There was a canoe inside Paulson Stadium.

Georgia Southern Police Chief Ken Brown had wondered for years how a canoe wound up inside Paulson Stadium on the night of the "Hugo Bowl," September 21^st, 1989. Many years later, it was discovered that Equipment Manager Roger Inman had brought it on the truck for the Eagle cheerleaders.

The canoe, though, was really the least of anyone's worries. 

With a category 4 hurricane bearing down on the Georgia coast, ESPN and Georgia Southern officials were going to wait as long as possible to decide what to do about the scheduled nationally televised game between Erk Russell's Eagles and Boots Donnelly's Middle Tennessee State team at Paulson Stadium. It would be only the second-ever Thursday night game broadcast on ESPN and likely only a few remember the first, or any, of the others.

This game, though, played just 180 miles from the eye of Hurricane Hugo, was one for the history books. Early in the week, as the hurricane churned a couple of hundred miles from Florida, it started a northern track. A mighty sum had been invested in leasing temporary, portable light towers from Musco so the night game could be played in Statesboro, and there would be no refund if the game was cancelled. The "big game" had created an electric atmosphere in town and had been talked about for several weeks.

Georgia Southern President Nick Henry consulted with the authorities, both teams and the unofficial campus weatherman Dr. Dan Good as everyone weighed in with predictions. A dedicated phone line from National Hurricane Center to the Paulson Stadium press box was installed for direct communications. "As people were being advised to evacuate," said former Statesboro Herald news editor Ross Norton, "…we were planning a football game."

Umpire Pud Mosteller was called in at the last minute to substitute for another official who was grounded by the storm. While evacuation traffic headed west, his vehicle was the only one that was traveling eastbound to Statesboro.  During the game, Mosteller tucked the footballs under his arms and did all he could to keep them dry, but it was no use.

Coming in from the sideline, they were wet before they hit the hashmarks.  

Legend says nearly nine inches of rain fell in about four hours, and while the winds gusted and blew rain in all directions, with recorded gusts of 26 miles per hour, the game went on. A very young Chris Fowler was the solo anchor on the ESPN desk as the Eagles had a 16-0 lead at the break en route to a 26-0 win.

Barry Tompkins, the ESPN play-by-play announcer that night, has called hundreds of games in his career, but remembers his trip to Statesboro. He had no choice but to call the game from a monitor in the broadcast booth because it was raining so hard he couldn't see the field from the press box.

It would be a few days later when Norton coined the term "Hugo Bowl" and wrote it in his column. Even with a less than appealing weather forecast, for Norton, and thousands of other Eagle fans, going to the game "was never a question for debate – just how early."  

Thousands of Eagle fans – 16,449 on the official count – dressed in various rain ensembles, packed the stands for the first-ever night game at Paulson Stadium. The soaking rain and a sizeable lead by Georgia Southern would send many home to drier, and more reasonable, environments. For those Chief Brown called the "few hardy souls," a few hundred stayed until the very end, immortalized in the iconic "Hugo Bowl" print.