Sports: The Story At Last About What Happened in 1965 at Purdue's Ross Ade Stadium

Tapping a football opponent's game phones is rare and unfair, but not unheard of. In 1985, Lewis & Clark College forfeited a Northwest Conference game in Oregon to Pacific University, after it was learned a Lewis & Clark coach had listened in on the game phones of his opponent. That same year, the Denver Post reported rumors that the University of Texas at El Paso had gained its only victory of the season over heavily favored Brigham Young by tapping game phones of BYU coaches.

The impact of those buggings -- one verified, one rumored -- was small-time compared to what appears to have happened in a game 20 years earlier, a tale not"heard of" until now. The Big Ten Conference chose to keep the charges quiet, only rapping the knuckles of the alleged tapper, Purdue, which gained a stunning 28-21 upset over No. 1-ranked Notre Dame. Discovery of the tapping mechanism suggests the victory was produced by the home school's bugging techniques more than its football prowess.

The 1965 game was played in West Lafayette, Ind., before 62,316 screaming fans at Purdue's Ross Ade Stadium. Terry Hanratty, the Notre Dame quarterback, would look to the sidelines to get a coded hand signal from his coach before bringing his team to the line of scrimmage. He was stunned to find the Boilermakers always in the perfect defense to stop the play he was to call. That situation occurs by chance several times during a game, and the quarterback then audibleizes (shouts) a change in plays to his 10 teammates.

But Hanratty found he had to turn to an optional play EVERY time. With a rabid home crowd shouting at the top of its lungs, Terry had to scream the change several times, hoping every player heard it in time to adjust to the rhythm of the new signal count for a changed play. The Notre Dame game plan became unuseable from the beginning. Only an extreme effort enabled the heavily favored Irish to stay within a touchdown of Purdue. Rarely would Notre Dame find it necessary to throw 51 passes, as it did in desperation against Purdue. Hanratty completed 28.

Back in Evanston, Ill, where I was the broadcaster of Northwestern University games, I had more than the usual interest in Notre Dame. Its coach, Ara Parseghian, had been Northwestern's coach until 1964, when he moved to Notre Dame. His former chief assistant at Northwestern, and fellow Armenian, Alex Agase, succeeded him. The two friends talked by phone every Sunday, sharing notes on their previous day's games.

The Monday after Notre Dame's loss to Purdue, I was at lunch with Agase and his coaching staff, when he commented:"I've never before heard Ara so upset about a ball game. We all know he can get emotional, but not like he was on the phone yesterday. He figures the loss to Purdue was his fault. Somehow, they cracked his sideline signals, and he thinks he failed to make the needed adjustment."

Three weeks later, I was with Northwestern in West Lafayette to broadcast its Big Ten game with Purdue. My broadcast partner, Ed Wheeler, owned the station, WEAW-WOJO. For every away game, he and I arrived at the stadium three hours before starting time so Ed could verify our broadcast line was properly installed. As I sat in our broadcast booth, preparing my game spotting board, Ed walked around the near-deserted stadium.

I heard his voice:"George, locate the visiting coaches booth, and go inside."

When I was there, I waved at him from the window:"What next?"

"Put on one of our coach's headsets."

It is standard for each team to have a press box booth with two headsets attached to small microphones for use of their game spotters. The vantage point gives them a better view of each play -- how it worked or didn't work, and why -- than can be seen on the sidelines. The spotters -- one for offense, another for defense -- communicate with the head coach on the field, suggesting what play to call next. I put on a headset, and said,"Now what?"

Ed answered over the headpiece:"I think I've found how Purdue beat Notre Dame! I'm at the Purdue bench, using a phone that's hooked into the visiting team's phones."

When the team arrived an hour before game time, Ed told his phone story to a disbelieving Agase. What finally convinced Agase was the earlier phone conversation with Parseghian, distraught because he thought he had failed to protect his hand-signal code against Purdue.

Wheeler, a communications hobbiest, suggested a way to avoid the tap. He once had offered Agase use of walky talkies for game communication. The Wildcats experimented with them in practice, but found the signals sometimes wandered. Wheeler had the units stored in the remote broadcast valise he carried to away games. Agase said,"O.K., let's try them."

Purdue was favored, and won the game by two touchdowns. The value of a phone tap was nowhere near as important as against Notre Dame's nationally top-ranked team. But the phone was where Ed found it. If it was used against Northwestern, the coach holding the receiver had to be mystified at the silence.

After the phone discovery, Parseghian may have been able to absolve himself of responsibility for giving away the Purdue game with a faulty signal system. Northwestern's athletics director, Tippy Dye, reported the sideline phone to the Big Ten office. The problem became: whom to believe. Purdue surely would deny the bugging. The conference chose to privately warn Purdue it would be watched closely to guard against any possibility of future phone tapping accusations.

Agase, in one of the ironies of the game, became Purdue's coach seven years later. His record there suggested Alex was not playing the telephone game. He was fired after compiling a losing record in four seasons.

For me, the tapping issue did not end, even though I moved to Oregon in 1976 to become SID (sports information director) for the Ducks. Oregon was playing Texas Christian in Eugene in 1978, when Scotty, the local phone company man supervising the telephone room for me, had a complaint:"I didn't know TCU had a telephone technician with them until I found him in our telephone room."

My first thought was of what had happened at Purdue 13 years earlier. Could we be victims of a bugging-- in our own stadium?

I asked Scotty:"How long will it take to check the Oregon lines to be sure they're clean?"

"It means I've got to go down to the field, but I can let you know in a few minutes."

When he returned, he still was miffed with the visiting phone man, but assured me the Oregon lines were clean.

Then I confronted the SID of TCU:"Why do you have a phone man with you?"

The young man, in his first year on the job, was apologetic:"It's my fault for not letting you know. When we're out of our own conference, we're supposed to alert the host SID that we have a phone man with us. I just forgot. It's routine in the Southwest Conference. Every team takes its own phone man to every away game."

That's a costly process. A telephone technician must be paid. His travel to the game must be underwritten; also his room and board.

But it's probably a good investment -- if a conference finds it has to take steps to discourage possible phone taps.

Note: I contacted Purdue University for a comment about this story. But but no one in athletics today was there in 1965.