The Story Behind Slippery Rock
(By Zach Helfand, Daily Sports Editor - Published October 11, 2012
The unlikely marriage between Slippery Rock and Michigan began in 1959 when Steve Filipiak, Michigan’s public address announcer, saw the funny name on the wire service ticker. Wanting to inject life into a boring game, Filipiak read the score. The fans loved it.
“It got a humorous reaction from people because a lot of people didn’t even believe there was such a place,” said Art Parker, who worked in the control room that day, as he has for 425 consecutive Michigan games.
The scores became a regular occurrence. The wire ticker eventually was replaced by the telephone, and that required Parker to call each day to people like John Carpenter, Slippery Rock’s sports information director, for scores. On his first day, Carpenter had never heard of the tradition, and puzzled, he asked the inquisitor from Michigan why he wanted the score.
As Carpenter related to the Chicago Tribune in 1985, “I said, ‘Why do you people want to know what the Slippery Rock score is?’ And he said, ‘If you hold on a minute, I’ll tell you.’ The guy held the phone near the public address announcer, and then I heard, ‘Here’s the score you’ve all been waiting for: Slippery Rock 27, Waynesburg 7.’ And the place went berserk.”
In 1979, Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham invited The Rock to play a game in Michigan Stadium, something Slippery Rock officials are hopeful will happen again.
Slippery Rock optimistically expected 15,000 people to show up for its game against Shippensburg. Instead, four times that number, 61,143, attended, a Division-II record. Canham gave the team sneakers and cleats. Bo Schembechler addressed the team, according to Mihalik. They played in the Big House again in 1981.
Bob McComas, Slippery Rock’s current sports information director, remembers being unimpressed with Michigan Stadium’s sunken design. That is, until he walked down the tunnel.
“We see this light toward the end,” McComas said. “The whole group stopped breathing. You look up and go, ‘Wow.’
“You would’ve thought we were big-time dignitaries. We’re just some Division II school from Pennsylvania.”
Yet for a few years, Slippery Rock grew evasive, and Parker struggled to get the scores relayed during games. He theorized that Slippery Rock felt like it was being mocked. But that feeling soon passed.
Nowadays, the Slippery Rock scores appear around the nation, from Michigan to Texas. When McComas fails to text the score in, Michigan fans grow irate. McComcas recalls one instance when the Michigan radio station called him, saying its callers were demanding the score of the Slippery Rock game.
“They think it’s a joke that Michigan and Texas announce the scores,” McComas said. “But it’s amazing. They want to know. The people want to know.”
“It got a humorous reaction from people because a lot of people didn’t even believe there was such a place,” said Art Parker, who worked in the control room that day, as he has for 425 consecutive Michigan games.
The scores became a regular occurrence. The wire ticker eventually was replaced by the telephone, and that required Parker to call each day to people like John Carpenter, Slippery Rock’s sports information director, for scores. On his first day, Carpenter had never heard of the tradition, and puzzled, he asked the inquisitor from Michigan why he wanted the score.
As Carpenter related to the Chicago Tribune in 1985, “I said, ‘Why do you people want to know what the Slippery Rock score is?’ And he said, ‘If you hold on a minute, I’ll tell you.’ The guy held the phone near the public address announcer, and then I heard, ‘Here’s the score you’ve all been waiting for: Slippery Rock 27, Waynesburg 7.’ And the place went berserk.”
In 1979, Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham invited The Rock to play a game in Michigan Stadium, something Slippery Rock officials are hopeful will happen again.
Slippery Rock optimistically expected 15,000 people to show up for its game against Shippensburg. Instead, four times that number, 61,143, attended, a Division-II record. Canham gave the team sneakers and cleats. Bo Schembechler addressed the team, according to Mihalik. They played in the Big House again in 1981.
Bob McComas, Slippery Rock’s current sports information director, remembers being unimpressed with Michigan Stadium’s sunken design. That is, until he walked down the tunnel.
“We see this light toward the end,” McComas said. “The whole group stopped breathing. You look up and go, ‘Wow.’
“You would’ve thought we were big-time dignitaries. We’re just some Division II school from Pennsylvania.”
Yet for a few years, Slippery Rock grew evasive, and Parker struggled to get the scores relayed during games. He theorized that Slippery Rock felt like it was being mocked. But that feeling soon passed.
Nowadays, the Slippery Rock scores appear around the nation, from Michigan to Texas. When McComas fails to text the score in, Michigan fans grow irate. McComcas recalls one instance when the Michigan radio station called him, saying its callers were demanding the score of the Slippery Rock game.
“They think it’s a joke that Michigan and Texas announce the scores,” McComas said. “But it’s amazing. They want to know. The people want to know.”