Not everyone feels so comfortable around Ralphie — specifically visiting teams who have yet to meet the bison in person. Stanford head coach David Shaw shared his first encounter with Ralphie during a press conference this week, as the Cardinal head to Colorado to take on the Buffs tomorrow.
“I would refer to it as my most terrifying experience as an athlete,” remembered Shaw. “It was back in the day when they didn’t really have as much regulation around Ralphie and where that cage is, because it used to be right outside the locker room. And this was my first game in college football, my true freshman year — Ed McCaffrey wasn’t healthy yet so I got a chance to travel and was really excited.
“So we go warm up, we come in the locker room and then we are coming back out and for some reason I wanted to be the first guy out, so I go to the front and they open the locker room doors and I step out. And as you step out, you turn left and there’s the field. And I look out on the field and here comes this Volkswagen with horns, just dragging these human beings on the side, and she seems to be running right at me. So of course my natural instinct is to go back into the locker room. But I got 79 other guys trying to come out of the locker room — so I’m trying to go back in and they are all coming out. And it was probably 20 yards away, but it felt like five feet away when they finally turned the buffalo into her cage.
“I don’t think that my heart stopped pounding until the ball was kicked off. Just to see a large, large, fast animal coming right at you was very nerve-wracking. I’ll be staying in the locker room until she’s in her cage this week.”