Probably the first ND hoops game I saw
by TimNeely (2020-05-27 22:06:00)
Edited on 2020-05-27 22:10:22

In reply to: 1971 game vs. UCLA [v]  posted by tjnd88


I wasn't there, but I watched on TV. I thought I'd never see this again. I had just become a Notre Dame fan that fall with the 1970 football season; I still remember watching the USC game on TV the Saturday after Thanksgiving as well as the Cotton Bowl on New Year's and hoping against hope that Nebraska would lose the Orange Bowl that night.

Austin Carr was every bit as amazing as I remembered.

Based on the editing by the person who taped it, he probably had a one-hour reel tape and didn't want to risk missing the end once it became clear what was going to happen (Notre Dame led the whole game except at 0-0 and one tie early in the second half). Once he knew he wasn't going to run out of tape, he left more details in near the end. It's worth watching to the very end for the old TVS basketball outro.

About two-thirds of the way through the tape, a station ID flashes on the screen for a few seconds, and it's the very station on which I would have seen the game: Channel 6 in Philadelphia, before it changed its call letters from WFIL to WPVI. Channel 6 was and is the ABC affiliate there. Based on the time the game was played (The Observer said 3:30 pm, one newspaper listing I found online said 3 pm; another said 4 pm; which was correct?), Channel 6 would have had to pre-empt the Pro Bowlers Tour and Wide World of Sports to air this.