Someone Could've Died! The Best-Ever College Football Pranks

There's Coach John Heisman, bacon grease, rivals Auburn vs. Georgia Tech and the train that nearly wrecked. There's LSU vs. Tulane and the hijacking of the mascot Mike the Tiger, a real live Bengal. There's also Harvard vs. Yale (vs. MIT) and the surprise exploding football field. And finally, the birth of the Legend of the Stanford Axe with its the horseback and wagon chase through San Francisco that gave us The Big Game. It's a wild look at the absurdities of college football rivalries!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Elizabeth Oh Zaren.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
You know I saw you walk in and I was like,
oh my god, I've got this question. I want to
ask her. Do you mind? Have you got it? A second?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Of course?

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Okay? Do you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I do know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Would you please share?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah? I think I can do that. You're a smoothie guy, right,
you like smoothies.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes, it sounded weird. You're a smoothie guy.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
You're a smoothie guy.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I know. I do love smoothies.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, and so smoothies, there's a there's like Jamba juice.
You like john Ba juice.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
I used to back when it used to be good.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, it's not good anymore. What about Smoothie King?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I have never actually been there that I can think of.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Okay, well that's ridiculous. Going forward to huh, that's what's ridiculous. Okay,
So a while back, we got a ton, a ton
a ton of messages. This is like last year about
something that Skittles did and I don't remember what it was.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
This is another mash hold on.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's just the messages wouldn't stop. And then a couple
like a week or two ago it started up again,
but it wasn't about skittles. Oh, It's about the King,
and it just we have gotten so many like Carrier
pigeon Instagram, email, Yeah, telegraphs. I got like a singing telegram.
Nice phenomenal. So anyway, everyone's told us about this, absolutely everyone,

(01:17):
which means that this episode will air and then for
another three months people will still tell us about it. Anyway,
So Smoothie King is teamed up with another brand because honey,
we got ourselves a mashup. Oh yeah, although I will say, okay,
So friend of the Show regular messager comtruter Mark McCubbin

(01:40):
on Instagram, he sent us pictures of screen caps that
he took pictures of a TV screen with CNN doing
a piece where the Chiron said, Harry Inton breaks down
the food collapse that worked and didn't so and he said, like,
they're basically stepping on our toes. So aside from that,
so we're not the only mash up people in the game.

(02:05):
Whether you like it or not, I'm taking you down
with the ship anyway. So Smoothie King they teamed up
with Hines. You know what they're both food purveyors, and
they have a limited addition Ketchup smoothie. I was going
to guess ketchup smoothie. So it is a fruit. So

(02:25):
this has like a si sorbet, strawberries, raspberries, apple juice,
and then a whole lot of ketchup. And so it's
like a sweet savory thing. It's got tang to it.
It is. There's no artificial colors, thank goodness. But it
just looks like you're drinking. You're sucking on a cup
of ketchup.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
I'd rather drink up a cup of actual tang the
old juice, fake juice.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Allowed to have that.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Tried it, but I would rather try that.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, I think I had it a couple of times
and it was like, oh buddy, either way, it's five
dollars and seventy cents if you're into it, paying you
for this. Oh there they should, all these people should
while supplies last. It's at location Smoothieking locations in Atlanta, right, Chicago, Denver, Miami,

(03:18):
and then parts of the Greater New York area and
northern New Jersey. There you go and there it is.
So if you're in those metro areas, I can get
some go chug a lug a ketchup smoothie. There you go,
and then crap yourself and hate yourself.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
I will never understand the appeal of these mashups.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I know, and yet I hate.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Them and I can't every day.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
You know what, you know what that is there? Ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
I'll give you that.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, I've got something that's ridiculous for you. Yeah, tell me, yeah,
you're ready for this? Yes, okay, Well, I know it's
about to be one of your favorite times of the year.
It's about to be the start of college football season.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
You know, I'm just like a huge, totally I'm all football.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah right, So I gathered up a few of my
favorite college football rivalries and the related high jinks that
are both criminal and ridiculous. Yes, college football rivalries are intense.
Oh yeah, Like we've already covered the outrageous story of
the Texas A and M versus Rice University one right
where they abducted Rice's mascot, the human Sized Hour and

(04:24):
then led to a full on military takeover of a
small Texas town. That's a good one. Well, this time, Elizabeth,
we have some equally insane college football inspired antics, not one,
not two, but three at least, So buckle up, Buttercup.
Things are about to get college football.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Wow, this is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and

(05:05):
outrageous capers, heists, and cons.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's always ninety nine percent murder, three and one hundred
percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yes. I like your sheer blue pants that you're wearing.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Thank you. They have a friend of mine made these.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
They're interesting. They're very airy, very sheer.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yes, you can see a lot of legs.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
It's daring. You're brave.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
I'm a fashion icon waiting to happen. Yeah, Elizabeth, I
know you lived in South Carolina for a while, which
means you know how huge college football is in the South.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
I think SEC football is second in popularity only to Jesus,
and it's.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
A close second. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
So did you ever go to a game while you
were living in South Carolina? Do you ever see the
game Cocks? No?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Nope?

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Okay, Well I got another question for you. What do
you know about Auburn football.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
That's not South Carolina?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
No, it's not. There's nothing to do with Carolina. But
it's in the SEC. It's Southern football.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, it's a football the.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
University of Auburn. It's located in Auburn, Alabama, and in Bama,
just like in South Carolina where you were. The locals
love them some Auburn football. And I thought we started
out with a story about Auburn, you know, start at
the top and go down from there. Now, Elizabeth, this
story happened two centuries ago, two centuries way back in

(06:26):
eighteen ninety six. Well, it's two centuries ago.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
That's not full two centuries.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
I didn't say that two centuries ago. Twentieth century, nineteenth century.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Two centuries ago. I'm thinking like two hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Two hundred years ago, that's what I would have said that.
But two centuries ago, so November seventh, eighteen ninety six,
to be exact, if you want to, like, you know,
be able to do the math on how many centuries
you would count this as Now, at the time, Auburn
had a legendary coach by the name of John Heisman,
as in the coach who is the namesake of the
annual ward right for the best college football in the nation,

(07:01):
but the Heisman Trophy, right, yeah, yeah, Now, Heisman was
a wild guy, like he was this full on character.
I won't get too far into him, but well, for example,
he would shout at his players in a fake British
accent because he was theorized he was a huge fan
of Shakespeare. He just wanted to bring that Shakespearean vibe
to the practice.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh, elevate, elevate.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
He was. He was quite the character. Now. Before he
was at Auburn, John Heisman was a coach at Oberlin College.
And while he was a coach there, the team's trainer
was a man named Clarence Hemingway. That name sounds familiar,
There's good reason. Clarence Hemingway was the father of the
world famous writer Ernest Hemingway. A lot of macho energy in.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
This Oh my god, the testoser right.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Anyway, John Heisman's second season at the as the head
coach at Auburn was what I'm about to tell you about,
and he was just beginning to build his legendary career.
In his bona fides. Now, the sports writer Fuzzy Woodriff,
which is just such.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
A per right fuzzy, especially for a sports.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Writer in the South. Yeah, so old Fuzzy would later
credit Heisman as being quote the pioneer of Southern football.
But he wasn't that yet. Yeah not, just by the
way Southern football, Heisman was one of the most innovative
coaches in the nation because well, as a coach, he
invented the tradition of a quarterback saying hike as a
signal to center to snap the ball. Yeah, or you
would say forty two blue forty blue.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
So anyway back to this game back on November seventh,
eighteen ninety six. That was Auburn's first official home game ever.
Their opponent for their first home game was a rival
from Georgia, neighboring state, right, but it wasn't the Georgia Bulldogs. Instead,
they were facing Georgia Tech, which is from Atlanta, my
first hometown. Now, in their previous game, Auburn had beaten

(08:41):
a team from Mercer University to the tune of forty
six to zero, so they were yes, now, well, Georgia
Tech had faced that same team and only beaten them
six to four. Oh, which, if you were into football,
you know that means Mercer only scored two safeties.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I doesna say, I don't think I didn't know that
four was something.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Really hard scored.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Again in football, that was an accomplishment So.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
That game had gone down on Halloween, and now basically
a week later, on November seventh, they're going to face
Auburn and coach John Heisman. Now everyone expected it to
be a good game, though now these last time these
two teams faced it was not a good game. They
had faced in Atlanta and Auburn beat Georgia Tech ninety
six to zero.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Wait, hold on, don't they normally now they like stop it.
It's too much of a massacre. You know that.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
That's like bore at baseball. But go kids baseball where
they stop it onto I've seen like they'll switch away.
They'll switch away from the game. They will no longer
show it on TV. They once by four or five scores,
they'll often.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Switch away to blood bath and just let it go.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
But this, yeah, they just let it go. You'll still
see crazy scores.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Now, what do you mean, I think it's more fun
to watch the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Well, by the way, this ninety six to zero score,
it's one of the greatest most lopsided losses in college football.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Imagine. So I mean that's like like ninety six is
like basketball score.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Oh yes, yeah, that's it's a lot of touchdowns. Yeah, yeah,
now it's like basically you're scoring every time and then
also on defense.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
So now at this point you better believe Georgia Tech
was like Liam Neeson had taken hell bent on handling
their business right. They wanted to get back. Trouble for
them was coming into this fateful eighteen ninety six game.
Georgia Tech. Their team had no coach.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Zero, I like, oh, this guy's nothing there.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
They were like the players would agree on, like what's
going to happen and you play safety, but you know
that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
It was just it was a ghost.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, and they're facing the soon to be legend John
Heisman and Auburn, right.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
So Heisman versus nobody.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yes, exactly. No, that's it. It's not looking good for
old Georgia Tech. But people still thought it was gonna
be a good game. Don't ask me why. But what
no one expected was that Auburn was also ready for
Georgia Tech. I'm talking super ready. Like, for instance, they
knew exactly the overnight train that Georgia Tech's team was
taking to get to Auburn, so they decided to have
a little surprise waiting for the boys from Georgia Tech.

(10:55):
Some students from Auburn wanted to give them an unforgettable
welcome to Alabama, and to do that on a near
moonless night, they snuck down to the train station. They
brought with them, you know, a bunch of bacon grease
and lard aka pig fat. And why would they need
bacon grease? Great question, Elizabeth, thank you well. They proceeded
to grease the train tracks for the length of about
four football fields on either side of the train depot,

(11:19):
and that would make it damn near impossible for the
train carrying Georgia Tech to stop.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
What is wrong with these people?

Speaker 3 (11:25):
You can probably guess what happened when the train would
Georgia Tech arrived. Yeah, that's right. When the train conductor
hit the brakes, the train just slid, oh completely right
on past the train depot. The train did not stop
sliding until it was five miles past the deepot, halfway
to the next town. So when the train finally stopped
sliding on the pig grease tracks, yeah, the Georgia Tech

(11:47):
players climbed down off the train and they had to
walk now back the five miles to Auburn, and they
had to carry with them all their gear and their
luggage and everything they brought with them. Luckily they didn't
have like modern football pads and helmet, but still lugging
their like leather head and.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Makes a little leather skull catch totally exactly. And then
like the heavy woolf sweater.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
And then they have some slight pads that taken carry
with them, right, and then obviously their cleats and in
their luggage. So they're lugging all this through the Alabama
woods following these large grease railroad tracks back to Auburn. Yeah,
now that five mile hike was it went down just
before dawn, which must have been a brutal slog like
you're tripping on the railroad ties, you're rocking over all
these little rocks.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well and I just had there.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Wearing like leather shoes and ash.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Of these guys, you know, they're like they're athletic dudes,
but not in like what if we could take a
big old football player from today, sure and go back
in time and just kill and put them on one
of those teams. Yes, he'd kills something. Yes, they like
heads would fly on bodies.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
There are players now who are pushing four hundred over
four hundred. It was a big deal with a cross
three hundred pounds and now we're over four hundred.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yes, you'd have a guy who's like seventy five and like,
you know, kind of nimble and light on his toe,
crazy legs. Yeah, you know, only smokes a pack a day.
And then yeah, then you get some guys all push push,
It just like launches them into the crowd. I would
like to see that, I.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Bet you would. Apparently you're a fan of bloodshed.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
I didn't know this about you.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Now, at this point, the Georgia Tech players, they didn't
know this was a prank. They just thought it was
like the train had a malfunction the brakes, so right,
so what At this point, they're not mad at Auburn,
They're just pissed at their bad luck. So they you know,
they couldn't even use the anger in the game. Instead,
they showed up back in Auburn, exhausted, irritated, and now
they have to play the game. As you might imagine,

(13:38):
the game later that same day did not go well
for Georgia Tech. They didn't score a single point. They
lost to Auburn forty five to zero. Oh no, meanwhile,
the Auburn students celebrated their lopsided victory with a parade.
The students wore pajamas and they marched through the streets,
which became a new annual tradition that was now known
as the Wreck Tech Jama Parade. Yes, and this continued

(14:03):
until the twenty first century to about two thousand and three. Really,
each year Auburn students lead a parade to the same
train depot and they hold a pep rally to mock
Georgia Tech.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
In their pajama pajamas, the cat's pajama.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
So that's SEC football for you.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
The kids damn crash a train just to pull hijinks
against Arrival, who they destroyed the year before.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
They could have been an absolute disaster.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
It wasn't like they were on the losing side and
they needed to do the hijinks to help their team
get an edge. They're the bullies.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
They're punching down. And then they punched down after Yes.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
And they put to punch the fans. They punched their
mama everything. Punch your mama right the mouth. Now, Okay,
I got another one for you from the SEC. This
one's also for producer D since it features his favorite
college football team LSU. But first let's take a little
break and after these messages we'll be back with more
college hijinks that cross over into the ridiculously criminal. Nice,

(15:18):
we're back, Elizabeth. Hey, Hey, ready for more college football pranks.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
It's my favorite thing in the world.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Yeah, we started out with that nice Auburn amuse bousch.
Now we're going to get into something a little bit
crazier because this one takes place in the twentieth century,
in December of nineteen fifty. Little mid century madness for you. So,
a Tulane student named Norbert James, Yeah, went for a
coon hunt, you know, raccoon raccoon hunting, not the coon hunting.

(15:46):
A few of his fellow Tulane students, a cat named
Oscar Reeese, Joe Miller, and Tex Powell.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay, wow, great names. Yeah, that was right there.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
It was the night before their big rivalry game LSU
versus Tulane at the Show Bowl. Now, after their coon hunt,
the boys stopped off at a place called College Inn
and that's where they noticed something strange. There was this
long trailer parked behind the restaurant, and the trailer had
a big cage on top of it. Like you'd see
like on a circus train. And when they crept closer,

(16:16):
they saw that inside the cage on this trailer was
a tiger. Oh, but not just any tiger. It was
Mike the Tiger, the mascot for LSU.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Mike, Yeah, Mike the Tiger.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Typically a VET student was in charge of taking care
of Mike the Tiger on road games, and had driven
Mike the Tiger down to Narlin's from Baton Rouge. Now
he stopped to grab a bite to eat because when
he arrived it was like a little past midnight, and
he parked behind the restaurant. And now it's around one
am when they find the tiger cage.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Mike was like, can you just go give me some chili, cheese,
big bowl of mels, just flipping through a magazine, waving,
sitting with his legs cross.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, pawing at his hair. How do I look? I
got a big game tomorrow. Now I imagine that these
boys had been doing some drinking during their coon hunt,
but I don't know this for certain, but you'll figure
out why soon. Either way, the boys decided, let's steal
Ellis used tiger.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
How crazy is it? By the way, just to put
a pause on it to hunt raccoons. No, like it
just I don't know.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
I think squirrel hunting is a little.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Crazy worse, that's even worse.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
But like raccoons are at least kind of like a
gnarly mean animal in the world.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Well they call them the trash pans, right, and so
it's like, I don't know, we got a lot of
raccoons here in California and they're you know, they break
into garbage and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
But in the South they're kind of surly, like they'll
charge you, like I've had.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
I've seen ones down there too, But it's like still
that's it feels very like I'm gonna hunt quail type thing,
but release the I don't know, it just seems it
does not seem like a challenging no.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
But also you got to remember in the twentieth century
in different periods. In the twenties in college football you
had the coon skin hat, and then in the.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Fifties, yeshon and the coon skin hats comes back.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
So maybe they're thinking we can just get some coons,
make a little money selling.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
It feels like I don't think it was a challenge.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
I don't think they were doing it like, it's not
like game hunt big game hunting.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, and I also just don't like I mean, I
guess they needed to make hats, but I don't like killing.
Whatever killing. Were they eating the raccoons?

Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was the South probably actually, Yeah, so back ton't Mike.
The tiger. This, by the way, was a five hundred
pound big cat. This wasn't like some runt tiger. It
was a legitimate Bengal.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Tiger, big boy.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
And so they decided, what the hell, let's steal it.
And so that's what they did. As Norbert tells the story,
we thought there'd be some security, but the wheels were
not locked. So I did the trailer and hooked it
up to Oscar's car. He didn't have a trailer hit,
so we used a chain. So they drove off in
Oscar's nineteen forty two Plymouth, the stolen tiger in tow,

(18:49):
not like in the car. The chain did the trailer
to the car and took off.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Now that's exactly what a Bengal tiger needs. December in
the sound and whipped around. Yeah, that's the the Lord
intended it to be.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
At some point they stopped to phone a friend at
Tulane and told them what they'd done and that they'd
stolen LSU's Bengal Tiger and that they were going to
bring them to campus. So tell everybody we're coming. Oh no, right,
According to Norbert, at one point, the chain failed and
the trailer came loose from the forty two Plymouth and
it rolled on past the car.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Oh no.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
But they managed to catch up to the runaway tiger cage,
so they refastened it to the back of the forty
two Plymouth. They kept on rolling to Tulane. Next, they
got pulled over by a cop who was out patrolling
late at night. When the cop pulls them over, the
boys they don't panic. Instead, they just tell them, oh, yeah,
we're responsible for bringing LSUS tiger. We're transporting it to
campus for the game the next day, the big game. Now,

(19:41):
being a fan of college football, I assume the cop
was like, well, you boys, be careful now you're here. Sure,
and he let them go on their merry way. Yeah,
that's all the questions.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
They were drinking. They didn't have like trunk driving laws.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Oh yeah, no, not nineteen fifty and that.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, I know exact. They're like, have you guys had
enough to drink. You know, you might drive a little
bit better with a couple more beers.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
You might focus. You know, here's one for the road.
I got some in my car.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Now.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
When they get to the Tulane campus, students who'd heard
about this audacious stunt, they're all there to greet them.
They're excited. There's like a lot of like, you know,
what are we gonna do with the tiger. Let's paint
the tiger green? Because Tulane's mascot is the green Wave,
So they're gonna like, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
A mascot is a wave, the green wave. Yeah, like
an ocean wave, but green.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
There you go. Norbert didn't want to hurt the tiger,
all right. He's like, no, we can't do that. I
just want to humiliate LSU. Nothing against the tiger. Good
for you, I thought you'd like to know.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Now.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Their plan was to keep the tiger until halftime, and
then at halftime they drive onto the field with the
stolen LSU tiger and then they display them like we
got you, tiger. That was the plan, neck exactly you
and the bloodshed. This plan gets kaibosh when the dean
of students heard about the tiger nappers, and he insisted
that the stolen tiger be taken off campus before something

(20:54):
bad happened to some of the Tulane students. Yeah, he
wasn't worried about the LSU's tiger, just the Tulane students.
So Norbert and Oscar they hop back in the forty
two Plymouth and they drive the stolen tiger to Oscar's
house and they parked the tiger and the trailer inside
his parents' garage. Problem solved Later that same night, in
the early morning, Oscar's dad heard his hound dogs outside

(21:15):
Barkin and was about to go out to see what
the matter was, and said he told his boy, Oscar,
he go and check the dogs. That's when his son
told his father that there was a stolen tiger hidden
in his garage. His father thought about what his son
just said, and then he asked him, son, you've been drinking.
I guess you didn't believe his son because he and
the rest of the family then went out to see
said stolen tiger.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'd want to see it.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Totally. Sure enough, there was the five hundred pound Bengal
tiger in their garage. Hound dogs or totally so Meanwhile,
word spreads on campus and soon enough it's on the radio.
They're talking about it, like the very early morning hours.
And so later that same morning, before the game, the
Nawlins police showed up at Oscar's house to check on
reports of a stolen Bengal tiger hidden in his family's garage. Yeah,

(21:59):
and at this point they the police took Oscar down
to the police station for questioning, but he wasn't arrested
because you know sec football. He said, we stole less
use tiger. Good, good on you boys.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Now.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
Meanwhile, the tiger was eventually returned to LSU, and he
was there on the sidelines for the game. He made
a game time. Yeah, he's a bit tired, bit listless
after his long, strange trip the night before. Yeah, and
the game ended in a fourteen to fourteen tie.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Oh and they didn't do overtime.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
They just no, apparently not.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Is it like soccer.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, it's like, oh, that's enough game for today.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
But the tiger's tire, Yeah, Zach, we.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Go, look at Mike. He's his eyes are barely open.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
He's just growing. Mike drugged the gills for these things.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
So as a result of their tiger napping. Norbert and
Oscar and the other guys were banned from LSU's campus
for life. Well, they care totally exactly like I never
want to go anywhere there. So for Norbert, who lived
the longest of all the guys, he ended up being
banned for fifty years until finally, in two thousand and seven,
he received a letter on LSU stationery, and the letter read,

(22:59):
and I quote, it has been called our attention that
you're involved in the famous nineteen fifty tiger napping crime.
We understand that at the time you were banned from
the LSU campus while your stunt wreaked havoc on our team.
We assume by now that you've realized the seriousness of
your hainous crime. In the spirit of forgiveness, we're absolving
you of all guilt. We feel that your fifty year

(23:20):
exile from the LSU campus is sufficient punishment for your
bad deed. Therefore, you are welcome to visit the LSU campus.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I love, I love getting banned from somewhere. I wouldn't
go anywhere exactly.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
It's like I can't come down to the trash place.
But Norbert had no desire obviously to set foot on
the LSU campus, because that's how it is for SEC
football teams. You're saying, I would never go there. I'd
rather you know. Yeah, so their loyalty just remun runs
that deep, ridiculously deep, criminally deep.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Okay, well, let's spounce out of the SEC and let's
check in on the first big college football team rivalry
for the classic, the very first you know, the original
college football team rivalry, which was Harvard and Yale.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh wow, yes, okay, Now.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
This story may be about Harvard and Yale, but it's
really about Mit.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
You typically don't think of MIT in college football.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Not really.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Some people may even be thinking, do those nerds even
have a football?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
They do, Yes, yes they.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Do, Elizabeth. The MIT engineers good for they're not good,
But that's not important. No, what is important is that,
I know. What is important, though, is that the kids
Mit are known for pulling off some epic pranks. Oh sure,
like a bunch of them. Like, for instance, one time,
for a prank back in the nineteen thirties, five MIT
students used thermite bombs to make a point. Thermite, Elizabeth,

(24:37):
that's the stuff that, unlike jet fuel, can melt steel, beams,
apparently led by the Mary prankster Ken Wadley. He and
four other MIT students. They created their homemade thermite bomb.
They found a street car, and then they distracted the motorman,
the guy driving the street car, and then they set
off their thermite bombs and they use the superheated chemical
bomb to weld the street car to the that's how

(25:01):
hot it burns. It was the steel wheels to the steel.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Did they provide a manifesto explaining why they did this?

Speaker 3 (25:08):
No, but good on you. We'll get back to that
point a little bit later about manifestos. By the way,
that Mary prankster Ken Wadley would go on to become
a dean at MIT. Oh, anyway, back to the Harvard
Yale game. In nineteen eighty three, Harvard was facing Yale
for their big annual rivalry game. It was a foregone
conclusion that the Harvard Crimson would likely win the game.
Everybody knew that, but some geeks at MIT were dedicated

(25:30):
to winning the day for themselves with an epic prank.
They weren't even in the game.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Oh, They're just like, I'm going to rain on both
of your prairiers. Exactly, Yes, I love that.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
So a bunch of frat brothers from the Delta Kappa
Epsilon House, the Deekshuh, they came up with this plan
to embarrass Harvard. So before the game, they snuck into
Harvard Stadium not once, not twice, but eight times. Okay,
why Molta set up their prank? So these nerds had
it all planned out, I mean, they had blueprints of
the stadium, they had the schedule of the security guards
rounds all figured out and cloked. It was a prank

(26:00):
that was, by the way, the culmination of five years
of work. What thanks to the MIT Technology Review, we
have an exhaustive account of what went down. Starting in
nineteen seventy eight, the frad brothers from DKE designed and
built the first build of the eventual apparatus that they
would use for their prank. But those frat brothers ended
up graduating before they governed deploy it. And so in

(26:20):
nineteen eighty two, the other Deeks they learned and about
these OG plans, they decided, We're going to go through
with it.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Like this is already so much cooler than like get
drunk and steal a tiger, if you say so, Like
the logistics of Oh yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Think you're going to like this.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I love it so.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
According Toady Husaka class of eighty four, the frad Bros
used a balloon apparatus that their predecessors had designed, and
over the course of their eight trips to the Harvard Stadium,
they secretly installed it. As who sucked an electrical engineering
major he recalled it, quote, about twenty guys participated. We
go in at two am with camo paint on and
lookouts in the stadium towers. I love this, yes, then,

(26:58):
as he also adds, I found the irrigation control board
and I wired the apparatus into an empty circuit breaker.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Oh my god, I love this more and more every sentence.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
The plan was that when they triggered their apparatus, it
would trigger this enormous black balloon that would emerge from
the Harvard field with a prank message spelled out on
its rubbery skin. Except the nerds messed up a little bit.
Their wiring failed. The balloon didn't deploy like they designed,
so one of the deep frapros had to run down
and then finesse his way past the Harvard campus police

(27:28):
and talk his way into the electrical room and then
hand trigger the device. To do that, he pulled every
single circuit breaker there was and then boom. Eventually, this
desperate move works, as the MIT Technology Review reports it. Quote,
during the second quarter of the Harvard Yale football game
on November twentieth, nineteen eighty two, a big black balloon
with MIT written all over it suddenly emerged from the

(27:49):
Harvard Stadium field. The two teams were lined up when
suddenly our attension shifted toward the sideline, remembers MIT Museum
Science and Technology Curator Deborah Douglas, who was there. That's
when we saw it. Everyone was trying to make out
what was written on the balloon. Some of the Harvard
police seemed to draw their guns, and then suddenly it exploded.
So calling the game for the TV audience at home

(28:10):
was legendary college football broadcaster Brent Musburger. Watching it all
go down, He tells the TV audience at home that
it appears that a bomb is floated down onto Harvard
Field and exploded, resulting in a three foot crater. Now,
I don't want you to worry about Harvard's field because
I know how you green thumbs are. The groundskeeper sprung
into action and they were able to repair the grass
in the field and the game went on.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Wait it did blow a crater three a three foot crater. Yeah.
When the balloon exploded, it popped.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah. So the Harvard eventually went on to defeat Yale
forty five to seven. But after the game, no one
was talking about Harvard and their victory. Instead, everyone was
talking about Mitya. In fact, some of the frat bros
from DKE they held a press conference where they showed
up drinking beers, budweisers, some of them were pantsless. It
was oh, now do you say high spirited, and the

(28:58):
mit frat bros proceeded to explain to the non nerds
what they had done and how it was all actually
just a harmless prank. I know it exploded, but it
was a harmless prank, So it was one deck fratbro
told the Gathered Press the balloon was quote just free
on It's just what you would get in a refrigerator.
It's harmless, and it's escaping. It's it's an inert gas.
So looking back at their successful prank to embarrass Harvard,

(29:20):
one of the Deeks later told the Associated Press that
quote the hardest part of the whole project was trying
to scalp tickets to get into the game. Now, if
you ask me my favorite MIT related stunt, isn't that one?
It's one Remember you think about the manifesto. Well, some
students one time snuck onto the Harvard campus and they
dressed up the statue of John Harvard as a former

(29:41):
Harvard student, specifically Ted Kaczinski aka the unifommer eddyk. That's
some super extra dirty five my god. So like, yeah,
possibly a manifesto, I don't know, probably not the shack.
How about you know, Okay, let's take another break and
see what's what with some advertisements as some sweet sweet ads.

(30:03):
Don't worry, there's gonna be plenty for everyone. Oh thank
god back in two and two. We're back, Elizabeth. Yes,

(30:28):
you ready for some more college football craziness. Yes, right,
I saved the best for last.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Does it involve nerds?

Speaker 3 (30:34):
You could say, yes?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh probably not?

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Well no kinda. I mean, well, you can tell me
this one I picked out just for you. Oh, it's
all about the Big Game aka Stanford versus cal h. Yes, Now,
as you know, cal as in UC Berkeley and Stanford
are each other's oldest rival. Do you want to guess
the year when Cal first faced Stanford in a rivalry game.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Let's say was it in the nineteen hundreds?

Speaker 3 (31:03):
No?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Oh, okay, so I think the cow was founded in
eighteen sixty eight. If I'm not mistake, that's right to me.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Let's say eighteen seventy three.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
Eighteen ninety two, Oh, eighteen ninety two.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, but college football really gets become invented.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
In eighteen nineties. You see all a lot of the big.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
First game invented.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
This one is eighteen ninety two, and the team manager
for Stanford for that game was a future US president. Oh,
really want to guess which US president led the Stanford
team in eighteen ninety two?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Barack Hussein Obama.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
I'll give you a hint. He was the thirty first
president of the United States. And he is not a
beloved president Millard Fillmore.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
No.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
The manager of Stanford's football team in eighteen ninety two
was Herbert Hoover.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Now, before a crowd of twenty thousand people packed into
the Hate Street Grounds, a field in San Francisco, the
very first big game was played. The stadium held fifteen
thousand people. Herbert Hoover expected the crowd to be about
ten thousand people, so that's exactly how many tickets he
printed up. Obviously, he greatly underestimated the demand. Instead, twenty
thousand people filed through.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
The gates, turned it into a Hooverville pretty much.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
So he got these people overflowing the field, right. So basically, yeah, yes, yeah,
so at what would later be Golden Gate Park at
the top up by Hate Street. And yes, so, after
he ran out of the printed tickets, Herbert Hoover just
stood there at the turnstile collecting coins for people's entry.
He tossed all the proceeds into this big washtub and

(32:34):
basically you got the idea. The place was a bumping right. So,
after this huge crowd is seated, the stands are packed
to standing room only capacity with all these eager fans,
the team captains, they go out onto the field to
meet with the referee and go over the pregame instructions.
Listen a quick question, Yeah, what's the one thing you
need to play football?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Steroids?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
A football?

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Oh? A football? Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Well, that day when the ref asked them for the
football one team and looked the other and said, well,
hand him the ball. The other team captain was like,
I don't have the ball. I thought you were bringing
a football. Turns out no one brought a football.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Wait, no, no one brought Herbert.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
It is so future. Herbert Hoover, being the leader type
that he was, had to act quickly. He had someone
climb into a saddle and they took off on horseback.
Why to go procure a.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Football to go to Big Five?

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Pretty much, it was like like old year old Big
Five the fan on horseback rode to a local sporting
good store. Once he was there, he was like, one football, please,
we have the big game going down. So then with
football secure, he hopped back down on.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
The Did he buy more than one football?

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Let's hope, right, but I think he only bought one.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Does Herbert give him enough money?

Speaker 3 (33:41):
I like to picture him having just one football?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, and then he holds it like he's.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
A Heisman trophy.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
So he hops back on the horse races back to
the Hate Street Stadium, which is, you know, as I said,
would be the Golden Gate Field Park, but.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
You know, and then later you know, would be the
epicenter of the summer flow.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
There you go to hate to ask totally Berth of
the hippies and college and the big game at college football.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Isn't that beautiful?

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Zero h it full circle right Berkeley.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Berkeley sunrise sunset.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Anyway, long story short, Stanford beat Cal in that game,
fourteen to ten. That was the score for the very
first big game between Stanford and Cal. After that first
big game was all set and done, future president Herbert
Hoover counted up the money from the gate and he
found that he'd collected thirty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Wait in those days.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Now, that's n ever. I got from Stanford's website, and
I'm pretty sure that that's in eighteen ninety two dollars,
which means they were charging apparently fans a dollar fifty
a ticket. I looked it up for you, But the
official US inflation calculator only goes back to nineteen thirteen,
when the IRS starts and the Federal Reserve starts. But
according to the Consumer Price Index, which goes back to
eighteen ninety two, a dollar fifty and eighteen ninety two

(34:48):
would be fifty three dollars in twenty twenty five, which
for a college football game in eighteen ninety two seems expensive.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
Either way, the receipts from that first big game were
enough to pay for the entire next season of college
football or Stanford's football team, and thus marks the start
of the Cal Stanford rivalry. In this is all just
an appetizer for what I really want to tell you about,
because now we need to skip ahead a few years
to eighteen ninety nine. Eighteen nine, Elizabeth, do you know
about the Stanford Axe?

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, you know about it. It's like that's the like
the trophy basically that goes back and forth. So whoever
wins the big game gets the act very good.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I didn't know about this. I learned all about it.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I didn't go to Cal, but everyone and my family
went to Yeah, and I grew up going to football games. Yeah,
and I'm like, I'm the family disappointment because I went
to the farm school.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
You went to Cal Davis instead.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Of exactly, it's all Cal Berkeley folks, and they are crowded.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Near stare at your Cal Davis.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Okay, well, but I mean if I have to choose
between Cal and Stanford.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Hello, oh yeah, I'm with you totally now, since you
already know about the Stanford x I will tell you
the story of how the acts came to be.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Oh yes, it is enjoy that ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
The Stanford Axe is a real axe, and it was
a standard issue twelve or fifteen inch lumberjacks axe. I
found varying accounts of its size. Anyway, back in eighteen
ninety nine, at a PEP rally for Stanford, the students
unveiled the axe and used it to fire up the
student body by chopping off the head of a straw
man that was dressed up in Cal's colors of blue
and gold. Violent right, But not only that, they were

(36:22):
also yelling the Stanford Axe yell, which is a crazy
Pep song. The Stanford Axe yell has lines like give
them the axe, axe, the axe where right in the neck?
The neck the neck love yea? I thought you would. Now.
Can you imagine a bunch of students all yelling that
to some PEP squad cheerleader as they chopped the head
off a straw man dressed as a cow supporter. I
thought you could.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Why do I suddenly have this blood lige?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I don't know where it's coming from? It say, is
it the winter of dark? Elizabeth, we're getting near.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I think we're in the late summer of blood lust. Apparently,
like I've just I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Happened college football seasons.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I have them all head up for it.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
See, people say agriculture today is so violent, but you
read left, you don't even know that happens.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
It's the violence isn't in the right place.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
So anyway, back in eighteen ninety nine, at a Stanford
col baseball game on April fifteenth, the Stanford yell leaders
that's what they were called, not cheerleaders, yell leaders. They
were doing their thing, leading the student body in a
rousing rendition of the axe yell. And they used this
real lumberjack axe to chop up some blue and gold
ribbons whenever Stanford had a good play in the baseball game.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Ribbons exactly.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I don't even know how you do. I don't know
if they're holding them and chopping through them on the
grass and just chopping sweetish chef on it, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
And then they see like all the pieces of ribbons
and someone's like, is this a gender reveal?

Speaker 3 (37:45):
So after like a bunch of innings of this game,
the cow fans got pissed, right, So what do they
do in the ninth inning? They go over and they
beat up the Stanford yell leaders and they steal the X. Yes,
now I should say that this game wasn't going down
in Stanford, or it was on neutral grounds in San Francisco, Okay.
According to newspapers of the day, By the end of
the game, the Cow fans were so pissed they muscled

(38:07):
the acts away from the Stanford yell leaders, which then
led to well, you know what, rather than me tell
you about it, Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes. Well,
I'd like you to picture it. It's April fifteenth, eighteen
ninety nine, and you, Elizabeth, are in San Francisco. At
the moment, you're at a ballpark, one located at sixteenth

(38:28):
Street in fulsom You happen to be attending a baseball
game between local college rivals Stanford and Cow. The San
Francisco Ballpark is safe, neutral territory, and so far it's
been a hell of a game. Now, in the ninth inning,
Cal is rallying back after a stunning triple is cracked
off the bat of a cowplayer. A two sport football
and baseball star. The game is nearly tied nine to seven.

(38:51):
But really you're not so much watching or even attending
this game, since you are a prop one that's being
used to taunt the cow students. Because that's right, Elizabeth,
you are this Stanford Ax. You've been busy today, used
to chop up blue and gold ribbons to taunt the
cow students. There is now a simmering rage coming from
the cow bleachers. When this ballgame finally comes to its
stunning clothes, Stanford is the victor. You are triumphantly lifted

(39:15):
up for one final taunt of the cow fans. Then
you were handed over to a pair of Stanford students
called the Guardians of the Ax, to be taken back
to Palo Alto at the Stanford campus. But before you
make the trip back to Stanford, you hear a hubble
loop begin as nearly a dozen cow students stop the
Stanford students that are carrying you. Suddenly you're being wrestled

(39:36):
out of the hands of a Stanford student. The angry
cow students rip you out of his hands, and then
things turn truly wild. You feel the tight grip of
a cow fan as he yanked you away from the
Stanford students' hands, and then you feel the cool breeze
of speed as he goes running off. You can hear
Stanford students shouting as they rally to save you, but
mostly you just hear the heavy breathing and the pounding

(39:57):
footsteps of the cow student as he flees the scene.
The cow student sprints all the way to fifteenth Street,
then he heads up a few blocks towards Valencia Street,
but before he can get far, this cow thief is
caught and tacted by a pair of Stanford students. You
now switch hands. Now Stanford has you back. However, this
doesn't last long, as they run back a mere block later,

(40:17):
Cow students catch them and snatch you back. Next, you're
handed over to a cow track star who takes off,
sprinting like the wind. He makes it a few blocks,
where he then hands you off to a second cow student,
and in order to make a daring getaway, this second
cow student, joined by others, pops into a horse drawn
wagon and they race off. Wagon wheels crush the gravel
as you hear Stanford students calling out, shouting with blood

(40:40):
pumping anger. You don't know the city well, since you're
a humble lumberjacks axe, but if you did, you would
know you're headed uphill towards Nobe Street. Stanford students also
hop into a wagon of their own, and they give chase.
Now it's a high speed wagon chase through the hills
of San Francisco. After a quick left and then a right,
the cow students in their wagons speed across Market.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Street, the main thoroughfare in the city.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
They make it over to Oak Street a few blocks away.
As the horse drawn wagon navigates the hilly streets of
San Francisco, one of the cow students spots a butcher's shop.
Soon enough, you feel the fleeing wagon pull to a
dramatic stop. A cow student hops down runs into the
butcher's shop. After a quick exchange of words and money,
you feel the butcher saw off your handle. That seems extreme,

(41:22):
but now you're much easier to manage or to hide
with your handle removed. The cow student runs back to
the wagon. The horses take off again. The getaway wagon
races downhill on Oak Street. It's a steep street. After
racing downhill, the getaway wagon heads for Fillmore Street, where
the wagon makes a hard left turn and speeds along
in its frantic escape. Fillmore Street is packed with wagons
and other folks on horseback. A few narrow misses later,

(41:45):
the wagon makes another hard turn and speeds down Washington
Street until you reach downtown San Francisco. This means even
more chaos of midday traffic. At Powell Street, the getaway
wagon leans into a hard left turn. Wagon wheels barely
hold to the street. If you had, you would see
that you're now on Clay Street, racing through the Financial district.
You can hear the distant foghorns of the San Francisco Harbor.

(42:07):
Cow students are jubilant, confident they're gonna make their escape,
but you hear the shrill whistles of San Francisco police officers.
The officers who've been alerted to the axe left join
in the chase, with both San Francisco cops and the
Stanford students in hot pursuit. The cow students race for
the ferry docks as the cloths of the horses clatter
against the street. Startled pedestrians leap out of the way

(42:28):
of these galloping horses. Meanwhile, the cow student, who grips
what's left of you, holds you tight to his body.
As the getaway wagon heads for the ferry building, located
there at the end of Market, where the city's main
thoroughfare meets the docks. You hear the cow student call whoa,
and the horses come to a hard stop. The cow student,
gripping you by the axe head, hops down from the
wagon and runs for the ferry building, the cops giving chase.

(42:50):
They can't be far behind. However, there's other trouble because
at the ferry building there are a wait more San
Francisco cops, and with them is the president of the
student body from Stanford University. Together they're inspecting every male
passenger who attempts to board a ferry across the bay
headed back to Berkeley. You hear the cow student, who
grips you tight under his overcoat, say howdy, what are

(43:12):
you doing here? A young woman's voice answers. It's clear
from their tone and their exchange they know each other.
The cow student asks the young woman if she'll do
him a favor. You feel him hand what's left of
you over to her, and he asks her to hide you.
She's only too happy to help. She steaks you up
under her skirt and holds you tight against her bloomers
for undergarments. Together, they now head to board a faerry

(43:33):
that will take them back across the bay to Oakland
and not to Berkeley. That's a smart choice. It means
they avoid the police and the president of the student
body from Stanford who are watching the gangplank for the
Berkeley Fairy. After tickets are purchased, the two casually board
the Oakland ferry and with a blast of its fog horn,
the boat pulls away from the dock. Oh what a
wild ride for an axe.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Oh my god, I love it so much.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
So that's how the cow students stole Stanford's axe and
initiated one of the longest rivalries in college football, because
even though the axe was stolen from a baseball game,
it would go on, as you pointed out, to become
the trophy for the school's annual big game in college football.
But there's a lot more to the story, Oh Elizabeth,
what I just told you was true, essentially true, as
in it all happened. I did dramatize it a bit

(44:18):
because we don't know the exact details of the chase,
but there was a fighter, the axe, the high speed
chase through San Francisco. In fact, there's a hand drawn
map you can find of that chase and the craze
path that I just described through the city's busy streets.
And it was all true. About the Ferry building, dodging
the cops, chopping off the axe handle the president of
the Stanford student body, all that's true. And the Darren
Cow students sneaking aboard a ferry across the bay and

(44:39):
make it safely back to the Cow campus with Stanford
axe also all true. But the last part of the story,
that's where the legend comes in, because according to historians
who looked into this, the part about the fairy left
out some key details on purpose. So now I'll tell
you what the Cow and Stanford historians have come to
say is the true full story of what happened to
the Stanford acc and how it was taken back to Berkeley. Yeah,

(45:02):
Carl Who of Stanford and who and Cameron of col
uncovered the actual ending of this crazy chase. When that
final fleeing Cow student in the getaway wagon, he was
a dude named Clinton Miller. When he got to the
Ferry building, he met a fellow Cal student named Everett Brown.
Evertt Brown took the Stanford axe from Clinton Miller, who

(45:22):
must have been exhausted from his crazy wagon chase. And so,
according to the two historians of this wild event, Everett
Brown pulled like a bugs bunny to get the Stanford
axe back to cow. And what I mean by that
is well, as Stanford historian Carl who tells it and
I quote, Everett Brown saw the cops waiting as he
got to the ferry building, so he quickly bought a
dress from a push cart peddler at the foot of

(45:42):
Market Street and changed in a nearby alley, and then
he and Clinton Miller walked onto the boat as a couple.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
And that's not all.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
That's better than the legend.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
The antics were a major source of embarrassment for Brown's
rich family, because, as the col historian Cameron Will adds
to the telling and I quote, his mother and grandmother
were horrified when they heard about it. His grandmother was
the wife of the richest man in town, Frederick Delger,
who owned all of downtown Oakland between Telegraph and Broadway
from eighth Street to twentieth Street. They were afraid that

(46:15):
the scandal would harm Everetts budding legal career, so Clint
agreed to take the blame. It wasn't the theft that
appalled them so much, it was that he had dressed
as a woman.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Oh God, get over it.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
So either way, those two managed to get to the
Stanford ACX safely back to Berkeley. That night, there's a
celebration on the campus as the Stanford axes paraded around
before throngs of cheering Cow students. Right later on is
secretly stored under a bed at the Kyfi Fratorney House.
And when the Stanford student body heard about this denigration
of their axe, a band of thirty Stanford students showed

(46:47):
up on the Cow campus to get their axe back.
They went to the frat house, broke in, tore the
place apart looking for their stolen axe. They found no axe.
The axe was there hidden in the space behind a
sliding door. I imagine like in this space where the
door slid into either way. They missed it. Defeated again.
Stanford raiding party left after its night at the frat house.
The Stanford ax was later then moved to a bank

(47:09):
vault for safekeeping, oh where it stayed for the next
few decades, and each year the Cow students would bring
the Stanford Axe out of hiding and paraded around at
the Greek Theater on the col campus for their annual
pep rally before the big game against Stanford's football team Elizabeth.
They did this for thirty years, but then in nineteen thirty,
a brave group of Stanford students dubbed the Immortal twenty one,

(47:33):
staged as new Raid. They snuck onto the Cow campus
on the night of the annual pep rally at the
Greek Theatre before the big game. The Immortal twenty one.
They show up prepared to do whatever it takes to
get back the Stanford Axe, as their stolen axe was
about to be returned to the bank where it's always
kept safe. A few of the Mortal twenty one pretend
to be guards of the Stanford Axe from Cow, while

(47:54):
others pretended to be newspaper photographers, And so when the
Cow student aka the Guardian of the Axe, was about
to board the armored car that was going back to
the bank, the fake photographers all snapped their their fash
bulbs at the same time, temporarily blinding the Guardian of
the Axe. Then the rest of the Immortal twenty one
jumped him, one of the Stanford students put him in

(48:15):
choke hold. Another Stanford student grabbed the axe. A third
Stanford student threw down a tear gas canister that they'd
been given by someone from the San Mateo Sheriff's Department
specifically for this purpose. Under the cover of tear gas,
most of the rest of the Immortal twenty one run
off to three waiting getaway cars, but a few of
them remained dressed as phony Cow students, who then helped

(48:38):
form a search party and lead the real cow students
in the wrong direction.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
That's smart, nurds, right, I thought you'd like that.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Meanwhile, in their getaway cars, the Stanford students drove fast
as they could back to the safety their campus in
Palo Alto. Returning with their beloved acts, they were greeted
as conquering.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Heroesridge, so they had to go down and around.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
So they'd done it wild right, They saved their worried
though that this might one day lead to some real
act of violence other than what we've seen so far.
In pursuit of revenge and getting the axe back, the
school administrator from cal and Stanford got together, and they're like,
give us the damn ax. So they seized the Stanford Axe,
and to quell in a future incidents, they agreed to
make the Stanford X, as you pointed out, the trophy

(49:22):
given to the winner of the annual rivalry college football
game aka the Big Game, and their annual tradition continues
to this day. Oh by the way, PostScript, the guy
who bought the dress in the city and dressed up
in drag and snuck the axe under the ferry to Berkeley,
Everett Brown. He ended up becoming a judge for the
Alameda County Superior Court. Not not only that, he also

(49:45):
went on to become the president of the col Alumni Association.
Because clearly the man has school spirits exactly. So what's
our ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Oh my goodness, I think, like, you know, these these
kind of rivalries provide such a good outlet for energy,
and uh, you know that's the school spirit. Yeah, And
I'm all for any distraction fun antics, yes, And what

(50:14):
is your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 3 (50:16):
I love college football and I love that in fact,
it's supposed to be like like basically a stand in
for war. And then they layered all of this on
top of a stand in for war. I just love
that like they made it. It's just a very human
expression to me. I love it. You put it the
school spirit. I also love like the lengths that they're
willing to go to, Like at any point someone could
have fallen on the axe and die, but they're willing

(50:38):
to risk that just for the joy of bringing the
axe back to or stand for So. I love the
stories that we tell ourselves, you know the truth. So
there you go. Yeah. Are you in the mood for
a talkback?

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Oh? Am?

Speaker 3 (50:50):
I can you wash us all down with a lovely talkback? O? God?

Speaker 2 (51:02):
I love you.

Speaker 5 (51:07):
Hi, Saron Elizabeth and producer Dave. I have something funny
and ridiculous to share with you. I just finished listening
to the episode title tonight there's going to be a
jail break where you referenced Kaiser, so say from the
usual suspects. I have a friend who calls me Kaiser,
so say. And what's really ridiculous and funny about that

(51:28):
is I do actually have cerebel palsy. Draw your own conclusions.
Love you guys, bye bye.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
We love you too. I love it, and I'd like
to believe that you're also known as Guy's just as
they kids. You get away with stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Raise You've concocted all of these grand lands. That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
I love it well as always. You can find us
online a Ridiculous Crime on social media it's mostly a
Blue Sky and Instagram. And also we have the account
Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube. Please go like, subscribe listen
to some episodes. It's a great place to hear us.
And we have our website, ridiculous Crime dot com, which
I believe one David Fincher's Filmmaker of the Year for

(52:06):
Canada's province Alberta. So you're very excited about that.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
I had no idea that.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
I don't even know we made movies look at us.
So also you can email us if you want it
ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We love to hear
your emails, just like we love to hear your talkbacks,
which you can go to the iHeart app download that
leave a talkback maybe to hear your voice here. Thank
you for listening and we will catch you next crime.

(52:33):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,
produced and edited by LSU's Right Honorable Protector of Mike
the Tiger Dave Houston and starring Annalise Rucker as Judith.
Research is by the Guardian of the Ridiculous Crime fact
sheet for Rissa Brown. Our theme song is by our
house band we Got Spirit, Yes we do. We Got Spirit?
How About You? Aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The

(52:55):
host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred, guest Hara, makeup
by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive produces are Ben how
Much for One Football Bowlin and Herbert Hoover's shady accountant,
Nol Brown.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Ridicous Crime, Say It One More Time Giqueous Crime.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Four More Podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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