About your Lone Star state?
Dateline: College Station, TX
Note: Special guest blogger this week, Robert E. Rasmus -- our man on the Texas scene, ace reporter / spellbinding raconteur / all around bon vivant.
His account follows.
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Prior to beginning my road trip to College Station, I envisioned something along the lines of Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, or Jack Kerouac’s, “On the Road.” However, to paraphrase Hunter Thompson, “We were somewhere around Brenham, on the edge of the wasteland known as College Station when the alcohol started to kick-in.”
Editor’s note: I was not driving.
The final result, in addition to combining the previous two métiers was/is a mish mosh which includes Alan Ginsburg’s, “Howl”, L. Frank Baum’s, “Wizard of Oz”,John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie (or, as you shall see, “Travels without Charlie.) Frank Goebbels, the writers from South Park’s “Book of Mormon’ with a dash of Rod Serling added to the mix.
What a long, strange trip it's been... |
The adventure started out in Houston. The first person eyeing my ND shirt and hat asked, “Are you going to the game?’ When receiving an affirmative reply, their response was, “I hope you kick the sh*t out of them. Absolutely curb stomp them. It is going to be as weird a crowd as you are ever going to experience.”
At this point while thinking, “Have you been to an Iggy Pop or Dead concert?” I actually said, “You must have gone to UT.”
The next encounter was someone wearing a maroon (read bad wine colored) shirt who commented, “You must be going to the game. Have you ever been to a game in College Station? It is the ultimate College football experience. There is nothing like it anywhere. I always want to go back. You are going to love it.”
One has to admit, both of the respective State universities deserved an A+ for their strident views. In one instance, it was an almost comedic disdain for the other. The other, expressed an almost religious like belief and worshipful attitude towards Texas A &M.
If anything, my pre-conceived description of the game as our cult versus their cult (albeit theirs’s being a cult on steroids) was proving prescient.
As you get closer to Oz College Station, every sign, every water tower, is emblazoned with Aggieland. Or Welcome to Aggieland. Or Aggieland, Home of the 12th Man. When I say every water tower, I mean every water tower. College Station resembles not so much a university town, but a company town. Conform, or else. Believe, or else.
As you get about 10 miles away, this apparition appears on the prairie -- there is no skyline -- a scene somewhat similar to Dorothy seeing Oz for the first time... and that apparition is Kyle Field. One of the reasons it looks so tall / big from a distance, is because it is big and tall. Our seats would be testament to that.
As we pulled into the parking garage (Yes, you read that correctly, parking garage, not parking lot) next to the Stadium, we were struck by the lack of participation in the tailgating venues. Granted, it was still four plus hours prior to kick off. However, I can attest that the Stayer tailgater would have been buzzing four plus hours prior to a big/opening game.
As we began our tour of The Campus Voted Ugliest In America by one publication (not the Austin Statesman or the UT alumni magazine) we stumbled across this sight:
Located just outside the north end zone was a cemetery, and not just any cemetery. A cemetery for all the former mascots (named Reveille) In addition to the gravesites there were:
- Tombstones for each dog
- A giant statue
- A miniature scoreboard -- so the deceased mascots can still keep track of the score from their graves.
The most recent mascot to die had a funeral service in the basketball arena attended by over 10,000 True Believers people.
Again, not weird.
One of the couples I was with was son Garrett and his fiancée. (Garrett’s fiancée, despite coming from several generations of Texas A&M grads went to UT. In addition, she was wearing a green dress. And no, she was not the person asking for the curb stomping.)
As they are house shopping in Houston, they mentioned that several of the houses they viewed had large portraits or pictures of Reveille in the LIVING ROOM. Staring at the gravesites I kept expecting to hear Rod Serling’s voice saying, “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension, a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You are moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You are entering Aggieland.” Or travels without Charlie.
My view of the Cult vs. Cult was reinforced by the next major tailgating area. While there were plenty of smokers and grills around , there appeared to be a paucity of alcohol. This was deemed especially surprising when it turned out they sell both beer and hard liquor in all areas of the stadium.
The other item that stood out was every, and I mean every, Texas A&M fan had a maroon shirt and, or a maroon #12 jersey. Most Notre Dame fans were wearing some ND gear, but it was a hodgepodge. Some white, some blue, some green.
Wilkommen! |
After completing the campus tour (it may have been the Austin Statesman or the UT Alumni magazine which called it the ugliest campus in America) we began the trek back to the stadium. While not beautiful, except for a few dorms which resembled inner city public housing projects (and after all, we have Keenan Stanford, Grace and Flanner) the campus was far from ugly. It was also far from pedestrian - which you would expect from a campus with 75,000 students.
Stadium/Game Observations:
Have I mentioned the stadium is tall? I think the walk up the ramps to the Notre Dame section took longer than the drive from Houston to College Station. Except for a small group of fans near the Notre Dame player tunnel, the rest of ND fandom were banished to Siberia. Actually, not Siberia, but rows 32-40 in several sections of the 400 level in the north end zone. We were over 170 feet, or 17 stories high. I think I could actually see the Houston skyline easier than the players and the south end zone. Despite several fans suffering from altitude sickness, the Notre Dame faithful represented themselves quite well.
The Irish fans were engaged, rabid and loud. I attribute this to the combination of how the game was playing out and the in-stadium alcohol sales.
For the most part, pre-game ceremonies were classic Americana and very similar to Notre Dame. There was a prayer -- BTW, A&M claims they have the most Catholics on one campus in the United States. (Note: not fact checked but as with anything else their fan base says / believes, it was said with such stridency and conviction that I assumed it is true.) This was followed by the national anthem and a flyover. There are also 50 American flags flying across the top of the Stadium. This all reinforced my conviction that if the US is ever invaded, I want to be in Texas.
The pageantry that began next was straight out of a cult rally. To see approximately 100k people (subtracting for the ND fans) moving, singing and cheering in a choreography supported by the yell leaders and a sound system being cranked at decibel levels which would have made The Who proud was mesmerizing, impressive... and scary. Imagine 100k people doing the Haka with piped in music. The only thing missing was a throng of people marching with burning torches.
And that readers brings us to the yell leaders. Not cheerleaders. Yell leaders. At midnight before the game, 20-25k people typically attend yell practice. (The cynic in me says are they that dumb that they cannot remember the words or how to cheer / yell?)
The yell leaders are all male --females need not apply.
They are dressed all in white.
From the big screen, it appears as if all of their father’s own a dental implant company. Depending on one’s view, they either all look and behave like gay porn actors or were culled from previous leads in the Book of Mormon. Going through a continuous series of choreographed moves and cheers accompanied by The Faithful with a sound track blasted at jet engine decibel levels.
It is difficult to tell if the stadium is actually loud, or the music is just LOUD. It is somewhat similar to an NFL stadium environment where the rats fans are preconditioned to respond to loud music. (Note: we were so high up, you had no idea what the noise level was at field level.
The other item which may contribute the their fan’s behavior is that the entire school clearly suffers from Little Brother Syndrome as it relates to that college in Austin. The announcer welcomes everyone to The Largest University in Texas! (Kyle Field is, in fact, the largest college stadium in Texas.) The team is referred to not as the Texas A&M Aggies, but the fighting Texas Aggies. Virtually everyone shown on the Jumbotron (aka Twelfth Man TV) gave the upside down Hook ‘Em Horns sign. Even their fight song contains the lyrics, “Goodbye Texas University. So long orange and white.”
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Pre-game, one of the Stayer Lot faithful texted an ND beat writers observation that Notre Dame looked undersized relative to TAMU. Someone on the thread trotted out the adage of the size of the dog in the fight is what matters, not vice versa. That seemed especially evident by the Notre Dame player’s demeanor during the game (from 3 miles away, it looked like both sides were doing their share of yapping). However, the Fighting Irish clearly were not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. We were clearly the tougher, better conditioned, harder hitting team.
Besides, most of their dogs were dead and lying outside the stadium.
The game itself began to play out somewhat as expected; although A&M driving down the field on their first drive did induce a certain pucker factor. I don’t know if they showed any of the Aggie band’s performance at halftime. Their marching style and formations was reminiscent of the final scene in “Animal House” when “Stork” took over as drum major and lead the band down a dead end alley.
All of the faithful remained in the stands to literally ooh and ahh. The Notre Dame fans scattered for the bathrooms and alcohol stands.
At the beginning of the 2nd half, the decibel level was distinctly lower -- almost as if the A&M fans had a sense of foreboding... a sense of "we have been down this road before and aren’t going to make the turn." The Notre Dame fans were upbeat and starting to become even more voluble. When Jadarian Price broke off his TD run, it appeared as if all the air had been sucked out of the Stadium. When Love scored, the legion of Aggie fans began forming a large conga line so the 100,000+ could exit the Stadium as soon as possible.
When we finally exited the Stadium, it was like a scene from Night of the Living Dead or The Zombie Apocalypse. Almost all of the Aggie faithful were exhibiting a vacuous, hollow eyed vacant stare. It was almost as if they had been lobotomized.
The few who did speak mumbled phrases like:
- “I can’t believe this happened -- AGAIN."
- "I can’t believe how loud the Notre Dame fans were."
- "Their 12th Man was louder than ours.”
The problem with ending a story, it assumes there is a plot that can be tied together / concluded. Alan Ginsberg’s poem Howl is an indictment of modern society and a celebration of anyone who lives outside its standards. Ginsberg, had he visited College Station for a football game would indeed have gone howling, barking mad (Reveille related pun intended.) The conformity and the unfailing belief in A&M, their cause and honor code among All The Faithful is both impressive and scary. For all the accomplishments of A&M grads and their desire to “do things the right way”, they then trot out Johnny freaking Maziel before the game. The dichotomy was perplexing.
While they may not be original thinkers, they were really nice and genuine. I almost feel bad making fun of them.
Almost.
To quote Hunter Thompson one more time, “The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
R. E. Rasmus, Esq.
Quote of the Week
Word of the Week.
Game 1 Thoughts
Buddy's Buddy
- New QB
- New WR's
- New Kickers
- New Offensive Coordinator
- New Conditioning Guru
RE-PETE (A shameless, illegal lift of Pete Sampson's weekly mail-bag)
Where are they thinking of putting Freeman’s statue? Kidding (but hopefully not). My real question: I appreciate and get behind the juice Freeman brings, but is there a point of diminishing returns when your coach is the emotional driver of the team? Can the captains do that? — Jonathan G.
Based on Freeman’s choice of pants last weekend, his statue will go in a squat rack.
As for the actual question, here’s what Freeman said about the pregame energy during his Monday news conference:
I understand your point that the coach burns energy in doing this every week (it won’t happen every week), but the point is Freeman is in tune with what his team needs from its coach at that moment. That’s good player management. Remember Brian Kelly letting the offense run up the score at Pittsburgh in 2020? He did it because he thought the offense needed to build some extra belief, with No. 1 Clemson on the horizon. Or take former Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea at Vanderbilt. His natural disposition is more professorial than street fighter. But during a game two years ago, he head-butted a player (who was wearing a helmet) on the sideline because he thought his players needed a coach who was in the fight with them.
These maneuvers might be different, but they all served the same purpose: giving a team what it needed at that moment. I would expect Freeman to go back to a more measured approach against Northern Illinois.
And it’s after Labor Day, so no more white pants.
Cocktail of the Month
John Updike didn't fall into the same traps of overindulgence that plagued other writers of his era; he practiced moderation throughout his life and was rewarded by a long and successful publishing career.
Schedule 2024
Wager 2024
Wins | Director - ND Equivalence | Domer |
12 Christopher Nolan | The Nick Saban of the film world - Nolan is Mr. Swing For The Fences Big Idea Guy, even if every effort isn't always a home run. But they are undeniably ... epic. Just like a 12-0 season. | Kevin C, Lini Matt L., Brian M. Jay, John L. Ray, Blair John P. |
11 Martin McDonagh | Hello, he's Irish! Solidly predictable for always being really, really good. And as his reputation has been burnished, the star talent in his cast has followed. Sound familiar? | Jerrence, Daryl Jim S, Tim C. Jerry C, Mike C. Greg R., Bob S. George, Raz, Ted, Bob J. |
10 David Fincher |
Pretty much a stud in both film and TV formats. Always interesting, albeit with palpably dark undertones... one is never sure how the story is going to end up. Much like a 10 win season will feel like. | Pat B, Mike B. Bill, Jim B. Sloane, Alex Phillip, Randy Mike G., Jerry P Gutsch, Mark Jim T., Brian W |
9 Yorgos Lanthimos | Do I always understand what's going on his films? Nope. | Alvin, Garrett |
8 Richard Linklater | Perhaps the product of recency bias - I quite liked 'Hit Man' - Linklater's films fall for this blogger into the "nice-fun-I see an interesting insight" category. They just don't feel especially memorable. Like we'd view an 8 win season. | |
7 Wes Anderson | When does quirky/idiosyncratic become tiresome? When you feel like you're watching - again - an inside joke that you're not included in. Anderson attracts an an all-star cast that no longer seems to add up to the sum of their parts. In a word, disappointing. | |
6 Lars Von Trier | Uncomfortable. Unpleasant. Disturbing. Often off the rails, his films might be 'art' but it's tough to call it many people's definition of entertainment. | |
Schadenfreude of the Week.
More irony... |
Terry's Tools.
Hmm, isn't that ball clearly past line marker? |
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