is typically a day to
work out, loosen our legs after the game, and I
get called emergently back into our offices, so they bring
(06:42):
me out. The word got out that first girl, Amee
who was pulled over the fence. She reached out and said, hey,
number three helped me. My story then now takes off.
How does a football player know how to do CPO? Fully?
I became a focus, and I say thankfully because we
(07:04):
still had football to play. We had Ohio State that
next week. I become the focus because I'm not going
to get on the field against Ohio State. I was
a scout team player, so I can take some of
that focus away from my team and let them get
back to what they need to focus on. But it
wasn't going to happen until we knew what happened with
these students, what happened with our friends. Coach Elverrez brought
(07:25):
a whole bunch of people in to give us an
update on everybody, and they had told us that eleven
people went to the hospital in critical condition, but nobody
had died. And when they said that, and when we
all heard that, sitting together, a weight lifted from our shoulders,
A weightlifted saying, all right, I didn't have to do
anything more. I did what I could. My friends, our community,
(07:50):
They're going to be okay. I was informed of where
a couple of these critical patients went. I went out
and I got a single flower. I got a rose,
and I went to the hospital around the corner where
I knew some of these patients work, and I went
to the front desk and I introduced myself and I said, hey,
I'm on the team. I know that some of these
victims came here. You don't have to give me any info,
(08:11):
but I just want to give someone this flower, just
to let them know that we're still thinking about them.
I'll never forget the person looked at me and said,
they're gone, They're all home, nobody's left. I've never felt happier.
The last person had been discharged the day before. Everybody
(08:34):
was home. The understanding that everybody who was so amazing
for us, that gave us that spirit, that gave us
that will to push forward. When nobody else believed in us,
they were going to be okay. The team pressed on,
we won the Big Ten. We knew what we needed
(08:54):
to do when we got to that Rose Bowl, but
our job wasn't done. So now we had that next
step and to the Rose Bowl, and at the end
of the year we came out on top. That ninety
three season will be remembered for so many reasons. It'll
be remembered for who we were, accomplishing more than anybody
(09:18):
thought we could, by coming together as a group, and
by loving each other and playing for each other and
trusting each other as much as we did. And it'll
be remembered for heroism. It'll be known for a group
of people that came together to try to help each
other at a moment of need, and nobody backed off,
nobody flinched. My little role on the University Wisconsin football team,
(09:43):
as small as it may have been, I think I'm
one of the luckiest people in the world to have
gone through something like this, not alone, but together as
a group, and to look back with pride, pride in
that we showed our love, we showed our caring, we
showed our will, and we showed that we won't flinch,
(10:04):
and we showed the will of a group of people
that truly believed in each other and part of a
community that is thriving now.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by one of our regular contributors, John Elfner, who's a
high school history teacher in Illinois. By the way, if
you teach history, even if you don't, we love our
listener contributions. We have all kinds of folks out there
who know their towns, know their family's story, and know
America's story. Send them to our American stories dot com.
(10:36):
The story of the Camp Randall's stampede here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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