Saturday night I was in a bar.
Let's just take a moment to appreciate that.
Me.
Bar.
Saturday night.
Sigh.
(Shudder.)
(Tear.)
OK. Saturday night I was in a bar with a couple of buddies. We notice this guy sitting at a table across the room.
I notice him because he's the only guy I've seen since 2 p.m. wearing Oklahoma University gear. He's got the maroon cap, turned backward, with OU on the back. And he's wearing a maroon shirt emblazoned with "Beat Texas" in big, bold type.
He stops by the bar to get another round, and then yells at the bartender, who had given him a little smarm with his beer.
We stop the OU guy. I tell him I'm a Tech fan, but that he's dead-on about his team getting rooked with some horrible calls. Otherwise we give him props for having the cajones to keep wearing the T-shirt, after the fact, in enemy territory.
He begins, "It's OK. We'll be all right. Texas isn't going to get through the season without a some losses." He then rattles off some details about UT's competition, including a knowledge of Texas Tech that is deeper than my own. Then he leaves us, once again assuring us that OU will be OK.
And I had a vision. I could hear the same conversation, happening over and over again north of the Red River, borg-like in its repetition, certainty and knowledge.
It's not fun being on the recieving end of that intensity when it's directed at you, and you happen to be in the cheap seats at Memorial Stadium and your team is getting shallacked 57-6 and even the middle-aged lady sitting in front of you is handing you the business, along with her 7-year-old kid.
Still, on Saturday, I was left with a feeling of admiration for the kind of dedication and love (or something) that it takes to build to that level of knowledge and intensity.
Game faces
Earlier in the day, I made it to the Pour House in downtown Fort Worth (a fine bar for game watching) so that I could catch Tech playing Nebraska. As stated before, all the OU fans had left the area.
Plenty of Texas fans were hanging around to celebrate. Around halftime, the UT folks at the table behind got up to leave.
One guy, deadly serious, says, "OK guys. Let's not get cocky. We've got Missouri next week. We've GOT to get ready."
Ready for what? You just spent four hours in a bar an hour away from the game you watched. Did your beer selection affect Colt McCoy's passing accuracy? Did your pleas break all rules of space/time to land in the ref's ear?
All sports fans live vicariously through their teams. Everyone feels good after a win, cathartic after a loss. It's the reason people care.
But as a fan who's not at the game, your job is to:
- Sit
- Enjoy a tasty beverage
- Watch TV
You don't need to put your game face on. You don't need to spend a week worrying about your level of mental intensity when the game starts. You don't need to boss your friends into not fumbling the order for chicken wings when we're going for it on fourth and two, dang it.
Because it don't mean diddly to the eventual outcome, jackhole.
Please chill. Enjoy yourself. That's kind of the point.
Kicker talk
I feel sorry for Donnie Carona, Tech's freshman kicker who just lost his job. But his situation proves the unwritten rule for kickers -- never, ever, ever award a placekicker a scholarship straight out of high school.
Speaking from my experience as perhaps the worst high school placekicker in Lubbock's not-very-proud gridiron history (0-1 in varsity field goal attempts), even I know that prep dudes don't kick high enough.
In high school, your average defensive line is made up of fat guys who average about 5'10" in height. In college, you've generally got 6'5" mountains of muscle with a 30-inch vertical jump.
Carona seems to have a hard time adjusting. Maybe he'll eventually get used to it.
Rivalry? Eh
I remember this e-mail joke from a few years back:
How many Texas Tech students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
One student to screw in the light bulb, 27,000 students to desperately attempt to start a rivarly with other schools over light bulb screwing.
It came to me while I was reading the latest Tim McMahon post in the Dallas Morning-News, as he attempts to stir the pot between Tech and A&M fans once again.
The gist of the conversation is this: Tech has always wanted to beat A&M. A&M has never given Tech the credit of a rival, taking the position that the Red Raiders aren't good enough and they don't care enough about them to call it a rivalry.
This has gone on for a few years. And it hit me that maybe Tech fans shouldn't really care about being in a rivalry with A&M or even Texas.
Being in Lubbock, we've always been the red-headed stepchild of whatever conference we've played in. Everyone always writes us off. I say to hell with all of 'em.
We should drop the non-existent rivalries for an us-against-the-world type stance. It's closer to the real feelings of most West Texans, anyway.
(No predictions for this weekend. A&M blows this year, but so did Nebraska. No idea what'll happen.)
3 comments:
Unless there's a miracle, this is the only thing I'm gonna say about Tech/A&M...
Aggies don't consider Tech a rival? Heck, I consider it a bigger rivalry now than Texas (we just haven't yet written a school song about it).
Oh, A&M didn't used to consider Tech a rival (back when I was in school, back when they just beat us every now and then). But, you know, the whole goalpost incident took care of that. The fact that Tech now has the better football program (I hate to admit) only makes Aggies boil even more.
I think this sportswriter is living in the past. If only I could, too. Say, about the early '90s, when we had a kick-ass defense.
-- Aggie Dave
Seems like Tech has won 10 of the last 13 games with A&M. How much of a rivalry is that? Feel for the kicker too. According to various sources it's the holder's fault too. He puts the ball down so that the kicker has to kick the strings. Not good.
I did notice the lace thing during the Nebraska game. Still, that doesn't have anything to do with height, just accuracy.
And I dunno, as far as the state of the Tech/A&M rivarly.
I don't think it depends on the evenness of the record as much as how much each side hates each other.
UT and A&M are rivals. UT denies this, but solely as a means to get the Aggies hacked off.
Right now, I see a lot of Tech fans rubbing the current domination in A&M's face, and a lot of A&M fans getting cheesed about it. And there will always be that great moment with the goal posts, something that they'll be talking about generations from now.
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