TURKEY DAY CLASSIC: Disputed plays show how deep rivalry goes for ASU, Tuskegee

By Josh Moon • November 25, 2009




TURKEY DAY CLASSIC: Disputed plays show how deep rivalry goes for ASU, TuskegeeAmong historically black college football fans, "The Pho­to," as it is now known, is one of the most popular e-mail for­wards of the last year.

In the picture, Tuskegee wide receiver Jonathan Lessa has just caught a pass and is cradling the ball against his stomach. Lessa clearly has one foot on the ground, just a few inches from the backline of the end zone at Cramton Bowl.

This is the much-disputed, second-to-last play in the 2008 Turkey Day Classic.

Lessa was ruled out of bounds on the play by back judge Philip Harden.

Alabama State won the game, 17-13, snapping the Gold­en Tigers' 27-game winning streak and costing them a black college national championship. The Hornets, which had limped into the game having lost five of six games, finished a 3-8 season on the highest of notes.

A day later, the photo ap­peared.

"Everybody's seen that pho­to," said former ASU defensive back Brandon Averett, who was in the end zone on the play and shoved Lessa out of bounds after the (non) catch. "People all over the United States have seen that photo."

By the time it made its first sweep across the Internet, Tus­kegee had received a profuse apology from the Southern In­tercollegiate Athletic Confer­ence, the Golden Tigers' confer­ence and the organization that supplied the officials for the game.

In a long, public release, the SIAC said it had reviewed both photos and video of the play and determined that the officiating crew did a "distressingly poor job." Harden was permanently suspended.

At Tuskegee, many universi­ty employees, especially those in the athletic department, use "The Photo" as a screensaver. When the Montgomery Advertis­er asked longtime TU sports in­formation director Arnold Houston if he might be able to locate a copy of the picture to accompany this story, his quick reply was, "I've got it right here on my desktop."

In the days following that game, an e-mail flier contain­ing a copy of the picture went out to almost every media out­let in the state. Flyers were posted up around campus. It appeared on every college foot­ball message board imaginable. And there were even T-shirts printed with The Photo on the front.

"I've had my kids ask me about (that play)," said ASU head coach Reggie Barlow, whose children, Reggie Jr. and Simone, are 9 and 6. "I guess somebody at school said some­thing to them about it. But that's how big it got."

The hype hasn't exactly died down around Tuskegee.

While the coaches outward­ly say that they've put the game behind them and moved on, they also can't help but drop clues that give away their true feelings.

"You have to move on and let it go at some point," Golden Tigers head coach Willie Slater said. "We didn't play well enough to win the game. That's all there is to it. It hurt, cer­tainly. We had a lot riding on that game. I have to be careful what I say, so I'll just say that we didn't win. But we still think about it. It's hard not to."

Over at ASU, there is but minor concern over "The Pho­to" or the fallout from it. After all, the Hornets have the offi­cial W from that game and the official, yearlong bragging rights that go along with it.

On top of that, ASU faithful recall another controversial ending in the 2005 Turkey Day Classic, when running back Keldrick Williams was stopped just short of the goal line on a two-point attempt on the game's final play. That year's game was televised by ESPNU and video replays appeared to show Williams getting just across the goal line before los­ing the football. The refs took several minutes to rule other­wise and Tuskegee won, 28-27.

"They can save it, because Keldrick was in and they know it," said Averett, who is now a fourth-grade teacher in Phenix City. "Also, I don't know for sure that (Lessa) was in bounds. I don't think the photo shows that. All you get is a quick snapshot. It doesn't show whether he has possession or not. And even if he does, that's just payback for Keldrick. It all works out in the end."

While neither side is likely to budge in this debate, the one thing they all can agree on is that these controversies are a clear sign of just how big this game is for many people.

Without two deeply passion­ate fan bases there's little chance this argument ever gets so big or that it is still raging a year later.

"I grew up on this game, liv­ing here in Montgomery," said Barlow, who played for ASU in the early 1990s. "It's the biggest game of the year to me, always has been. The fans are great. The games are always close. The atmosphere is intense. It's just really a great game, a great spectacle. It's a true rivalry."