I’m beside myself.  I just found out that Sam Wyche will be at Elon Saturday doing color commentary for the Elon-Georgia Southern football game televised on SportSouth.

I grew up going to Bengals games when he was head coach (my dad had season tickets) with Boomer Esiason, Anthony Munoz, Cris Collinsworth, James Brooks, Tim Krumrie, Ickey Woods, etc.  Two classic Wyche moments:

- 1989 home game vs. Seattle, the year after the Bengals went to the Super Bowl.  After a questionable call by the officials, Bengals fans started throwing beer bottles and other debris onto the field at the referees and the Seahawks, who were at their own 4-yard line and an easy target from the bleachers. Seattle refused to continue until they stopped, and play was halted by the officials. In order to stop the onslaught, Wyche was given a house microphone to try to calm the crowd.  He said, “Will the next person that sees ANYBODY throw anything onto this field, point ‘em out and get ‘em outta here. YOU DON’T LIVE IN CLEVELAND, YOU LIVE IN CINCINNATI!”  The crowd went NUTS.  Here’s the audio.  Unfortunately I wasn’t at that game.  The Bengals ended up losing by a touchdown.

- But the next week the Bengals hosted the hated Houston Oilers, coached by the hated Jerry Glanville.  The actual temperature that day was -8 and the wind chill was much lower.  It was too cold for my dad, so he stayed home and my brother and I went and took a couple friends.  Because of the cold the Bengals drew by far their smallest crowd of the year, so there was a big “we’re the diehard fans that came out today” vibe in the air.  The Bengals were 7-7 at the point so everyone knew they needed to win out to have a shot at the playoffs.  The Oilers were 9-5 and looking to clinch a playoff spot.  The Bengals beat them senseless.  Final score was 61-7.  Up 45-0 in the 4th quarter, Wyche called for a fourth down conversion attempt (which was successful), and an onside kick (also successful).  The Bengals kicked a long field goal with less than 30 seconds left to drive another nail in the coffin.  After the game Glanville tried to run to the tunnel instead of going to midfield for a handshake - and Wyche tried to chase him down, but he didn’t catch him.  Instead he stood on the field and waved “goodbye” to Glanville.  And we stopped on the way home for some Skyline chili.  That was a good day.