'You Can Paint This Peach Purple'
This article describes ECU's victory in the 1992 Peach Bowl in Atlanta. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Threewitts, George. "'You Can Paint This Peach Purple'," ECU Report, Winter 1992, Volume 23, No. 2.
They stormed into the city, an army of thousands clad in purple and gold -- chanting, waving flags and slashing golden sabres.
It was a marvelous occasion, a celebration from beginning to end -- the 1992 Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
It was East Carolina's first bowl appearance since 1978, when a Pirate team coached by Pat Dye faced Louisiana Tech in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport. The Pirates won, but with little notice.
The Peach Bowl was different.
It was a game matching ECU with old rival N.C. State. From the early '70s through 1987 when Wolfpack officials called a halt to the contests, the game drew some of the largest football crowds in the state. With the prospects of resuming the rivalry in Atlanta, all available tickets were bought by ECU and State fans who filled 59,300 stadium seats on game day. It was the largest crowd ever to watch a football game involving two North Carolina teams.
On the ECU side alone was an estimated 25,000 fans. They came from points north, south, east and west, arriving at Georgia's capitol aboard planes, buses, vans and thousands of automobiles proudly flying Pirate flags.
One ECU alumnus, Mike Herring of Fairbanks, Alaska, flew 5,000 miles to see his team play.
"Now is that fan loyalty or what?" Herring said later in a letter to a former professor.
Fans for both teams showed their colors.On Atlanta streets, in shopping malls, restaurants and subways people strolled in purple and gold and red and white. Glossy tin "I Believe" buttons adorned many coats and shirts.
Sidewalk vendors sold foam sabres, dolls, hats, flags and T-shirts. Shops displayed team-related items -- sweatshirts, hats, sweaters -- hoping to attract customers from the Peach Bowl crowd.
Politicians, including Gov. James Martin and Secretary of State Rufus Edmisten, walked the streets shaking hands the day before the game, both dressed in neutral colors.
A Peach Bowl parade highlighted New Year's Eve activities.Numerous floats and bands, most of them from midwestern high schools, paraded along the rise of Peachtree Street into the heart of Atlanta. When the Marching Pirates passed, shouts of "purple" rose from one side of the street and "gold" from the other.
Those were shining times for East Carolina fans. It was the celebration of a 10-1 season that included wins over South Carolina, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Southern Miss, Virginia Tech and five other good football teams. It was also the celebration of a high national ranking for the Pirates -- No. 12 by the Associated Press Poll (No. 9 following the Peach Bowl) -- and an invitation for the Pirates to play their Wolfpack neighbor.
The game with N.C. State was billed "the war between the state," offering the winner bragging rights as the best Division 1A football team in North Carolina.It was to be a "backyard battle." That's exactly the way it turned out.
The Peach Bowl was a knockdown, drag-out, wide-open, stomach-turning, heart-stopping football game. It was everything the fans expected -- a hard-fought contest between two excellent football teams. But it was the game's ending that surprised and defied belief.
The game-winning scenario has been memorized and replayed in purple dreams and fiery red nightmares.
The day started with a light drizzle and temperatures in the mid-30s. By mid-afternoon the sun winked from behind clouds. The Pirates were down 34-17 with a little over eight minutes left on the clock.Jeff Blake, Pirate quarterback, was finally beginning to track his targets with his cruise missile passes. Many of his earlier tosses had been scuds.
"We Believe" resounded from the purple end zone.
Whooosh! A pass connected with Dion Johnson. Blake completed another to Van Buren and to Fisher, and a run through the line behind big Tom Scott put the wily quarterback over for a score.NCSU 34, ECU 24. On the next possession by the Pirates, there were more shooting stars and then a comet's tail to Dion Johnson, who danced into the end zone. ECU trailed 34-30.
A two-point conversion failed but the Pirate defense held.Blake got the ball again following a 27-yard punt return by Dion Johnson to State's 41-yard line.With 2:37 to play, Blake found Fisher at the 33.Fisher fumbled the catch but Van Buren recovered. There are heavy sighs of relief before pandemonium rocked the stadium. A lightning bolt from Blake connected with Fisher, who eluded one tackler and dived into the end zone for the score.
Boom!The little cannon in the Pirate end zone belched its white smoke for the third time in a handful of minutes. The stadium shook.
Following a missed field goal by State to tie, ECU fans climbed from their seats down onto the field.
Radios across the Eastern and Piedmont regions of North Carolina crackled with the roaring crowd and the voice of Jeff Charles yelling above the din, "You can paint this peach purple!"
Announcers on ESPN sounded giddy . . . confused. "What is going on down there?" They had lost their field reporter in the purple that was swarming below their booth.The sportscasters broke for a commercial, hoping to restore order to their telecast.
On the field, jubilant fans danced and hugged and some dug chunks of purple turf from the end zone to transplant in their yards at home. In the stands, fans stood, savoring the feelings that brought joy with tears.
"Forget all of the heartbreak.Those things have lingered long enough," former coach Bill Lewis had said following a victory over Syracuse early in the season.
His words had been a message to all, to believe in this team and its ability to perform wonders. The message touched the hearts of many people. The final performance of this amazing group of athletes will live in the minds of football fans for a long time.
"Truth is, no one had ever played in a Peach Bowl like this one. It was simply the most dramatic Peach Bowl game ever played," wrote Greensboro News & Record columnist Wilt Browning.
"It ended as college football at its wondeful best, a game filled with marvelous plays...a game that has meant something, and that has become a rare factor in football games involving teams from North Carolina," Browning wrote.
"The most delightful team in the country had to be East Carolina. Of all the teams I saw this season, I'd rather watch East Carolina," wrote Ron Green in the Charlotte Observer.
Furman Bisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recorded his observations at the game's end:
"The East Carolina sideline went wild in all manners of ways that should have been frozen in time . . . In the stands, rubber sabres cut the air, the loyal Purple were in a state of high exhilaration.Many invaded the playing surface, roughly a number matching the Greenville, NC, population, but no one made a pass at the goal posts nor a run at anything or anybody in red. Across the way was a banner on display, the East Carolina version of those John 3:16's you see. 'ECU 11-1. I believe'."
ECU's Chancellor Richard Eakin was also touched by the spark of inspiration.In a verse of a poem, Dr. Eakin wrote:
"Our players and coahes have made us proud.
No goal too high to achieve, for you see,
No matter the odds nor whom the opponent
We are the Pirates, and we believe."
