It was the first home game of the season for the University of Maryland football team. About 48,000 fans had crowded into Byrd Stadium to watch the Terrapins take on the University of Akron Zips. Inevitably, during a lull in what turned out to be a rather one-sided contest, the assembled spectators created their own entertainment. Several times, people seated near one end of the horseshoe-shaped stadium leaped to their feet with arms outstretched, then sat down again as a group, initiating a ragged wave of activity that propagated to the other end of the stadium.
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