Fort Worth Road Trip

It was an exhaustive 24-hour day, but the road trip I took this past Friday was fantastic. At about 6:30am, I got to the campus at the University of Houston and boarded a bus with a number of my fellow alums to head up first to Denton, followed by Fort Worth and then return back home nearly 24 hours later. We left Houston around 7:30, got some beef jerky near Centerville and arrived in Denton a little over 5 hours later, just after tip-off of the UH basketball game vs. University of North Texas. This was originally a home game for UH, but was moved to accomodate those of us fans attending the Fort Worth Bowl that night. If you looked around UNT's Super Pit, it was just like a home game. At least 2/3 of the crowd was wearing red and cheering for the Coogs. Not to mention, every time their pep band started playing a cheer, we would take it over and insert our own lyrics. It came to a point where all they did was play the UNT fight song. My biggest problem with the Super Pit was the seats were way too small (though quite comfortable once you were able to squeeze into them). It was a fun game with the good guys getting back on track with a 92-84 victory over the Mean Green.

When the game ended, we boarded the bus and drove to Fort Worth where we enjoyed a fun tailgate dinner with other alumni. One interesting thing was that the UH tailgate was right next to the Kansas Jayhawk tailgate and there was a little friendly interaction between the fans. A little later we walked into Amon Carter Stadium for the Fort Worth Bowl, the first bowl game I ever attended. Although the final outcome was not what anybody expected and very disappointing (a 42-13 loss), we all enjoyed the game. One of the greatest things about the game was the Jayhawk fans. What a bunch of friendly, classy people. Generally, in games like these, when my team loses, I hate that team and root against them. However, this game was different. The Jayhawk team played with class and were a lot of fun to watch. Count me in as a Jayhawk football fan. That university deserves a lot of respect and I for one am glad to give it to them. Man, I wish our defense could learn to tackle like that Kansas team did. The game itself was marked by us not making plays on either offense or defense. Briles and Co. have a lot of work to do before kicking off the 2006 season. But, two bowl games in three years ain't half bad. Let's make it 3 out of 4.

We rolled back in around 5:30am on Saturday morning and we were all exhausted. After a few goodbyes, we all went our separate ways readying ourselves for a trip to the big dance with our basketball team. The best part of this trip was reconnecting with a few of my friends that I lost touch with a few years ago, when I left Houston for law school. I also got to meet some other alumni and have made some new friends in the process (plus, I got off work for the day - Woo-hoo!). I want to thank the Houston Alumni Organization for setting up the bus trip and the football team for becoming bowl eligible. It was a really great trip and I had a blast.