SF Gate: Cal QB Nate Longshore's Wild Text Explosion Before 2007 Oregon Game
Thirteen yeas ago, Cal quarterback Nate Longshore received over 1,000 text messages from Oregon fans in the days leading up to the game to be played in Eugene, Ore., between the sixth-ranked Bears and the 11th-ranked Oregon Ducks, according to a fascinating story on SFGate this week.
Longshore could not figure out how so many Ducks fans got his phone number until a few months ago, when he realized his number had been displayed on a sign in the background during an ESPN Game Day broadcast. His tweet in October told of his discovery.
After Cal won the game, 31-24 – when the Bears were saved by a most unusual play, as seen in the video below – Longshore started replying to the Oregon fans’ text.
Here is the start of the SFGate story:
On Sept. 29, 2007, California Golden Bears junior quarterback Nate Longshore got out of bed around 9 a.m., his customary wake-up time on Saturdays before playing in big games. He opened his flip phone, which he kept on silent while he slept, and saw an odd message: "1K notifications."
Longshore was a little groggy and didn't immediately compute what the "k" stood for, until he read the first of more than 1,000 texts best cumulatively summarized as "break a leg, but literally."
The confused quarterback headed to breakfast with teammates, where an early riser offensive lineman helped him fill in the blanks. At the crack of dawn on the West Coast, during ESPN's broadcast of "College GameDay" in Eugene, Oregon, prior to the No. 6 Bears facing the No. 11 Ducks, a fan had hoisted a prominent sign displaying Longshore's phone number.
And we present two more worthwhile excerpts, starting with this one:
He was especially tickled by a message telling him to slip on a banana peel, which he says he'll be sending to Oregon's current quarterback, Tyler Shough, before the Ducks play the Bears this weekend. (Longshore has known Shough for a while and cheers for him except when he's playing Cal.)
And this one:
On the team bus afterwards, Longshore knew exactly what he wanted to do. He plugged in the battery, and his phone once again lit up. "I started going through and messaging people back," he says, "which was not a good idea. I do not advise doing that. But I was sending a lot of, ‘Hey, how’d that work out for you?’”
The culprit turned out to be Cole Wagoner, who owned up to the phone prank and has exchanged friendly messages with Longshore in the meantime.
I am assuming no Oregon fans know Chase Garbers’ cell phone number.
Here is Longshore talking about his 2009 Pro Day workout in a YouTube video:
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