We'll fling our green and gold afar...
October 19, 1985. I was seven years old. I hadn't the faintest inkling about the world around me except to know three incontrivertible facts. 1) Jesus loves me, this I know, 2) I love Baylor, 3) I hate Texas A&M. On October 19, 1985, those were realities for me. That was also the last time that my beloved Bears beat Texas A&M 20-15, in the 372nd football game of the regular season. That was also a year in which Baylor would finish 9-3.
Nineteen long years have passed since that time and year after year I've grown more skeptical and despondent when it comes to the life of my favorite college football team. In one of my most subversive moments, I even considered wearing burnt orange to a UT/Baylor game in an act of civil disobedience, but knowing that was the unpardonable sin, thankfully refrained. I did, however, not go to one single game in Kevin Steele's last season as a symbolic protest, which no one knew about except me. Well, my father too, who fully supported it at the time.
Everything changed tonight, though. Margaret and I went for dinner at the Olive Garden and then to Border's to peruse the aisles for a bit, before getting back in the car. I had forgotten the game was on, but was not expecting a miracle on the Brazos, or anything remotely similar. I noticed a missed call from my father on my cell phone when we got back in the car and I returned it. He told me we were down 13-20 and that we were driving. For a Baylor fan, things are measured more by how close to the other team you are than by how far ahead you are.
We rushed home, only "infringing" a couple of traffic laws and pulled up the radio broadcast on the Internet. 27-20, Aggies. Hmm, same margin, and Baylor has the ball. Six plays later, 27-27. Well, I'm not going to get excited because I've been through this before (think UNLV, Boston College, Nebraska, and even Iowa State last week). All of a sudden it's overtime. NOW I'M EXCITED. OVERTIME? AGAINST THE 17TH RANKED TEAM IN THE COUNTRY!?! Margaret was getting excited too. So excited that she ran to the bathroom and impulsively cut her bangs straight. Off. Into the sink. We're going to have a talk later.
Then the Aggies scored. I LOATHE the Aggies. They represent all that is evil in this world. Worse are their fans, whom I have tolerated for 75 percent of my life, all the while biting my tongue and wishing that their hands would turn to hooves and when they do their stupid "whoop" it would come out as a frog's ribbit like the prima donna in The Phantom of the Opera.
Then Baylor scores. I'm excited again, but not optimistic. Years of missed extra points have not only caused premature heart fibrilations, but an existential angst that can only be characterized as sheer cynicism when confronted with the possibility that my boys might actually pull one off. Then Guy Morris, bless his heart, walks onto the field holding up two fingers. What!?! They're going for two? NO!!!!!! Do you not remember the UNLV game? Kevin Steele never recovered!!! Do you hate me? Why are you doing this? Were you an abused child? KICK THE EXTRA POINT AND PLAY THE SECOND OVERTIME, PLEASE!!!! Then there is chaos in the announcer's booth. I'm not sure I actually ever heard that Baylor won, but I figured J.J. Joe (my childhood hero, next to LaShai Maston) wouldn't be screaming like a banchee if they had lost. Next thing you know, I'm pulling off my fleece (from Baylor, incidentally) and running through the house. Margaret is screaming. Calvin's grabbing his bone and heading for the front door, barking.
Tonight I started to believe that sometimes good things do happen to good people again. It was a return to childhood when G.I. Joe always saved the day and there wasn't much to worry about outside of having Cade Lutz call me a dork again tomorrow on the playground (by the way, the last time Cade ever did that was when I landed two punches-one to his cheekbone and one to his jaw-in front of all of his "cool" friends at recess, but I digress). Of course, tonight was one of the hardest to be in New Jersey. We want to be in Waco. We want to be on the campus with the crickets and the humidity and we want to suck in the sweet aroma of victory that is no doubt encircling the campus as we speak. We want to watch as the students perch the goalpost up against the Bill Daniel Student Center and sign their names onto a piece of history. Time immemorial. The night the bears let out a growl that has been suppressed for nineteen years.
P.S.-I'm not the only elated Baylor fan in the Northeast. I got a call shortly after the game from Jeff R. who said that this win made up for all of the bad things in his life, including God not allowing him to date and marry a Pi Phi.
posted by John and Mag @ 12:40 AM
3 Comments:
John, we loved your blog but it's all a dream. Wake up, boy! Naaaaah, it's real ! The headline in the Waco Trib on the sports page says in bold print, "Converted"! It has a big, huge 1/2 page picture of an Aggie defender trying to pull down Dominic Ziggler on the 2 point conversion. On the main first page of the whole paper it has a 5x7 pic of the crowd on the field, SOLID people, and the football goal leaning at a 75 degree angle with guys tugging on it! The title over it is "The gig is up". Underneath that pic is one of Guy Morriss leaping in the air w/ his arms up. The caption quoted Guy, "I knew these guys had this in them! I've been saying it for weeks.
Now maybe we'll start believing it." Baylor athletes also made the front page with a big article about Baylor athletes posting the highest student-athlete graduation rate of any school in the conference for the fifth time in the 19 yrs history ofthe Big 12.
Sic, sic, sic 'em BEARS! The freshman class of 97-98 athletes had a 78% grad rate which broke the previous school record of 74% set 4 yrs ago. Brains and brawn...maybe...Well, I guess it doesn't tell what their GPAs were. Lunch today with Willie Andrews was lots of fun. Nichole was staring at him like he was a superhero. She talked to him a lot--he was very nice to her. We asked if his Mama got to come to the game--he said "no" sadly. She comes sometimes with friends. She is very poor and never spends the night but drives back with friends the same day or night. Mary said she is a wonderful person and works 2 jobs sometimes....his dad abandoned them. We invited his girlfriend but she didn't come. Well, that's all the news worth reporting from Waco except that Samson was a hit as Frankestein! Luv, Suz
Dear John & Margaret,
Great recantation of what we were all feeling Saturday night and on into Sunday. The headline in the SA Express News, front page Sports, was "Dancing Bears", with the pix of the goalpost coming down (many of the football team were watching the post come down, in the crowd), and the great pix of Ziegler scoring the game-winner. We savored it all!
Love to all,
K&S
awesome depiction of saturday's miracle child...grandmom was screaming and giving us stats about the team. granddad was hollerin, "Lord, you can take me now!" the house was full of elated chaos and calls with long-time sufferers, one of them being you. what a glorious night. ! i flew home early evening yesterday so i could be there to hand out candy to our 900+ trickster-treaters, some of whom are bussed in. when we got back from the airport around 7.3, we couldn't even get to our house so we just parked at the end of the street. our neighbors' children, david and roxanna got permission to help us this year. while roxanna hid in the shadows in all black and crept up on the kids, we - well really david - handed out about 700 pieces of candy - 1 each, except at the end where we doubled up - to a variety of buffed-up 2-foot spidey-men [one who was sound asleep on his mama's shoulder], fairy princesses, scream masks, various lady-bugs, a couple of vampires, and one pot of honey [on his head sat the top to the honey pot]. this once-a-year event ends at 9p, leaving its participants broke and smiling...and full. love to you! jick
Post a Comment
<< Home