T-NT Game Streaker Incident (1979)
Dublin Core
Title
Description
In the mid-1970s, a national obsession with "streaking" collided with the Tonawandas' annual T-NT football game.
Streaking started on college campuses (often in group streaks) and moved to other high-profile events like the Olympics and televised awards shows. A song capitalized on the craze.
A 1974 TIME magazine article suggested the craze came from a place of youthful exuberance, but that it also served as much-needed levity for a beleaguered nation:
The U.S., too long assailed by inflation, shortages and Watergate, sorely needed a diversion. Combatting the sour mood was scarcely behind the students’ exuberant rush to take it off; students have never really needed much of a reason to cavort beyond the incandescent mix of youth, health and spring.
Maybe streaking was an expression of joy. But it was also thumbing one's nose at order and decency. And that is soemthing the long-haired, pot-smoking kids were always ready to do. Drug counseling figures. Rainbow Rink standoff.
Several T-NT games in a row had featured streakers at half time. The 1977 streaker was never caught. There is video of him sailing majestically east across George J. Vetter field (as it would be called), 16mm video so choppy as to resemble early horse animations (the horse comparisons there). Not sur eof 1978.
The high school had already moved to Meadow Drive, but they still played the games where they had played them since about 1925
And as the big game grew closer, Carl Holmberg developed the perfect plan.
Weeks before, a section of fence had been cut away.
It’s in the November 21, 1979 Tonawanda News continuation, “Streaker incident,” item 1928, within Patrolman Schultz’s account:
“Barbed wire on top of the fence at this spot had been removed sometime previous to the well-planned incident.”
Ski mask. A yellow plastic pad in place. There was also a getaway car.
But like all perfect plans, it had a fatal flaw.
The band took the field. Everyone knew there would be a streak. Looked around. School photographer tipped off. Carl had been openly raising money. A car pulled up on Niagara Parkway, and cut the lights. The conversation inside animated. The Zeppelin 8-track halted with the clack of the Program button.
He wore cleats that caught in the fence he was trying to hop. (Being able to hop a fence was a basic skill for North Tonawanda boys, often with a smouldering Marb). Ironically, the cops suggested that he should have been more naked. As if even they, on some level, supported the gesture but sensed that it wasn't quite pure. The cleats were a concession to the gross necessities of the physical world, a backward glance worthy of Lot's wife. The ski mask, curiously, went unmentioned.
My AI assistant offered this not-wrong philosophical interpretation:
Now imagine a naked man running through the middle of a football game.
He has no team. No number. No allegiance. No apparent occupation. He has removed the symbols that would allow the crowd to classify him.
He is not a participant in the event. He is an interruption of the event's entire system of meaning.
The 1979 T-NT Streaker
Friday, November 16, 1979. The annual Tonawanda–North Tonawanda football game at Vetter Stadium. The streaker was Carl Holmberg, whose escapade appears to have involved several friends and considerable advance planning.
Among those associated with the incident was a friend named Ray, possibly Ray Horan. His precise role, including whether he took photographs, remains to be established.
Film of the 1979 Game
Two recordings of the game are available:
- 1979 T-NT game footage — The halftime sequence around 13:45 does not clearly show the streaker. At approximately 15:01, a distant runner appears, seemingly clothed.
- North Tonawanda version of the 1979 game — Black-and-white footage.
Recollections from Participants and Witnesses
Comments shared on Facebook offer additional details about the preparations, the attempted escape, and the aftermath. These are personal recollections, not independently verified accounts, and some details differ.
Brian Taylor
It was a Oldsmobile.. We cut the fence the night before actually. I was part of it....It was a fun night... Old Army blanket over the fence.. and that's what Carl wore for a few hours at the "cop shop" afterwards......Stories get twisted somewhat, but for the most part, accurate.
In another comment, Taylor clarified Ray's position and described the planning:
No, Ray is on the fence. I have another picture that show's it even better. We all went to jail for 4 hours. What fun after gin and tonics in Ray's car.....Was planned for a good two months, with $ donations going to local charities.
Randy Warblow
They had 2 guys on the other side of the fence pulling his arms and police on his ankles. Think there was a getaway van parked nearby, they tossed the blanket over the fence as soon as he cleared the end zone.
Warblow also recalled the beginning of the run:
I was at the other end of the field, he had an overcoat on and sneakers and we provided cover before he took off.
Susan Agnello-Eberwein
My God, those officers look so young! I have a copy of this picture…compliments of NTPD!!!!
Susan Agnello-Eberwein on Facebook
Ernie Green
Responding to a possible identification of an officer in the photograph:
It's not me. I didn't start on the force until 1982.
Gregg R. Schnitzer
I think I was there. Halftime At Vetter; didn't the crowd surround the police car and chant "let him go,...let him go" ( to which they did not... ) then the 3rd quarter started and it was back to football.
Gregg R. Schnitzer on Facebook
What the Recollections Suggest
The accounts describe an elaborate prank rather than an impulsive dash across the field. Taylor recalls two months of planning, a fence cut the night before, a getaway vehicle, and charitable fundraising. Warblow remembers accomplices positioned at opposite ends of the field, with a blanket ready to cover Holmberg.
The accounts also expose some uncertainties. One recollection describes an Oldsmobile, another suggests a van. Warblow remembers sneakers, while another account describes cleats. Even the exact circumstances of the attempted escape remain open to interpretation.
What seems clear is that the stunt involved more than one person, required considerable preparation, and ended with police involvement. The streaker's brief appearance was only the visible part of a much larger operation.
An Earlier T-NT Streaker: 1977
The 1979 incident was apparently not the rivalry's first encounter with the fad. Another streaker appeared at the 1977 game.
Watch footage associated with the 1977 streaker.
One Facebook recollection identifies the runner as Rick S[owden] and describes a fundraising challenge behind the stunt:
Ok....I believe I have the facts! I will only give 1st name! It was Rick S[owden]!! He was trying to raise $200 to buy a car and if he raised it before the game, he would go through with it. MY MOTHER GAVE ME $5 TO PUT IN THE FUND!! ( probably why I remember so well!) And my sister was at the fence with a ladder and blanket that she threw over the top so he didn't get "spiked"!!
The 1977 and 1979 accounts share several intriguing features: fundraising, accomplices, carefully arranged escapes, and blankets positioned at fences. Whether the later group consciously borrowed from the earlier stunt remains an open question.
By the end of the decade, streaking was no longer a new national sensation. But in Tonawanda, it had apparently become something more local: a recurring opportunity to interrupt one of the communities' most cherished traditions with a few seconds of magnificent foolishness.
