CARDINALS

2002 U of L-FSU goalposts still held by many

Jeff Greer
@jeffgreer_cj

His memory's not as clear 12 years later, but University of Louisville grad Nick Jacoby still remembers quite a bit from that Thursday night in 2002 when his alma mater stunned No. 4 Florida State.

U of L fans scaled on the the goal posts in celebration after the Cardinals beat Florida State in overtime in 2002.

He remembers the torrential downpour, the soaked fans rushing the Papa John's Cardinal Stadium field, the students streaking naked down U of L's Greek Row and belly-flopping into puddles.

And he recalls the way a pack of fans tumbled like bowling pins when they ripped down the field-goal posts.

"It snapped and kind of paused for a second, and then it started to come down," said Jacoby, now a Louisville-based vice president for Ventas, Inc., a real estate investment trust.

"I didn't fall over, but there were definitely other people falling over. I was worried that I hurt my leg."

The ensuing student march down Floyd Street brought four pieces of the game's field-goal posts to Jacoby's Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity and gave him and his friends a story to tell for the rest of their lives.

It was a historic night for the football program, too. The Cardinals nabbed their first win over a top-five team since U of L started tracking opponent rankings in 1975, upending FSU 26-20 in a thrilling overtime win.

Since that game, Louisville has twice beaten top-five opponents. The Cards (6-2) get another shot at that feat on Thursday night when they host No. 2 Florida State (7-0) at 7:30 p.m.

On Sept. 26, 2002, Cards fans carried one of the goal posts of Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium after U of L beat Florida State in overtime.

Jacoby plans to be there, as does his friend and frat brother, Heath Hawkins, who helped Jacoby bring the upright back toward their house that September night 12 years ago.

All these years later, both Jacoby and Hawkins, who now lives in Louisville and works for his family's industrial distribution business, are engaged and have weddings in the near future.

So, Hawkins joked, maybe their fiancés can stay together in the stands if their future husbands get the chance to rush the field Thursday night.

"I remember it was actually kind of scary," Hawkins said, laughing.

Aside from the rather harrowing jump from the stands into a two-inch puddle on the field, Hawkins' sharpest memory from 12 years ago is the effort to get the upright back to their TKE house.

Soaked and helping a group carry the upright toward campus, Jacoby pulled out his cellphone and called his buddies. He tried several times but the rain fried his phone. He borrowed Hawkins' phone and finally got through, convincing a few of their frat brothers to come meet them.

They waited out the rest of the upright-carrying crowd and eventually brought it inside their house.

Later that night, a friend from a different frat, Eric Welch, led the TKE guys to the library, where the crossbar, curved base and one of the uprights from the other goal post were left on the steps.

Campus security warned them to remove the goal post pieces or face the consequences, Welch said.

"It was one of those wild nights," said Welch, who works as a regional account manager for Verizon Wireless in southern Indiana.

A crossbar from the original U of L-Florida State game in 2002 rests now in a southern Indiana warehouse.

Welch and his friends left with the chopped-up base of one post. Jacoby and his frat dealt with the other three pieces and became a national story in the process.

TKE was featured on ESPN later that season when Louisville hosted Cincinnati. Jacoby was in stories on ESPN.com and in The Courier-Journal, and he made an appearance on then-Louisville coach John L. Smith's weekly television show.

"It certainly hasn't changed my life, but it's a great conversation starter," Jacoby said.

These days, the pieces of the field-goal posts are still in the Louisville area.

TKE returned one of the uprights to U of L, dropping it off after football practice one afternoon later that 2002 season.

They cut up the other upright and auctioned off pieces of it, giving the money they raised to charity, Jacoby said. He bought two four-inch rings for himself and has them in his house.

And the crossbar? It's not necessarily in hiding, but it's safely stowed away in a southern Indiana warehouse, just waiting for Hawkins and Jacoby to determine its destiny.

"This is a perfect moment to start talking about it again," Hawkins said.

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).