Lee Corso was no turkey, but he sure has a good Thanksgiving tale about one

If you haven’t enjoyed Lee Corso in his 38 years as an ESPN football commentator, you’ve missed something.

Corso makes his farewell appearance on College GameDay Saturday, and it’s appointment viewing. He was a funny, unpredictable, beloved part of the college football viewing experience.

The best TV sportscasters — the best anything, really — are genuine. They don’t come out of a broadcasting box full of statistics and cliches.

If I may be personal here for a moment, I’m the first to admit I’ve forgotten way more than I remember from my encounters and experiences. For instance, I was at Iowa’s season-opening 40-0 win over Illinois State a year ago, and have no recollection of it, like I probably won’t next year when it comes to Saturday’s Albany-Iowa game.

But a 1996 phone interview with Corso? I distinctly recall laughing more and harder than any other interview I’ve ever done. He conversed on the phone the same way he did over his 38 years on ESPN, with fun while shooting from the hip.

Iowa was 3-1 against Corso when he coached Indiana and Hayden Fry coached the Hawkeyes. The Hoosiers won the first matchup, though, and it was Fry’s first game with Iowa. The Hawkeyes led 26-3 at halftime. They lost, 30-26.

“At halftime,” Corso told me, “I went in and told the team they could either have the greatest rally in the history of Indiana or get beat 150-0. I said ‘You guys stay in here unless you decide to win the game,’ and I left. I went back out to the field and told the officials they might not come out.”

On his weekly television show in Indiana when he was the Hoosiers’ coach, the opening featured a coffin. Corso popped out of it and hollered “We ain’t dead yet!” after his team had been soundly defeated the game before.

In 1996 on ESPN, Corso predicted underdog Iowa would beat Penn State, and he was right.

“I called it the AARP Bowl with Hayden Fry and Joe Paterno,” he said. “I said the young guy (Fry was 67) wins this one.”

What really got me laughing in my interview with Corso was a tale he told about a Thanksgiving Day game his Louisville team played at Tulsa in 1969.

“We had lost 69-19 to Memphis State the Saturday before,” he said. “We had 24 guys left when we went to play Tulsa. I thought we needed something to rally around, so we got a turkey for a mascot.

“But we got to the Louisville airport, and the state wouldn’t let us take the turkey over the state line.

“So we went to a turkey farm in Tulsa. We got one and put it in our hotel the night before the game, but the turkey made so much noise that Ray Shands, one of our assistant coaches, had to sleep with it out in a truck in the parking lot.

“We brought the turkey into the dressing room the day of the game. An official came in and said ‘What the hell is that?’ I said it was our mascot. We were going to paint it, but we couldn’t because we’d be arrested for cruelty to animals. So we put crepe paper on it.

“Well, you can’t lead a turkey on a leash, so I had to pull it my the neck. I told our team the coin-toss was to see who wanted the ball or the turkey.

“The game went back and forth. Near the end of the game, they had the ball and called a timeout. I told our guys that I’d forgotten to tell them if Tulsa won it was going to it was going to win our turkey and eat it for Thanksgiving dinner. I told them to win this one for the turkey.

“We stopped ‘em, and our players carried me and the turkey off the field.”

I had tears in my eyes from laughing at this account of a story Corso probably told dozens of times, and he was laughing, too.

“Society puts intensity with strength and humor with weakness,” he told me. “Sometimes, when you have a sense of humor people don’t think you’re real strong. A good sense of humor is one good thing to help you deal with adversity. I’ve always had fun.”

Lee Corso got a big, loving response everywhere he went for GameDay. This stuff is supposed to be fun. He brought us along with him, making us smile. That in itself is a career well-done.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com