Time Has Come to Get Off This Wavelength

Appropriately enough, the beast was ushered into this mortal world on Halloween.

The 53,504 of us who had gathered together on that crisp fall day were like unsuspecting Igors, watching as a Dr. Frankenstein in a crew-neck sweater gave the monster life. At first, it lumbered around awkwardly, no threat to anyone. Then, without any warning, it turned violent.

The creature rampaged through the University of Washington stadium, devouring any and all who happened to be in its path. By the end of the afternoon, the survivors still weren’t quite sure what they had seen. All they knew was that they had an obligation to spread the word about the thing that had come to life before their disbelieving eyes.

We did our job well. Some might say too well.

Today, 10 years later, the beast known as The Wave continues its unstoppable rage through the world. The cheer has been given life more times than Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and Freddy Krueger combined. It’s not just something you do at a ballgame anymore. It’s a social phenomenon. It snakes its way through crowds at rock concerts. It is used as a gag in movies, like “Bull Durham” and “City Slickers.”

It’s even gone international. Pictures of Fidel Castro standing and flailing his arms during a cheer at this summer’s PanAmerican Games were plastered in papers around the United States.

The basics have remained the same. It moves horizontally around stadiums, one fan after another standing up, shouting and throwing his or her hands toward the heavens. From a distance, it looks like some totally tubular surf.

Too bad The Wave has gone from being the exciting product of a bored college football crowd to perhaps the most abused fan phenomenon since John 3:16 signs.

No matter how badly I might feel for helping start this Cheer That Wouldn’t Die as a UW student that day, Robb Weller will always feel worse. He is the Dr. Frankenstein who gave the creature life.

It was back on Oct. 31, 1981, when the former yell leader and future host of such TV shows as “Entertainment This Week” and “Win, Lose or Draw” returned to his alma mater for the homecoming game against Stanford.

The plan was for Weller to work the student section of Husky Stadium in Seattle, psyching up the crowd the way he used to when he attended school there. And for a while, the plan worked. Midway through the third quarter, though, the UW Huskies reeled off a couple of quick touchdowns to put the game out of reach. Those of us in the stands were getting restless, looking for something else to pay attention to.

Just before the first TD, Weller had coaxed the student section into a cheer in which each row would stand up, starting at the bottom and then working up to the top. We managed this one pretty well, I thought, especially considering that cheering was, at best, third on the list of priorities in the student section--following drinking and passing out. (What do you want from a school whose band plays “Tequila” as a fight song?)

“That cheer seemed to ignite the Huskies, so the crowd believed it had something to do with the score,” says Weller, who is now producing a half-hour automotive show for the Prime Ticket channel. “We’d been doing that progression cheer up and down so I thought, ‘Let’s not beat a dead horse. Let’s try it sideways.’ ”

One section after another stood and screamed its lungs out as Weller ran to the end of the student section. Within a few seconds came another Husky score. Student-fans felt all-powerful, and started exhorting the alumni section on the other side of the field to join in this new cheer. By the end of the game, we realized exactly how impressive this thing could look.

The Huskies walked out winners, 42-31. Weller went back to Chicago, where he was hosting a morning talk show. And we Husky fans left oblivious to the fact that we had just changed the face of sporting events forever.

When the next Husky game rolled around, The Wave washed around the stadium again and again, this time without Weller’s help. Within weeks, it flooded across town to the Kingdome, home of the Seattle Seahawks. It had become the Pacific Northwest’s cheer of choice, and the next thing we knew, fans around the country were not only doing it but taking credit for it.

“I know there’s a guy in Oakland who claims he invented it, by pointing to each section of the stands, but I remember (TV sportscaster) Len Berman calling me up a couple of years afterward and saying he had tracked it to the University of Michigan and was told they picked it up from Washington,” says Weller, whose gift of gratitude from UW consisted of a Wave button and T-shirt. “Now, whenever I go back to Seattle, despite the fact that I worked for five years on . . . ‘Entertainment Tonight,’ I’m still seen as The Guy Who Invented The Wave.”

Indeed, there seem to be more reports of The Wave’s creation than celebrity tell-all books.

“I thought The Wave started back in the Roman days, you know, like during those Christians versus Lions matches,” says a mirthful Jim Everett, Los Angeles Rams quarterback, when quizzed about the long-term effect of the cheer.

He’d seen a few Waves during the mid-1980s, when he was playing for Purdue University, but ask him about the best one he ever saw and he takes on the tone of a guy who swears he just saw Elvis.

“It was at the University of Michigan during a game we had there in 1985, and if they didn’t invent it there, they should have,” he says. “It was so loud, the announcer came over the loudspeaker and told the crowd they had to say “Shhhh!’ every time it came around. So when it would go around the stadium, there was this tremendous sound like leaves rustling.”

When done correctly, as that one was, Everett figures it can be a thing of beauty. A work of art for those down on the field to admire.

“When you’re out there performing, you’re concentrating on your job and don’t notice what is going on in the stands,” he says. “But when you’re on the sidelines, you get a kick out of watching it when it’s done well. It’s great to see people getting involved.”

Everett is convinced The Wave will hang around forever--”It’s not a trendy thing. I’d say it’s pretty much up there with clapping now.”

There was a time when Robb Weller, like Dr. Frankenstein, thought he might have gone too far. Perhaps it isn’t wise to play God and create your own life form. He even mapped out a tentative Stop The Wave movement, complete with bumper stickers and a telethon. He dropped the plan because “even though I find it a little tired, I guess it must give somebody some joy.”

As sort of a Wave shareholder, I say it’s time to kill it.

The initial excitement of 10 years ago is gone. The Wave now has very little to do with appreciating the game and everything to do with staving off boredom. It’s not a cheer so much as an obligation any time you’re at an event with a large crowd.

It was nice helping to create a piece of history a decade ago, but it’s time to drop this idea and move on. If we don’t, where will it end? When the Senate is trying to pass a bill, will its partisans roll a Wave through the chambers to pick up support? I’d hate to feel responsible for that.