Trombone Guy Pale Ale

Caption for Picture - Gary Tyrrell shows off his home brew called Trombone Guy Ale, which features a Stanford King sitting on top of a Cal Bear on the label. (Alex Gallardo / LAT)

There was an article about Gary Tyrell in today's Los Angeles Times (requires registration). He is the stanfurd bandsperson made (in)famous in having a key part of The Play in the 1982 Big Game. Wow...24 years ago. I am uncertain about the "Stanford King" reference in the photo caption, but I wouldn't mind getting a label from his bottle.

As seen in countless television replays over the last 24 years, Tyrrell is the tumbling trombonist who was bowled over in the end zone at the end of the magical, mythical, multi-lateral, last-second kickoff return that gave California an unforgettable 25-20 victory over Stanford on Nov. 20, 1982.

Or, as the return has come to be known, "the Play."

These days, the 45-year-old Stanford grad lives in Half Moon Bay, Calif., and works in nearby Redwood Shores, where he is the chief financial officer at the Woodside Fund, an early-stage venture capital company.

He rarely plays the trombone and never plays the instrument he toted that day. That one is in the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

No longer a pariah on campus, where the bitterness of the '82 loss lingered for years and intensified criticism of the anything-goes Stanford band, Tyrrell is a longtime Stanford football season-ticket holder who at pregame tailgate parties serves his signature microbrew, Trombone Guy Pale Ale.

Even now, though, nearly a quarter-century since his brush with fame, rarely do more than a few weeks pass without somebody asking him to once again recount his sidesplitting role in "the Play," and he happily obliges each time.

As for the man who so cavalierly plowed into him, Cal footballer Kevin Moen, Tyrrell calls him "a great guy and a gentleman, a total class act."

The unmarried Tyrrell and Moen, a husband and father of two who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes and manages a real estate office, have developed a kinship through years of sharing banquet podiums and reliving their awkward first meeting.

"He's one of the few guys I know from the Stanford side who's kind of kept a proper perspective on everything," Moen says. "He kind of looks back on it as a unique moment, a little bit of an oddity. It wasn't do-or-die…. Where a lot of the Stanford folks are still a little bitter, he's kind of like, 'Hey, it was a historical moment. Let's look at it for what it was.' "