Football Articles
My Longhorn Turkey Day
Posted by Scipio Tex on December 1st, 2008 under Football
Departure
On the way to the Oakland Airport, I cut off a darting CHP unit while distracted by a massive cargo barge trying to navigate around Alameda. If you haven’t seen these marine behemoths, imagine the burg of Corsicana floating on the Pacific filled with enough stuff to make your local Costco resemble a Mini Cooper’s glove compartment. It was full of Al Queda explosives, dead Chinese stowaways, Somali pirates, and two dollar an hour Filipino contract sailors; an environment rife with cannibalism, karaoke, and sodomy. But now I gots Law to deal with. Officer Poncharelli asks me why I felt it necessary to impede his progress as he was just on the verge of solving Oakland’s crime problem. Rather than respond, “Get off my ass, po-lice!” and pistol whip him with his own gun, I admit fault and suggest through my general demeanor that I haven’t just stabbed a prostitute recently with a jagged Mr Pibb bottle. He lets me go without reprising Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. Is there a better feeling than dodging a ticket? Dodging a cargo barge full of dead Chinese, I suspect.
My charmed life continues when my airplane row is filled by two winsome Asian girls who weigh 125 pounds combined. They spend the next three hours smelling nice, offering me gum and homemade snacks, taking up as much space as Todd Reesing, and giggling. This is in stark contrast to the fat Punjabi who bathed me in his farts for six hours whilst flying home from New Jersey the week previous. I haven’t had a desire for curry since. And I love curry. So I read the Economist while my personal geisha serve my whims and soon I’m in Austin.
I immediately demand Mexican food, which is my Texan right. Like prima nocta on Texas State co-eds. Tomorrow, BBQ. Then chicken fried steak. And so on. But now my focus turns to Saturday’s Thursday’s game against the Aggies…which I am told that if we win with sufficient STYLE we shall impress the coaches in Conference USA and they will consent to allow us the Big 12 Title. I immediately propose that Colt McCoy wear a top hat instead of his helmet and Sergio Kindle wear a monocle. Roy Miller should wear a yachtsman’s cap and do classy things like light lady’s cigarrettes and make puns in Latin.
Tribal Identification
I am low on Longhorn gear. I decide to restock at Sports Authorit-ah. I am struck with a few realizations. Hear me retail purchasing agents:
1. I am not Turtle from Entourage. I’m not interested in hats that are a graphic artist’s abortion. I don’t want a camo lid with a black Longhorn on it. I don’t want a raised front that the wearer believes makes them look like Ice Cube. I want Texas Longhorns written in normal script or a simple T and the bill should be shapeable rather than jut straight out like I’m a hayseed from Mayberry.
2. Our color is burnt orange. Or white. Not fluorescent orange. Or melon. We’re not the Tennessee Volunteers. I am not a Syracuse Orangeman. I am not a Dutch national. We’re not navy blue or black. Burnt orange. White. Seriously.
3. No, I would not like a puffy Longhorn fleece vest.
Pre-game
For all of the stories you hear from Aggies about various depravities visited upon them in Austin, I saw a lot of people wearing maroon standing in Texas tailgates drinking beer and chatting peacefully surrounded by seas of Burnt Orange. I didn’t even hear good-natured trash-talk. The biggest incident I saw was when an Aggie kid lost his cap while his Dad was carrying him and a Longhorn placed his Burnt Orange cap on the Aggie kid as a replacement while handing the Dad the dropped Aggie hat. Everyone chuckled good naturedly and then the crowd beat the small Aggie child to death.
I went to the South End Zone club because I love to drink $7.00 Bud Light! There I watched Jason Witten score and bust the century mark, assuring my Fantasy Team a number one seed in the playoffs. This pleased me and it allowed me to maintain good spirits.
The new stadium is impressive. There was a legit 98,600 there, everyone was hyped, and the North end zone is a paradise of convenient concessions and no-wait bathrooms. It also traps sound like a scorpion’s fart; goddamn DKR can get downright intimidating. The fans were loud and it’s clear that the changed acoustics have significantly increased our willingness to impact the game. I still despise our minotaur football player animated introduction, but I choked up when they showed the historical narrative piece and Freddie Steinmark popped up on the screen with the caption of Courage. I wasn’t even born when he was on the 40 Acres, but I know my Longhorn lore.
The incessant corporatism is tiring, but bills need paying just like bitches need kicking. I’m left only with a logo-free youth to reflect on. I remember playing tackle football with friends in Memorial Stadium (the field wasn’t named after an ambulance chaser then, we just called it the field) in plain sight of the grounds crew on a Sunday with nary a word of correction. Or running bleachers with the other fighters at Lord’s boxing gym on Saturdays. At the risk of sounding like Mao, it was the People’s Stadium and you didn’t need an anal probe from Cleve Bryant to wander around it.
When I told a high school kid that there used to be a track around the field that I would jog on and a vacant space in the north end zone the size of Rhode Island, he did a quick eyeball measurement and then shook his head as if I was completely full of shit. When I was really young, all of the kids used to leave their parents around the middle of the 1st quarter to play under the bleachers in the old North end zone. This was before parents all became hyper-protective hysterics and children were allowed and encouraged to do things like disappear for three hours in a crowded stadium of strangers and return with shiners and dirty clothes without the National Guard being mobilized.
The Game Experience
The absence of Aggies was startling. They were confined to a small ghetto on the East end zone and the small scatterings of maroon throughout the stadium were noticeable only for their accompanying silence. When they began their alma mater, the students began a Texas Fight! cheer and I didn’t hear a sound from our maroon friends for the rest of the game. Though the Corps did wave their towels admirably.
I’ll deal with the game in another post, but I will mention that when Stephen McGee began his jackassery, the reaction of the Texas crowd around me was laughter, cries of “What an Aggie!”, and shaking heads. McGee’s behavior was regarded as an expression of clownish impotence. Had that been a Sooner or even a player from some generic team, the response would have been hostility and outrage, but the Aggies have returned to being an object of fun and derision. Trust me, the Aggies would rather be hated. McGee’s last significant college memory is feebly taunting the Longhorn bench after being sacked, in a game the Aggies lose by 40 only because we didn’t want them to lose by 50. I’m not being condescending when I say that I pitied McGee. I know that an 18 year old McGee went to bed gazing up at his ceiling knowing that he’s a hell of a QB and that one day he’d lead the Aggies to a Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl win over a Michigan or Alabama. That must have seemed like a faraway place when his head hit the pillow last Thursday night and he reflected on his time at A&M.
The most startling thing about the end of the game was the total absence of “Poooooor Aggies!” by the Longhorn crowd. It has capped every Longhorn victory over A&M I’ve ever witnessed and I can tell you that there’s nothing my Aggie friends hate more.
It was almost as if uttering the words was unneccessarily cruel, or worse, redundant.
Share This
25 Responses
Leave a Reply
Related Articles
-
34
Longhorn Linebacker Talent
By Scipio Tex on July 23rd, 2009 -
86
On This Independence Day, Thank God You’re Not an Aggie
By EyesOfTX on July 4th, 2009 -
109
Aggies Offically Achieve Baylor Stature
By EyesOfTX on October 23rd, 2009 -
60
An Aggie Teachable Moment
By EyesOfTX on November 25th, 2009 -
52
Attack Of The Conjunctions: The Longhorn Spring Depth Chart – Defense
By Scipio Tex on February 27th, 2009
Activity
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 46 seconds ago
Morris down 3 with 29
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 1 minute ago
UDOH SWAT GAME ON!
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Triston27 commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 2 minutes ago
1-point game with just 30 seconds left
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Triston27 commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 2 minutes ago
1-point game with just 3 seconds left
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 3 minutes ago
Morris down one even after getting hosed on a jump ball call. 35 to go
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 6 minutes ago
Morris down six with a minute left. They’re done.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 8 minutes ago
Baylor looks like a final four team
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 12 minutes ago
Fredette is kind of a big deal
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 18 minutes ago
And now Rob Morris vs. Nova to OT….wowzers
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 23 minutes ago
Channeling Hampton….come on Bob Morris
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Ag_in_TX commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 24 minutes ago
Could y’all keep me updated on the Nova game? CBS sucks.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 30 minutes ago
Boynton thought he had Lebron in the paint to throw down the reverse alley-oop from six feet out.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 31 minutes ago
Double OT for UF vs BYU!!!! Madness
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 42 minutes ago
‘Nova going down would fuck my bracket raw….
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Ag_in_TX commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 43 minutes ago
South region is clearing up nicely for A&M.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 44 minutes ago
Those are cute emoticons hiphop…wordpress automatically makes a smiley face for 8s followed by a ). Some great games early on…the iphone app is paying dividends already at work.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 50 minutes ago
Time to celebrate with a 40 of Old English.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 51 minutes ago
Don’t understand not fouling there.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 51 minutes ago
Didn’t we recruit Boynton?
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 52 minutes ago
Gators take the lead. Corch Donovan!
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 52 minutes ago
ODU needs to foul.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 53 minutes ago
Bullshit play in the UND game, dude was hanging on the rim and touched the ball. No call
Spoken like a man with money on the line.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Ag_in_TX commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 53 minutes ago
Robert Morris has got to guard Nova out on the three point line.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 54 minutes ago
Harangody cements his legacy with his first basket of the game 12 seconds before the end of regulation.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 55 minutes ago
Bullshit play in the UND game, dude was hanging on the rim and touched the ball. No call
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
BigBoss commented on the blog post Baylor v. Sam Houston State Preview 56 minutes ago
He will start in a 2/3. I am already in a bad mood about it and the game hasn’t even started.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 58 minutes ago
Lehigh is going to destroy Kansas!
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Ag_in_TX commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 58 minutes ago
Robert Morris has a great gameplan – as long as they keep knocking down their free throws.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 59 minutes ago
No and Yes.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
-
Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 1 hour ago
Notre Dame is going down.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: ””, url: ”” });
Horn Brain said:
December 1st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I tried to start Poor Aggies throughout the fourth quarter. Fans wouldn’t have it. I think losing twice to them was long enough for us to forget that we do that. Sad. My earliest Longhorn memory is the 1999 Cotton Bowl where Ricky ran wild on Miss. State and at the end we all chanted “Poooooooooor Jackie!” I had no clue who Jackie was but I was glad we beat the bastard so we could yell things together. AS A FAMILY!
Current Student said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 am
We had Poor Aggies going on in the student section. There were plenty of Aggie shirts in the Texas student section, actually. You couldn’t see them after halftime though because they started cowering in shame. Long live the defense! May they always get crowd noise when they want it.
Parlin Hall said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 am
What an enjoyable write-up: doing the environment separately from the Xs and Os was a wise choice.
Yet I will persist in imagining you a Dutch national with strong Maoist tendencies, just as I will remind you that those very cargo containers brought us the Bing Bong.
beowulf said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 am
This masterful commentary will go a long way towards my moving forward from the doom, gloom, and misery of Black Sunday. As I told you a few years ago, you have at least as much talent as Rick Reilly, erstwhile featured columnist for SI.
I’m going to C&P this and email it to some fellow depressed family and close firends. They need a pick me up, too.
BTW, we had 4 grandchildren at the game Thursday evening, 3 boy ages 3,3, and 4, and a little girl alomost 3. After the game we were walking back to our car with all the children riding atop the shoulders of a parent and myself. Chas (Diego) started his 3 year old little fella chanting “Poor Aaaaaggggiiiiieeees” while giving the Hook’em sign, and the other 3 picked up the chant with their high pitched little voices. It caused quite a stir with our fellow Horn fans, and we soon had an entourage of fans coming by and taking photos, high fiving the kids on our shoulders, and generally getting into the proper frames of mind after a good Aggie ass kicking.
The tradition lives on, Scipio.
Thanks for a superbly entertaining start of my day here in deep South Texas.
EyesOfTX said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:14 am
Wonderful piece, Scip.
I used to hate the mini minotaur video, but the more I see it and see how it truly fires up the crowd and the players, the more I’ve learned to actually like the damned thing.
And like you, I get a knot in my throat every time Freddie’s face comes up on the screen in that video. In fact, the whole thing gives me a knot – it’s extremely well done.
Horn in Tyler said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 am
“Poor Aggies” is just as lame as the folks who start chanting “OU Sucks!” after the first win of the season in August.
Happy that Stephen McGee’s career ended that way. More frustrating to imagine that he should’ve been denied even the 2 victories that he managed.
beowulf said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:58 am
What poor sportsmanship you displayed there by expressing pleasure that McGee’s career ended on a sad note, Hornless in Tyler. How lame is that? Sheesh.
Are you normally such a hypocrite?
Pooooooorrrrrr Aggggggiiiiieeeeeesss!
And OU does, indeed, suck.
Ag_in_TX said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:28 am
I have never experienced “depravities” at a game in Austin. I think the fans in Austin and College Station are above that kind of stuff (with exceptions, as there always are).
Not to derail the thread, but the fans who have decided to be big old’ a-holes as of recent are the Battlin’ Baptists in Waco. Those people are trying to elevate their ass-hattery to Lubbock-type standards.
Big Satan said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:32 am
“But now my focus turns to Saturday’s game against the Aggies”
Pretty sure the game was on thursday. Just sayin’.
Great writeup.
srr50 said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 am
Just a terrific writeup Scip. You captured the moment and put it into perspective.
I remember playing tackle football with friends in Memorial Stadium (the field wasn’t named after an ambulance chaser then, we just called it the field) in plain sight of the grounds crew on a Sunday with nary a word of correction.
When I worked in Bellmont, there were regular touch football games during the spring and summer at lunch. Got a lot of running in and a suana and the same time. Of course having to buy new sneakers every week because the heat off the turf burned the soles off on a regular basis was a drag.
Art Vandelay said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
Not only did we get to run on the field as kids, but we could walk up to the players and say good game and stuff. I remember telling Big Earl good game as he meandered off the field with a torn jersey.
On an unrelated note – the Big 12 just announced that OU will receive all the academic awards this year because their students showed some impressive late semester style points.
Bob in Houston said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
I did not realize that true Ags must stand for the band like they do for the players… as if the band was competing for something, or whatever. [shakes head in wonderment]
Nordberg said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:32 am
“But now my focus turns to Saturday’s game against the Aggies”
I was waiting for this post to take a VERY hilarious turn when I read that.
utvol said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 am
memories – attending the “last home game” with a child who’ll graduate from Texas in the spring gave us the opportunity to talk about all the unforgettable games over the last few seasons.
Something a 21 year old will be able to share with their kids down the road..
The Source said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:53 am
I always brought my football and went down on the field after the game and threw it around pretending I just scored another Longhorn touchdown. Loved it when players would give you a sweatband, chinstrap, or towel after the game. Awesome.
EyesOfTX said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 am
Source – I loved doing that with my kids during the ’80s and early ’90s. I understand why we can’t do it anymore on the natural grass, but I do miss it.
Nordberg said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:02 am
I still have a book of autographs I collected from the players after games in the mid to late 80s. Eric Metcalf, Willie Mack Garza, Grady Cavness, Tony Jones etc.
austintxusa said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 am
Totally worth the wait.
HenryJames said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Loved it when players would give you a sweatband, chinstrap, or towel after the game. Awesome.
Nik said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Awesome write-up! My last Aggie game was when I was still a student in 2002. For those who don’t remember, that could be described as being on par with an anal raping by Dirk Diggler. We definitely started “Poor Aggies!” afterward.
Horncasting said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
McGee has one of those motivational posters in his room that says “Potential – not everyone gets to grow up to be Colt McCoy”.
roach said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:49 pm
At least as late as 1995 you could short cut across the field after the game.
Sadly I also remember thinking how small our players looked when you stood right next to them. They must have been real fast right?
53 Veer Pass said:
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Isn’t Freddie’s caption “Heart” vs. “Courage”? Regardless, it’s good to see him up there.
TKO said:
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 am
I spent the better part of a decade (from mid-teens through mid-twenties)playing weekend pick-up games at Memorial Stadium and Gregory Gym. Never had a problem getting in to play on the field or run the steps at Memorial back then. It was almost like a public park on weekends. At Gregory, I had to sneak in the back way until I was old enough to enroll at UT because they carded at the main entrance.
Don’t know when any of y’all played there, but I vividly remember the Astroturf field in Memorial. Seemed to be about a sixteenth of an inch of abrasive, rash-inducing carpet laid directly on concrete. Hurt like hell to bounce off that sucker, but man, you could accelerate and cut right out of your shoes on that synthetic stuff.
I’m not going to date myself and say when all that happened, but it was a while ago and I swear to God it seems like yesterday morning. Great memories.
Dirk Diggler said:
December 4th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I never raped nobody.