the guy who inspired me to increase my vertical
It wasn’t until I was about 23 when I started questioning this belief that many of us Texans held based on growing up on our side of the Red River.
There was a big game against the Sooners at the “drum” and we hadn’t beaten OU in like eight games. It was a big game, T.J. Ford’s last season with the runnin’ horns.
And it was an exciting game coming down to the last few possessions.
The last time that OU had come to town Brandon Mouton hit a buzzer beating three( happended to be in the corner where I was working courtside security) to send it into OT (and the crowd into a frenzy). It ended up being anti-climatic though and the Sooners won by like 8 or something that game.
But this was different. Texas had yet to beat a top 10 team in a while and OU was definitely among the elite with
Hollis Price running the point, he was tall, quick and smooth, and a pleasure to watch him and Ford go at it. Even Dick Vitale was at the game.
The horns won and the fans stormed the court. Before the game our bosses instructed us to hold the kids off if they tried to take the court. Bad idea.
I had to be taken to the hospital with a concussion. The doctor was asking me questions about what I remembered from the day.
Wide eyed with what I’m sure was a glazed over look, I replied “I remember……………. Hollis Price.”
Anyways I digress, before the game I was walkign around and talking to fans from both sides, and it struck me how ridiculously cocky the UT fans were (especially for not having won a big game yet).
The Sooners fans were okay, but all I kept asking myself was what made UT so much better than OU.
Granted I hadn’t been to Oklahoma yet and soon enough I’d find out what it meant when fans would rationlize a loss by saying, ” Well who cares, at least we live here and don’t have to go home to Norman.”
I’d forgotten how much i liked Oklahoma State’s baseball team as a kid, watching the College World Series every year and seeing them play.
Ventura, Incavaliaga, Monty Farris……
I had no idea then that I’d begin my fourth decade working alongside one of its finest basketball players at a youth shelter in Tulsa.
Despite my departure from the Lone Star State my love for it grows and grows, and although i doubt I’ll ever move back, it will always be special to me. Too many bad asses have come out of this place to ignore the rugged individuality one must possess to be successful there.
It’s actually that sense of confidence that people mistake as arrogant.
Which prompted a series of T-shirt ideas for me based on regional differences.
“He’s not an arrogant prick, he’s just from Texas.”
“She’s not a stuck up bitch she’s just from California.”
“He’s not an asshole he’s just from New York.”
“She ain’t fat she’s just from Wisconsin.”
I think it’s lead to more understanding among the states.
That being said, perhaps we are a bit too “cocky’ being Texans, but i won’t apologize for it. I was born this way, and I think it beats the attitude of many an Okie here, who have this real sense of defeat that follows them around.
In my opnion that is what the typical Okie lacks is a true sense of swagger.
Although they are very down to earth here. Okies make texans seem like Californians in a lotta ways.
Texans are known for being friendly, but we’re also aggressive and mean, and I honeslty believe Okies are a great deal more hospitable.
And although the women in Texas are better looking, I’ll take the Okie women over them any day of the week. Much more down to earth and actually a little crazier (some ways good, in some ways bad).
If things work out to where I stay through Decemeber as I plan, then I’m going to a Jayhwaks game in Lawrence. I feel like this is a must do before i leave the region.
Also, I’m done with professional sports. Not the games themselves, I’ll watch all day, the games themselves are great (except for baseball that shit is boring to me these days much more fun to play for sure.)
I just can’t deal with all the timeouts, the big sponsored, fand friendly events, the dot races, the promotional stunts, the dancers, the silly ass jumbotron and loud bombastic music. Too much, remember when the game was enough?
That’s why i prefer attending college games because people actually care who wins. the music isn’t piped in, it’s played by the school band, and the energy is much more intense. i feel like a game at the Phog Allen will be an experience that can only be matched by the Perfect game I saw in Atlanta, my first A’s- Giants game in SF, the first time I went to Wrigley Field, or getting my head almost knocked off when I was trampled by the UT fans back in 2003.
When they screamed “OU sucks!!!!” they meant it, and you could feel it reverberating in the stands.
And you know what? I finally did go to Norman, and they were right, OU does suck. Ask anybody from Stillwater and they will tell you.
Go Pokes.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYCHCCCCCCCHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Longhorns National Football Champions of ’09.
(barring major injury of course)
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 