Looking at her ticket to The Big Game, just to make sure that she still had it, Caydance considered how -- in a football season of wins and losses not only for players, but also for the coaches (whose lives revolve around the fate of their team), and for fans (for whom the fate of their team has taken hold of their lives and emotions) -- there is a period of euphoria after a hard-won game.

That euphoria had been apparent two weeks ago, after the Stanford Cardinal beat the no 8 ranked UCLA Bruins: Stanford 28 - UCLA, on an early November day, when there were eight bowl game representatives in the stands. Returned home from Pasadena, sitting in her studio, Griff had summarized the game in a Homeric flow of words: how with the longest run of his storied career, Brad Muster carried the ball for 74 yards, setting up a series of plays that resulted in a Paye to Snelson touchdown, the second touchdown in the first quarter; how with an injured shoulder, quarterback John Paye commanded a short pass offence, completing 17 of 22 passes; how ending the UCLA game with a season of 139 tackles, Dave Wyman valiently rallied the defense on the field; how with only a few minutes left in the game and Stanford leading by five points, Bruins star running back Gaston Green had the ball when Brad Humphreys made the first hit and then Archambeau, Bennett, and Grant completed the attack.

"Soon afterwards with the help of a Bruins penalty, a rowdy celebration began," Griff told Caydance. Out the window, the sun was setting on San Francisco Bay. She was reluctant to tell him that while he was in Pasadena, Mackie Alarie, in his identity as Major Knox, had left a message on her answering machine.