Amid all the cheering in that rickety stadium in the Steel City during an improbably wild Backyard Brawl between WVU and Pitt on Oct. 15, 1994, you could still hear it.
Ripples of laughter, from the home-crowd Panther faithful who packed the place in Pittsburgh’s venerable Oakland neighborhood.
Heck, there were even chuckles from many among the Mountaineer legions who made the trek up Interstate 79 for the game.
That’s because Don Ireland said what he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ireland’s rich baritone rang out.
“There’s a tractor in the parking lot with its lights on. West Virginia license plate E-I-E-I-O.”
Add the page for “Dr. Billy Joe Jim Bob,” and the no-smoking reminder that included cigarettes, cigars and corncob pipes — and you had a good day for the full-time computer salesman and part-time public address announcer who loved engaging in high silliness from the press box, high above the crowd.
“All in good fun,” Ireland said Wednesday from his home in Denver, where he owns a company that does drone photography. He’s also a freelance writer when he isn’t gardening with his wife, Lynn.
Of linebackers and lobster
Anyway, that’s what Ireland did.
He had fun at football games. He never called an audible on an ad-lib, no sir.
In the mid-1970s before he got the Pitt gig and was doing high school football across his native western Pennsylvania — where every contest under the Friday night lights was a rivalry game — Ireland would get on the mic with an announcement that could set any football-foodie’s mouth to watering.
“Oh, yeah, I’d say something like, ‘You’ll want to check out the concession stand for all the great hot dogs, hamburgers, pheasant under glass and lobster,” he remembered.
“Then, I’d get back on and say, ‘Whoops, sorry — I just found out we had a run on the pheasant under glass and lobster. But there’s still plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers.”
Saturday, the teams that are separated by 70 miles of asphalt and a whole bunch of conference realignment are serving up another game in Pittsburgh. Kickoff is 3:30 p.m.
“I’ll be in my recliner in Denver, but I’m gonna try to tune in,” he said.
“I think it’s the greatest rivalry in college football. The Michigan and Ohio State people might disagree.”
There have been multiple games in this series, of course, with enough highlight-reel plays and enough belly-up missteps to give heart palpitations and bleeding ulcers to the flintiest of point-spread gamblers.
Rocky Mountain rivalry
Let it be known that not everyone was laughing after Ireland’s performance that afternoon in Pittsburgh.
WVU officially voiced its displeasure, saying such public jabs are never a good thing, especially since all of West Virginia often serves as a Pittsburgh punch line.
Accounts of Ireland’s remarks made The New York Times. And The Chronicle of Higher Education.
While there was an initial false report he was fired, that was quickly corrected, the announcer said.
Officials from Pitt’s athletic department called him.
“Don, we don’t know what to do with you, exactly. We don’t know how to handle this.”
“I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll just step away.”
A couple of weeks later, though, the university asked him to un-tender his resignation.
He stayed on another few years as the arena announcer for Pitt basketball before a job opportunity with his full-time employment beckoned in Colorado.
Brawl in the family
Ireland, meanwhile, says he hopes the two schools can continue playing football.
There are the people in the stands, of course.
He’s still in contact with the Pitt fans and WVU fans he made friends with along the way, even if he is two time zones over.
And there are the people on the football field.
He cites that certain October game, now three decades gone, as to why the Backyard Brawl is always going to be a big deal.
WVU and Pitt went at that afternoon like two drunk guys in a bar parking lot after last call.
The Panthers roared back to erase a 25-point lead in the second half — but then the Mountaineers found the end zone twice as the clock crept down 1:32 and counting.
Final score: 47-41.
“Whoever got the ball last was going to win,” Pitt’s head coach Johnny Majors said. “And they got it last.”
On the WVU sideline, the gentlemanly Don Nehlen unleashed a classic bit of Don-speak as he gave his observation: “It was the strangest game I’ve ever seen. I stood there thinking, ‘Holy criminey.’”
Familiar voice
Ireland was thinking the same a few years back when he waiting in line in front of a counter in Denver.
He was talking with someone when another person politely broke in: “I know this is odd,” the interloper said, “but I’m from Pittsburgh and you sound just like the guy who used to do the stadium announcements at the Pitt games.”
Ireland laughed.
“That’s because I am him.”
Then the man laughed.
“Oh, my God – You’re the ‘E-I-E-I-O guy. I was there.”
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