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    • 1988 "...and pride goeth before a fall."
    National Champion
    Doug 'Texas' Howie
    The Tide was witness to the two greatest acts of hubris in all of college Ultimate, perhaps all of Ultimate. In 1988 we hosted Nationals in Santa Barbara. The teams from the West were us and Stanford. All year Stanford had beaten us, the games were close but they always pulled them out. At Nationals we each thought it would come down to our two teams. We both steamrolled through pool play, and it certainly seemed we were headed for a finals match-up.

    Having seen the level of competition in their own pool, and what we had done to our pool, and knowing that they had beaten us all year, Stanford assumed that they had won. They went so far as to have a national championship party on Saturday night, before semis on Sunday. They gave out their individual gifts and celebrated their national championship, the night before it was played.

    Sunday was extremely windy, and Texas, who made it to semis with two losses, outplayed Stanford and beat them by two points. Stanford never even made it to the final game that they had already celebrated winning.