In baseball, it’s the walk-off hit or walk-off homer. In football, it’s the “Hail Mary” pass. In basketball, it’s the buzzer-beater.
All of them represent some of the most thrilling aspects of major American sports, crossing that thin line between victory and defeat. And they are widely regarded as relatively rare. Yet sometimes, I think Wayland has seen more than its fair share, and most of the time from the wrong end of the final score.
The first time I can recall a Hail Mary was a game-ending Ally-Oop touchdown pass from San Francisco Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle to R. C. Owens to beat the Detroit Lions 35-31 in 1957. Three years later, I missed a 65-yard TD bomb from Earl Morrall to Jim Gibbons that enabled the Lions to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but I missed it because I turned off the tube in disgust with 13 seconds left to play.
I only heard Bill Mazeroski’s homer on the radio to win game seven of the 1960 World Series. I did watch Bucky Dent’s unlikely homer in 1978 against Boston that powered the Yankees into the World Series. And I saw on the tube the much-despised Christian Leightner’s last-second hoop for Duke in the NCAA tournament.
Kirk Gibson’s walk-off homer for the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series probably ranks right up there with Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Hear Round the World” in 1951, especially because he was injured, came off the bench to pinch hit and the scene had all the stuff of Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.”
But it seemed rare for me to be physically present for such an exciting event. My first personal experience was in 1979 at the NCAA Division III regionals when a Baldwin-Wallace guard nailed a near-half court bomb just ahead of the buzzer to send its game with Albion into a second overtime. I was watching in astonishment at the scorer’s table on press row.
But it would be plenty of years later before I would see something similar in person.
I remember Wayland High School quarterback Leon Hilaski Jr. finding Justin Stuive with a game-ending TD pass to beat Caledonia in 2001. Not long afterward, I was dumbfounded by truly a prayer thrown up at half court by a Forest Hills Eastern player to give his team an upset victory over Wayland in a district tournament.
It may seem strange, but I have been present for four such incidents in the past two years.
One was from a Godwin Heights player who took an in-bounds pass from about half court with just 1.1 seconds showing on the clock and swished his shot to force an overtime. I seriously questioned whether the lad could get off the shot in such a short time, but the referees ruled the ball took flight before the buzzer sounded. Godwin won the game in the extra session.
Last December, I saw Martin guard Matt MacVean, in a game he will never forget, nail a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer and later another to win the game as time expired. Two in one night.
But perhaps the most heart-breaking buzzer-beater was last month when Benton Harbor’s prayer was answered at the buzzer to end Wayland’s basketball season. So coach Mike Hudson has been the victim of three buzzer-beaters in the last dozen years.
Not to worry. His daughter, Presley, nailed a three at the buzzer to send a Central Michigan game into overtime and she came back to win it later with a driving layup just ahead of the buzzer.
“You win some… and you lose some.”
