We’ve got your American Idols. Right here on the Hilltop.
It wasn’t the best game ever played, but it is the most important game the Mustangs have ever won since 1980, when we were unranked and beat No. 2 Texas down in Austin. That win kicked off the Pony Express. This one might be the start of more great things to come. It’s fitting that the Mustangs have two weeks until the next game. Like a fine meal, you like to savor this kind of thing for a while, seeing as we haven’t dined out like this in quite some time. “Frog Cocktail, please. Straight up until we get into overtime. Then put it on ice.”
By the start of the fourth quarter, the purple people in Cowtown were so quiet you could have heard a Fiji pin drop. The good guys from SMU, having to dress in a makeshift mobile home (the folks in Fort Worth didn’t want them dressing at the Omni, I guess) forgot that the Frogs were ranked 20th or that they had a 22-game home winning streak on the line. They simply played June Ball in October and failed to fold in overtime. The $35 manicure that I’d gotten that morning turned to sawdust by late that afternoon. The only reason I didn’t chew my toenails is because I’ve stopped going to yoga.
As the sun set on the sea of sad purple people, filing out as if they’d been evicted, the sun seemed to be rising once again over the Hilltop. Pony Love abounded throughout the stands with “SMU! SMU!” then spilled onto the field and then to the aisle where the good guys stopped and shook hands with their euphoric fans as they made their way to the trailer park. Several alums of all ages, who I didn’t know, came over and high-hooved me and gave me a hug. One that I did know and owed some money to laughed and told me, “Aw forget about that.” Now, if we can just win a national title…
The win at Frog Field was as big for the alums as it was for the team. A great many of us had finally escaped from Shawshank with this one. Redemption is sweet. The silence of a home stadium when you are the visitor is, well, it’s even better than Lil Wayne. When sophomoric chants of “June! June! June!” resounded by people who might have been sophomores 30 years ago, they could be heard clear to Joe T. Garcia’s. Coach appeared to smile, contemplated loosing his Mount Rushmore-like persona if he did, then simply scowled and waved. Perhaps Coach didn’t think of this one as an upset. Perhaps he’s thinking a lot bigger than that. We are too, but a saloon sure looks good at the end of a long, dusty trail ride.
My fiancé, an SMU convert who now has a son in Boaz, and I walked back to our home through the TCU campus as slowly as we could. I slept in my Mustang shirt that night, still have it on today. The sweat from that game smells pretty darn good.
Rick Larson, the Alumni Guy, is a 1982 graduate of SMU as well as a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. He has been a stockbroker/investment advisor for 26 years. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]
